Well, Google is working on some proprietary technology, that it’s testing right now. That will enable.. as to extract the audio.. the visual elements of a user-uploaded video and compare it to against a database of reference material provided to us by rights-owners. And so it’s very important that the rights-owners to cooperate for this to work. It’s not something that can work without their cooperation. Then we’ll be able to compare the unique aspects of the video that’s been uploaded to the same files in the reference database and see if there’s a match. And if there’s a match we want to give the rights-owner the option to use that content on YouTube however they wish. That might mean blocking the content or it might be enlicensing it to us or just tracking it.
The beta version of Video ID Technology was officially launched on Oct 15, 2007 during the lawsuit of Viacom vs. YouTube. The technology “creates ID files which are then run against user uploads and, if a match occurs, the copyright holder’s policy preferences are then applied to that video. Rights owners can choose to block, track or monetise their content.” “If a rights owner specifies a Block policy, the video will not be viewable on YouTube. If the rights owner specifies a Track policy, the video will continue to be made available on YouTube and the rights owner will receive information about the video, such as how many views it receives. For a Monetise policy, the video will continue to be available on YouTube and ads will appear in conjunction with the video. The policies can be region-specific, so a content owner can allow a particular piece of material in one country and block it in another.”
Other video sharing platforms are working with comparable technologies. On February 25, 2008, Dailymotion announced the full implementation of INA’s “Signature” technology across all localized and local language Dailymotion sites; They had announced the signing of this partnership agreement on Oct 17, 2008, a few days after the launch of the beta version of YouTube’s Video ID Technology.
Dailymotion vigorously encourages copyright holders to supply fingerprints to the Audible Magic and INA databases so that all copyrighted content can be identified and filtered, and future uploads of infringing material prevented.
Notable here is that although Dailymotion claims to work “across all localized and local language”, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA) is a database of all French radio and television audiovisual archives. Of which both the English version does not exist anymore and neither does the worldwide version (inamedia.com). Which according to Dailymotion’s press release: “since February 2004, Ina has been providing professionals with a unique service worldwide at inamedia.com, the first global bank of digitized audiovisual archives available online.” On their website they do still refer to this INA database, which leads to the conclusion that it’s either very French orientated or European to say the least. In my eyes, it would work better if they had joined forces with YouTube’s Video ID Technology.
This innovative technology recognizes video fingerprints. Any content already supplied to INA’s database will be automatically detected and rejected before being put online. This technology is particularly effective with live broacasted content. Signature Technology is already being used to protect the content archives of INA, and has been adopted by key players of the cultural sector such as Canal+ and Europa Corp.