Anti-piracy software still in YouTube pipeline

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 02 January 2007 18:05

Your IT - Home IT

Software designed to keep social networking and video websites such as YouTube and MySpace free of unauthorized copyrighted material has been regarded as the silver bullet that will bring respectability and corporate dollars to the sites. Unfortunately, it appears that even with the massive resources of Google behind it YouTube's silver bullet is looking like an overdue software project and that's bad news.

Music companies, already edgy about falling CD sales and a failure of online music stores to make up the shortfall, have demanded that YouTube clean up its act with anti-piracy software if its wants to do business with them. YouTube promised to comply and reached agreements with companies such as warner Bros and Universal Music to have anti-piracy software in place by the end of 2006.

Needless to say, the deadline has passed and YouTube still hasn't implemented the promised anti-piracy software system. This is not some government intallation project that can afford to run over deadline. The music companies mean business - they can't be strung along with empty "it will be ready sometime soon" promises.

Sites like YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook and others have become a major new source of entertainment revenue for young people and potential new revenue streams for traditional content providers, which is why the music companies would rather do business than sue.

The bottom line, however, is that YouTube must deliver on its promise to stamp out piracy quick smart if it wants to catch the potential wave of support from the major content players rather than wipe out and descend into a mire of legal wrangles.

Now that the new year is here, it is time for YouTube to pay the piper.