Google 'views' success with Video ID

By Stephen Withers
Thursday, 28 August 2008 08:25

Networking

YouTube lawsuits over video piracy could become a thing of the past, thanks to a strategy based on appealing to rightsholders' pockets which appears to be paying off for Google's YouTube operation. Google has claimed success!

YouTube has been, and still is, a truly amazing video streaming website with potentially more content than all the world's video stores put together, but thanks to users' propensity to upload unauthorised (some parties prefer the term 'pirated') video clips, the site has also proved problematic for Google, attracting the infamous billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom.

So in an attempt to show it takes rightsholders seriously, Google introduced Video ID as a response to complaints that YouTube users could upload fresh copies of video clips faster than the owners could find them and issue take-down notices.

This problem has been a central issue in copyright actions brought against Google and YouTube by various rightsholders including the aforementioned Viacom and other litigants such as the English Premier League.

How does Video ID work?

Well, the Video ID technology, which is part of the more general Content ID system, works by 'fingerprinting' material submitted by rightsholders, and then automatically comparing user uploads to see if they are partial or complete matches.

So in what sense is Google claiming success? Please read on.