Fingerprinting Technology: Google's Answer to Viacom

Remember when Viacom filed that lawsuit against Google? It happened in March. Basically, they said, Google's YouTube was showing copyrighted material illegally and on a large scale, and profiting greatly from it. Although Google argued that it didn't know that YouTube was showing the offending videos, it quickly became apparent that that argument wasn't going to hold water. Google would have to develop some kind of way of keeping copyrighted material off their site in the first place.

Finding infringing content among YouTube's hundreds of thousands of daily submissions has proved to be a problem. Obviously, there is no way for employees to visually screen all the submissions, and scanning titles only goes so far. While a video labeled "Family Guy" might be discovered and taken down, one labeled "F@mily Guy" would slip under the radar. Instead, YouTube would have to scan content. This presents another problem, though. Although you can put a CD into your computer and have it immediately recognized, that is only because the database knows that specific file. Insert a CD of the same song recorded from the radio, and suddenly the file has a totally different digital signature. The computer has no idea what it is. The same holds true for video. Since there is no one version of each offending piece of content, there has, up until now, been no way to identify it.

Now, though, Google has come up with a new answer-fingerprinting. Essentially, this technology allows the computer to look at a file more the way a person would see it than a machine would. Rather than comparing on the basis of a few identical characters at the beginning of the file, fingerprinting technology would look for patterns in the content of a video clip, comparing it to the videos in its database much the way a person would compare two videos. By employing this technology, Google hopes to be able to rid itself of all its copyright woes.

Google did not want to have to deal with this issue. Knowing that advertising revenues generated off of copyrighted material were quite a large part of YouTube's income, Google instead wanted to sign deals with media companies, allowing the site to show commercial videos, such as television shows, the news, and possible even movies, in exchange for a fraction of the advertising revenue generated. Although a few such deals have been signed, such as one with the BBC, many more prove to be elusive. Apparently, for the time being, Google will have to employ its new technology to rid itself of everything copyrighted.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117728975446878555-jESfIrgqamCOrTMCi83E6Xw87qY_20070522.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
http://whatsnewmedia.wordpress.com/2006/08/31/will-youtube-adopt-video-fingerprinting/
http://www.worldtv.com/blog/content_news/youtube_fingerprinting_technology_virtually_certain.php