Media giants to explore copyright protection technology

Despite YouTube’s recent introduction of a new "fingerprinting" security system designed to prevent users from illegally posting copyrighted material to its pages, several major media companies are banding together to investigate other alternative copyright protection technologies they can apply to their content. Not content with YouTube's new Video Identification tool, media companies including Viacom, Walt Disney, CBS, and NBC Universal are joining together to seek alternative copyright protection technology. Credit: Viacom.

Not content with YouTube's new Video Identification tool, media companies including Viacom, Walt Disney, CBS, and NBC Universal are joining together to seek alternative copyright protection technology. Credit: Viacom.More pointedly, the likes of CBS, Microsoft Corp., MySpace, NBC Universal, News Corp.’s Fox channel, Viacom, and Walt Disney are looking into technological solutions that will better serve their copyrighted material online, prevent it from being posted illegally, and also prevent it from being pirated.Interestingly, search engine giant Google Inc, which just so happens to own video-sharing Web site YouTube, has not joined the group and its technology drive; however, current analyst feedback suggests that it will jump on the bandwagon in the near future."Google will be forced to accept a common model rather than use its own solution as a competitive differentiator," commented James McQuivey, analyst with Forrester Research in a BBC News article. With Google presently facing a huge $1 billion USD lawsuit from Viacom due to the illegal posting of its content on YouTube, McQuivey offers that such lawsuits "will likely hinge on Google’s acceptance of the common solution."YouTube’s own Video Identification security system, which sees copyrighted material "watermarked" or "fingerprinted" in order to prevent it from being posted illegally, has already met with reservations from Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman. Dauman, speaking at the recent Web 2.0 Summit, offered that while Viacom is willing to work alongside media properties to protect content, it is somewhat sceptical of Google’s Video Identification.Conceding that Video Identification is a positive step, Dauman said that it isn’t enough and that Google could have moved much quicker regarding the protection of copyrighted material. "I guess they haven’t wanted to as this point," he outlined in a PC World article. He also noted that Google is looking to rely on a single proprietary tool that only benefits one company, while the definitive solution is to be found through cooperative work."I don’t see [Google’s] algorithms being shared openly with competitors," added Dauman. "We took a step reluctantly because we had to."