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Schmidt Says YouTube 'Very Close' to Filtering System
cnetfeed writes "Google CEO says an automated system will soon be available to track pirated content and prevent it from being uploaded to video sharing site. The system was supposed to be rolled out as early as last October, and the long delay in brining the technology online has resulted in ill will from companies like NBC and Viacom. 'Network executives accused Google of stalling so YouTube could reap the big traffic that professionally-created shows generate. Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google last month and accused Google of massive intentional copyright infringement. "Ah Viacom," [CEO Eric Schmidt] Schmidt said. "You're either doing business with them or being sued by them...we chose the former, but ended up the latter." Schmidt took the opportunity to poke fun at Microsoft's assertion that Google's pending acquisition of DoubleClick may be a threat to fair competition. Other companies, including Yahoo and AT&T have also asked regulators to review the transaction closely.'"
Once upon a time, you were the One True Search Engine. You wormed your way into our hearts with your blessed neutrality. You created cool toys, and you arbitrarily stood up for our rights when it suited your bottom line. You epitomized the .com boom.
You were like the Switzerland of the internet.
Whereas Doubleclick stood for all that was wrong with making money, you stood as the shining beacon of how to do it with class.
And now? Forget it. Screw this whole "Don't be evil" thing, where the hell is the next paycheck coming from?
I wonder if AltaVista is still a decent search engine...
John
Google is working with Clear Channel?
I feel sick..
-- lol pwned
and $1.6b down the "tube" when the visitors abandon the site because they cannot get their favourite show
there is no brand loyalty on the Internet when it comes to video sharing sites, he who has the content wins
and with all the popular shows gone because of this ID system why bother using YouTube when there are hundreds of video sharing sites (many not based in the US) that dont employ these tactics ? want freedom ? simply dont use US based services
I may be completley wrong, but here's how I understand this so far..
If we can discount anything that looks at the actual audio or video content of the upload, and I believe we can since there just isn't an AI out there which can conclusively pick (for example) Captain Picard out of a video clip, then this must somehow use the textual metadata hooked to it. It'll have to sift through the tags and descriptions put there by the uploader, or possibly contextual data from sites that later embed the clip.
That would open some new cans of worms, though. First, it'd be easy to defeat, as we learned back when the old Napster suddenly didn't have anything by "Metallica," but there were tons of new songs from "Metallika," "Mettalicca," and "Metalligreed." Second, what if I record, say, a "C.S.I." parody? By rights I should be allowed to post it as such, will my file get flagged as lawsuit-bait and zapped because I used a copyrighted term in the description? What if I post an original film about firefighters that happens to use the word "heroes" in the title, which has nothing to do with the copyrighted TV series "Heroes?"
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
For most of the videos, the following could easily be done...
p rint
Copyright holder notices a video that they hold the copyright to. They tell Google. Google checks the claims made, etc. etc. and presumably finds it valid. They make a hash of the video. They check their site for any other videos that match that hash, and remove those as well. They check any future upload and see if it matches the hash - if it does, it doesn't post it.
That leaves people getting around that by re-encoding, etc.
So in comes fingerprinting:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=video+finger
It's not exactly rocket science. Re-encode it? Zap a few frames? Fingerprinting tech laughs in the face of that sort of thing. The only two effective means of fooling fingerprinting tech are:
1. mangle the video so it can't possibly be recognized. Unfortunately, this means nobody can watch it without a special de-mangling player.
2. find out how the fingerprinting tech works, and make sure that only in those spots where it checks the original video, there's a difference. Of course any fingerprinting tech worth it's $$,$$$ will allow a seed value to change things around, and google rotates this once a week or however often needed once they realize people are getting around things in that way - and punish those users appropriately.
Not saying I agree with them doing it - though I find it hilarious in a sad way that if a copyright holder says "X is mine, please take it offline", that Google will do so - but not on Y which is the exact same video, or Z which is the exact same video getting uploaded a day later - but those are the ways they -can- do it.
I don't think anybody is suggesting that Google build an AI system that magically determines whether the copyright of a video lays with a third party and by means of technological ESP determines that said copyright holder did not consent to the upload - and I certainly don't think that Google is claming that they are either.
This would seem to work against their claims of safe harbor under the DMCA, since a plaintiff could argue that with this system, Google should generally be aware of a particular instance of copyrighted material. Ignorance actually is an excuse in this case, and Google would have been much better off handling DMCA takedown requests rather than trying to resolve the problem themselves.
So the Democratic National Committee (or was it MoveOn.org?) needs to post my video to their website, too. Post my comments to their website. Give me funds for my Independent party political campaign.
I'd say that the DNC (and RNC for that matter) are large and powerful enough to start falling under equal protections clauses of the Constitution.
This is the analogy: The illegality of racial discrimination and voyeurism vs. having a RIGHT to post a video clip to youtube? Wow. I mean if you are stereotyping, someone who insults Republicans should have a very good sense of the magnitude of violation that racial discrimination is (because everyone knows non-Republicans, only non-Republicans, and all non-republicans are sensitive to racism). And you should be able to see the hundreds-of-orders-of-magnitude difference between racial discrimination and youtube not posting your videos online.
The New human rights: life, liberty, and posting to YOUTUBE.
wow. just wow.
My guess is that because Google does everything Doubleclick does better already, and has a much better reputation, that they're going to dissolve the name altogether.
Not that I'm complaining...
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
I'm impressed that I'll be able to use that Disney clip loaded to Google Video that is embedded in my blog on a completely different site for my college research paper on Disney's history of copyright violations.
That's simply not true. Of course private businesses are, basically, allowed to discriminate; otherwise, you could also sue a prospective employer when you don't get a job you applied for because you're not qualified for it (it's discrimination based on stupidity/lack of knowledge, after all).
What you're probably referring to is the Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States SCOTUS decision. This case, in turn, was about the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, though, and that act forbade - among other things - discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce (but not private clubs).
In other words, there was no general "you are not allowed to discriminate against anyone, ever" provision. So in order for this act to apply, you'd have to tell me a) why YouTube, as a website, falls into a category such as "public accomodations" (it's certainly different from hotels, restaurants, movie theatres, petrol stations and the like); b) why YouTube is engaged in interstate commerce (people posting videos neither pay for it no receive compensation); c) why YouTube would not qualify as "private" (you do have to sign up, after all; however, I do admit that given that pretty much anyone can, it may not be "private", although it's not clear to me either way) and d) why saying "we won't post your video" is discrimination, anyway.
I think d) is particularly important. It'd clearly be discrimination if YouTube said "we're not gonna post videos by black users" (assuming they'd be able to find out), but I'm neither sure that you can discriminate against individual people (as opposed to groups of people that share a certain characteristic or trait) nor do I believe that saying "we won't post this video based on characteristics and traits of the VIDEO (as opposed to the one who's attempting to upload it)" could ever be discrimination.
butter the donkey