New Programs Fight GooTube Copyright Battle

PreacherTom writes "The specter hanging over GooTube for the past several months has been the issue of copyright infringement: will lawsuits eventually kill the $1.5 billion deal? In response, a vanguard of software developers is aiming to turn the tide on filtering copyrighted material — and their handiwork is expected to hit the market in the coming months. One example would be Audible Magic, a 'fingerprinting program' for video released a few days ago that promises to use peculiarities of recording and editing to tag and identify forbidden material." From the article: "Other outfits promise releases in the next few months as well, as they expect the video authentication market to be many times larger than the market for software that safeguards music copyrights. Just how much money is there in such filtering software? The market is at its inception, so estimates are hard to come by. But revenue from user-generated content sites should reach $850 million by 2010, up from $80.6 million this year, according to In-Stat. Software makers are eager to tap into such growth rates."

Comments

Sounds dangerous

[erroneus]

What about the use of copyright works as part of a composition or parody? There are many legal uses of copyrighted works that are not directly controlled by the copyright holder.

Audio fingerprints should be easily to defeat

[jmagar.com]

What are the tolerances on an audio fingerprint? Will a few passes through the analog hole mess it up enough? what about simple, pitch, or tempo adjustments which are near undetectable to the human ear. (apologies to audiophiles who certainly would be able to detect these things, but in most cases the common masses would accept the slight imperfections)

My point is that there is a will, so somebody will find a way...

Re:Audio fingerprints should be easily to defeat

[paeanblack]

My point is that there is a will, so somebody will find a way...

If it's a pain in the ass, no one will care.

YouTube's success owes to their ease of use and lax copyright handling. If uploaders need to jump through too many hoops to post content circumventing new restrictions, they simply won't bother.

Re:easily beatable

[antifoidulus]

I'll beg you not to refer to Kevin Federline's music in that way!

GooTube=Google+YouTube

[Trom77]

In case anyone else is as confused/grossed at as I was when reading the summary... GooTube is apparently just a fancy pants way of referring to YouTube as newly acquired by Google.

Re:GooTube=Google+YouTube

[Chris Pimlott]

Note to article submitters, EXPLAIN YOUR TERMS...

GooTube?

[edmicman]

Ugh, please don't coin this term to refer to Google buying YouTube. It sounds like some Elmer's glue product, or a porn site.

Re:Use pointers to get around this

[bdonalds]

Got a great clip of Jay Leno? Can't post it to YouTube 'cause it will be auto-tagged?

CLEVER! You almost had me, but I realized that this was a trick question...there ARE no great clips of Jay Leno!

Ok.. let's apply this to police then...

[plasmacutter]

There are many legal uses for copyrighted works.. including parody and criticism..

then there's the inevitability of false positives which ALWAYS happen with search algorithms.. or are you going to trust these particular coders to make absolutely bug free code which accounts for every single inevitability

With this said.. let's apply your principle to law enforcement.

We'll have robotic systems disable your car if you speed or violate any traffic law, with your only option being to send a letter snail mail to the state to request reactivation (I think that about approximates reporting a false positive to a webmaster).
what? your wife is in labor with contractions 3 mins apart? TOO BAD!
what? that guy behind you is shooting at you?.. well I guess you die then.. can't be driving unsafely now!
what? you happen to be more interested in keeping that guy from rear-ending you so you ran the stop sign? I'm sorry but you should have considered the possibility a dead car is less convenient than whiplash!

Re:Ok.. let's apply this to police then...

[sukotto]

are you going to trust these particular coders to make absolutely bug free code which accounts for every single inevitability

Yes, we trust them! These are the same people who made other flawless systems like the Auto No-fly generator, the Terrorist-rating system, the No American Left Unbugged Surveillance program, and the Diebold We Vote for You system. These are highly skilled IT professionals whose work is proven perfect.
There are no false positives.
The computer is your friend. Trust the computer.

They took care of that.

[Kadin2048]

Nice try, but they got rid of those little "loopholes" with the passing of the DMCA. There's no exception for the traditional rights to Fair Use.

Once they manage to put some form of DRM -- no matter how trivial -- on all major media distribution schemes, they will have effectively eliminated Fair Use, except for the anointed few that the Copyright Office deems worthy of receiving exceptions. And at least in my world, anything that you have to receive regular permission from an authority in order to do -- permission which can be denied at any time -- is hardly a right.

Hope you own one already.

[Kadin2048]

I fully expect that in a few years, devices like those TBCs will be unlawful to purchase if you're not a video professional; like scanners that can receive the 800MHz cell band. Video hardware that strips DRM, even "accidentally," will become contraband, like hacked Satellite TV descrambler cards.

I have heard that in the Soviet Union, every photocopier was serially numbered and registered. I could easily see a future in this country where that is the case for any device capable of removing the DRM from content. How else are you going to keep people from just buying 'professional' gear? They'll serialize them, register them to a list of approved owners, maybe toss a hefty tax and right-to-inspect on them, too.

Call me paranoid, but it's not hard to extrapolate an endgame like that from the Macrovision laws, and proposed Analog Hole legislation. Coupled with the tendency of our government to try and turn the screws when a law is demonstrated to be ineffective, versus taking a step back and reconsidering why it doesn't work (which might be an admission of failure); I think we could be filling out BATF forms in order to buy a time-base corrector before we know it.

Time to buy your "pre-ban" equipment now...