YouTube Plans to Implement Anti-Piracy Technologies

SAN FRANCISCO, February 22: Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google,
told Reuters yesterday that YouTube is “committed to” implementing anti-piracy
technologies “very soon.”

The news comes amid reports that negotiations have broken
down between CBS Corporation and YouTube over adding content from CBS shows to
the Google-owned video-sharing site. Earlier this month, meanwhile, Viacom
ordered YouTube to pull about 100,000 clips of content from its various networks
after the two companies failed to come to an agreement.

Lack of content protection systems on the site have
rankled numerous media companies. Jeff Zucker, on his first day as the
president and CEO of NBC Universal, told reporters: “YouTube needs to prove that
it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. They
have the capability. The question is whether they have the will.” And last
month, Twentieth Century Fox subpoenaed YouTube seeking the identity of the
user who uploaded episodes of 24 and The
Simpsons prior to their original
broadcasts.

Google chief Schmidt told Reuters in an interview yesterday
that the company, which shelled out $1.6 billion for YouTube last October, is
"definitely committed to” implementing copyright protection systems on the
site. "It is one of the company's highest priorities."

Schmidt continued, "It is going to roll out very soon
… It is not far away."

Last month, the News Corporation-owned social networking
site MySpace.com, YouTube’s biggest rival, launched a pilot program intended to
prevent unauthorized copyrighted content from being posted to the site.
MySpace’s copyright filtering system will use digital fingerprinting technology
licensed from Audible Magic, a specialist in content rights management.
MySpace's filter screens video uploaded by users and blocks any video matching
a fingerprint in MySpace's database.