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YouTube Video-Fingerprinting Due in September
Tech.Luver writes "The Register is reporting on Google's statement to a presiding judge that video-fingerprinting of YouTube material will be ready in September. The development is required to head off a three-headed suit against the company, currently being debated in a New York City courthouse. The system will, according to Google, 'be as sophisticated as fingerprinting technology used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' From the article: 'As Google told El Reg in an earlier conversation, the company already has two systems in place for policing infringing content - but neither are ideal. One system allows copyright holders to notify Google when they spot their videos on the company's sites. When notified, the company removes the offending videos, in compliance with the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A second system uses "hash" technology to automatically block repeated uploads of infringing material.'"
As soon as Google stops indexing/posting material people want (legal or not) people will stop using Google. I believe they know what a fine line they're walking between 'do no evil' and survival here, I wonder which will pervail?
I think you miss the point.
1) Is there a way around the system? Yes.
2) Does that matter? No.
3) Why is that? This solution shows that Google is making reasonable efforts to comply with the legal issues.
The majority of folks aren't going to take the effort to circumvent these controls. Rates will drop significantly. Google can honestly say they are making every effort to comply with copyright protection. Lawsuits will go away.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
There are already several decent systems for fingerprinting audio; it's not particularly surprising that Google researchers would be able to do something similar for video.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
The supposedly clever media moguls are missing a wealth-building opportunity. Lots of these "infringing videos" are short clips from longer presentations. If they had any smarts at all, they'd ask Google to set up a link on those pages where people could buy the programs/music on disk, or direct download them for a fee. Instead, the moguls want to get rid of what amounts to "free advertising" because they fear the new paradigm.
Mostly it's an assumption. Since only humans so far have been able to recognize video, then it must take something like a human to do it. Viewing clip A and clip B and abstracting the parts that make them the same is not the kind of problem computers are good at, and if you've done it you've probably solved the really hard problem in AI, how abstraction works. Of course this rests on the assumption that strong AI is fundamentally different from weak AI, and the difference is not just one of degrees. Personally I think that's a specious distinction much like that between microevolution and macroevolution.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, it's the cost of fighting a copyright battle, and also the dark possibility that the judge would side with the copyright holders which they almost invariably always do these days.
Take that and the fact that Google is actually a big fat cash cow with a bulls-eye on the side of it and it becomes obvious that the best strategy is one of accomadation. Rather than a long drown out battle that would also hurt googles stock price because of the uncertainity it creates.
So anyway you cut it, this looks like the best route for them to take. Maybe google could throw some lobbyists on congress to address the copyright abuse that copyright holders are getting away with.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It's not going to get shut down because of copyright infringement. :/ That's like saying we should bomb Hong Kong because they sell copyrighted works there- just because something has an illegitimate use doesn't make it illegitimate on face ffs.
Note, this can also be applied to "kitchen knives can kill so we should ban kitchen knives." and "people can die in cars so we should ban motor vehicles"
and uh... "People who have killed a lot of people have played video games, so we should ban video games." The states needs to get over the damn prohibitionist culture that's removing any sense of personal responsibility from our great nation.
+5, Truth