BusinessWeek Logo

YouTube CTO Outlines Copy Protection Tools

Posted by: Heather Green on April 03

Steve Chen, the CTO of YouTube, outlined for me some of the steps the video sharing service is taking to try to provide better copy protection for copyright owners. It comes down to education, better tools for copyright owners, and more sophisticated better back-end tools.

The company recently rolled out tools to simplify the process of identifying copyrighted videos. This process is also automated now and can be done online, Chen says.

YouTube has also implemented a back-end technique that fingerprints each video that’s taken down. Videos that have the same fingerprint are rejected automatically and can’t be loaded onto the system.

They are also doing more user education. “What we have noticed at YouTube is that many users who have uploaded infringing content are unaware that it’s illegal to do so. By augmenting the pages in the upload process with educational text regarding the type of content that can be uploaded to YouTube, we have seen a sharp, overall reduction with users uploading copyrighted materials,” Chen says.

These moves come in addition to the new 10-minute limit on clips, which is designed to keep people from uploading entire versions of The Office or Simpsons.

They’re reactive steps, which means that any video can be loaded on the service, but will be taken down if a content owner thinks it’s copyrighted works. Will that be enough? The MPAA has described YouTube as a “good corporate citizen,” but also warned that that service needs to do a better job of policing their network and figure out a way to limit the copyrighted material that ends up on their site.

The big question to me is whether their traffic will suffer as they try to achieve a balance? Chen described these tools to me as a part of a profile I did of him and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley in the magazine. In that story, I write that “If they cater too much to their users, they risk getting sued for copyright violations and losing the support of content companies. If they’re seen as favoring content companies, however, they could lose their millions of fans.”

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.businessweek.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/

Reader Comments

Chey

April 3, 2006 01:56 PM

This is a bunch of bullshit. youtube has no interest in protecting copyright. There whole business was built on copyright infringement and they continue to allow copyrighted material on their site...all they care about is traffic and not getting take down notices...they don't care about breaking rules as long as they don't get in trouble.

Paul D

April 7, 2006 11:03 AM

Bah, copyright is irrelevant in the digital age. It's about time the countless companies and individuals (nearly everyone except the RIAA/MPAA) who benefit from digital freedom stood up for their liberties.

mojorocks

August 4, 2006 02:43 AM

Hi Heather..

I guess the copyright approach is long passé...

What the media moguls need to understand is that there is very little you can do to stop the flow of information in the digital era..
In fact...the business model of You-Tube might just be encouraging users to buy more copyrighted stuff...

Here's how:

1. The time limit of the videos is just 10 mins now...so most of the times people can't get to see the whole stuff. This leaves them wanting for more.

2. Most the posted videos are of poor quality/resolution (as compared to DVD et al.)

3. In effect...the videos are advertising the content for the media houses. Most people like to have a feel of the thing before buying it. It's like use-before-you buy thing.

4. Eventually, a small percentage of people do go out and order the original stuff from Amazon and other places. I can tell you this from experience. I see it happening eveyday. All you have to do is take a look at few of the comments left by the users...bottomline is....they want the REAL stuff!!

101

April 15, 2007 05:01 AM

I predict youtube will see its downfall due to the huge number of videos been rejected due to copyright or a little bit of nudity, like chicks palyin at the beach in their bikinis.

I contributed good quality videos of my g/friends foolin at the beach like posing their asses a little in their bikinnis, also playin vollyball. these were rejected after tens of thousands of views .... i avoid the site

PRUDE DORKS...

Fouad Al Noor

May 8, 2007 05:40 PM

Hi, I believe that the copyright should be taken seriously by the users of Youtube because the people that actually make the films they watch have worked hard to produce them and may not want people to wattch their videos for free. But of course I have always believed that the internet is for free, also just like watching a video with your friends (which is legal) you watch it with many other people.

I think that if the companies really just cared about copyright, they could just sell their products on the internet for a VERY cheap price, even if they do not profit as much they will at least get something instead of people going and watching it for free.

stweveking

June 11, 2008 12:59 AM

YouTubeRobot.com today announces YouTube Robot 2.0, a tool that enables you to download video from YouTube.com onto your PC, convert it to various formats to watch it when you are on the road on mobile devices like mobile phone, iPod, iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, or Zune.

YouTube Robot allows you to search for videos using keywords or browse video by category, author, channel, language, tags, etc. When you find something noteworthy, you can preview the video right in YouTube Robot and then download it onto the hard disk drive. The speed, at which you will be downloading, is very high: up to 5 times faster than other software when you download a single file and up to 4 times faster when you download multiple files at a time.

Manual download is not the only option with YouTube Robot. You may as well schedule the download and conversion tasks to be executed automatically, even when you are not around. Downloading is followed by conversion to the format of your choice and uploading videos to a mobile device (if needed). For example, you can plug in iPod, select the video, go to bed, and when you wake up next morning, your iPod will be ready to play new YouTube videos.

Product page: ww w.youtuberobot.com
Direct download link: ww w.youtuberobot.com/download/utuberobot.exe
Company web-site: ww w.youtuberobot.com

Post a comment

 

About

In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

RSS Feed: Blogspotting

BW Mall - Sponsored Links