YouTube's Antipiracy Tool Has Caused Quite A Stir

A few days ago, YouTube made a long-awaited announcement that the online video sharing service is about to release a content identification feature that helps the parent company Google fight against copyright lawsuits. Today, Audible Magic, the provider of the digital fingerprinting technology, signed a deal with Bebo, in a move meant to give more control over the audio content. According to Electronista, Bebo has the same goals as the online video sharing service: remove unauthorized content even before it is uploaded on the official website.

"Bebo Music was established to enable people to build direct relationships with the artists they love, and to enable these artists to make money from their art," said Michael Birch, CEO & founder, Bebo, according to Electronista. "With Audible Magic we ensure that artists and the labels that represent them are the only ones who decide which songs they give away for free and which not."

This YouTube feature was announced just after the Google acquisition, in October 2006 for $1.65 billion. Although it was scheduled for December, YouTube preferred to postpone the launch date because it wanted to make it more powerful and able to discover pirated content.

A few months ago, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt announced the new feature, codenamed Claim Your Content that is scheduled for the summer of 2007. Although it's not quite clear if the agreement with Audible Magic brings YouTubers the Claim Your Content function, it's obvious the parent company Google strives to stop the copyright infringement lawsuits that kept the search giant in the spotlight.

The latest and probably the most famous lawsuit was filed by Viacom, the owner of MTV and Comedy Central that accused the Mountain View company for publishing videos without authorization. They also demanded $1 billion in damages although they first demanded the removal of 100.000 clips from the YouTube database.