Another interesting YouTube development:
I highly doubt that the filter will be effective, especially as time goes by and savvier users figure out how to circumvent it.Google is very near enacting a filtering service that would prevent copyright content from being uploaded to video-sharing site YouTube, CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday.
Schmidt made the comments to about 300 people here at the National Association of Broadcasters conference during a one-on-one interview with John Seigenthaler, a former reporter with NBC's "Nightly News."
The new system, which Schmidt called Claim Your Content, will automatically identify copyright material so that it can be removed, Schmidt said.
"We are very close to turning this on," Schmidt said.
The filtering system was supposed to have launched last year at YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.6 billion in October 2006. Delays in rolling it out have angered movie and television executives. Executives at NBC and Viacom have accused Google of dragging its feet on preventing YouTube users from uploading clips from hit shows and movies.
Network executives accused Google of stalling so YouTube could reap the big traffic that professionally-created shows generate. Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google last month and accused Google of massive intentional copyright infringement.
"Ah Viacom," Schmidt said. "You're either doing business with them or being sued by them...we chose the former, but ended up the latter."
