Top online video service YouTube will soon test a new video identification technology with two of the world's largest media companies, Time Warner and Walt Disney.
The technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google, will help content owners such as movie and TV studios identify videos uploaded to the site without the copyright owner's permission, YouTube legal, marketing and strategy executives said in an interview on Monday.
The so-called video fingerprinting tools will be available for testing in about a month, a YouTube executive said.
YouTube has come under fire from some traditional media companies, who say it has dragged its heels in offering reliable ways to identify video clips uploaded by regular users without permission.
MTV Networks-owner Viacom sued Google and YouTube for more than $1 billion in March, charging the company with "massive intentional copyright infringement" after demanding the removal of clips of its popular shows Colbert Report and Daily Show, hosted by comedian Jon Stewart.
Initially, YouTube said last year such tools would be made available to test by the end of 2006. But executives have said the reliable identification of content was a complex task that required it to develop its own technology tools.
Chris Maxcy, YouTube partner development director, said other media companies planned to test the technology, but he declined to name the other parties. "There are a couple. There are more that we can't talk about right now," Maxcy said.
YouTube has also been testing technology to help identify the audio tracks of video clips with major record labels using technology provided by privately held Audible Magic as early as the first two months of 2007, the company said.
These tools will be made available to all content owners later this year, YouTube executives said on Monday.
"It's typically not something we talk about," Maxcy said, adding, however: "We wanted to clear the air."
