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:easily beatable

[antifoidulus]

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

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!

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...