Google Takes Step on Video Copyrights
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Google is seeking to put an end to the copyright wars over online video. On Monday, the company unveiled a long-anticipated system that, if effective, would allow media companies to prevent their clips from being uploaded to YouTube without permission. Whether the system will work well enough to satisfy media companies who have been irked by the proliferation of unauthorized copyrighted clips on YouTube is not yet clear. But if successful, the system, which Google is offering to all media companies, could usher in a détente between them and Google. “We are delighted that Google appears to be stepping up to its responsibility and ending the practice of profiting from infringement,” said Michael Fricklas, general counsel of Viacom, which filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube and Google in March. “We’ll be watching to ensure that the system is reasonably effective and sufficiently robust to address the issue.” Google said it had been testing the system with nine media companies, including Time Warner, CBS and Disney. Others involved include NBC Universal and Viacom, according to people with knowledge of the tests. Google called the tests “promising” but would not say how effective the system was. Just last week, its chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, said that developing a system that could identify video clips with 100 percent accuracy was virtually impossible. “The question is, Can we get to 80 or 90 percent?” Mr. Schmidt said in an interview with a group of reporters. It is not known if the system has reached that level of accuracy. At least one of Google’s testing partners said that it was a work in progress. “They still have a ways to go with the system before we could call it totally sufficient,” said Edward Adler, executive vice president for communications at Time Warner. Google said that its video identification service, which was developed by its own engineers, required media companies to submit their digital video files to Google, which would then create what technologists call a digital “fingerprint” for each file. That fingerprint would then be uploaded to a large database. Once a user uploaded a new clip, the same technology would determine whether that clip’s fingerprint matched a fingerprint in the database. More : nytimes.com |