Video sharing site
YouTube
has reportedly reached a deal to automatically filter out copyrighted material.
Digital 'fingerprinting' technology from content protection firm
Audible
Magic will be used to pre-screen user-submitted videos for copyrighted work,
according to the
San
José Mercury News, which cited "anonymous" sources.
Spokespersons for YouTube and Audible Magic declined to comment to
vnunet.com.
YouTube first announced that it would be working on a content filtering
system in September.
When the systems were not in place by January, and pirated videos remained
plentiful on the site, media companies began to demand that YouTube and parent
company
Google
manually remove
hundreds
of thousands of copyrighted clips.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was quoted last week as saying that
content filtering was among the company's highest priorities and that a system
was "going to roll out very soon".
Forrester
Research analyst Josh Bernoff questioned why the reported deal had taken so
long, but praised YouTube's decision to use Audible Magic rather than develop a
proprietary system.
"It is one of two solutions that are ready now. They are not perfect, but
there is nothing better out there," he wrote on a company blog.
"If Google and YouTube want to keep working with media companies, this is
what it will take to solve the copyright puzzle."
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