Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
The automated YouTube video ID system looks at all video as it is uploaded and tries to match it with a database of visual abstractions of the copyrighted material that has been provided by content owners. If the system finds a match it will either block it, post it, or--depending upon the policy specified by the content owner--put ads on it, with the revenue being shared with the content owner.
They are NOT the web police; why would it be their business?
They INDEX the web, they PUBLISH youtube.
Not the same thing at all :)
They INDEX the web, they PUBLISH youtube.
That doens't seem fully accurate, but maybe it is me. They index videos PUBLISHED to YouTube by it's USERS, just like they INDEX the web created by content PUBLISHED by authors. They can help protect the value of the index just like they can the videos. :)
I'd just like to see a similar tool (if the video tool is effective), that helps copyright owners protect their presence in the INDEX. I still see proxies causing duplicate content penalties (discussed in other threads). That shouldn't happen. But that is all I am going to say about this, because it is really a topic for another thread. Kudos for Google if this antipiracy tool works; it would be a good step.
They own youtube, and allow access, but remain responsible.
Just as if you had a blog and allowed comments and URLs, you'd be responsible for those links.
But you got one thing right - they index the web :)
Now, back to the topic?
Well, there are two really big erroneous assumptions here.
(1) That Google is really able to identify the original. First-to-post-in-its-current-URL is, if you think about it, totally useless as a criterion. Remember those copyright-infringers who post entire movies online before first appearance in theaters!
Fact is, only the guy who owns the copyright knows what he owns.
(2) That Google OUGHT to be looking for duplicate content with a view towards expunging all but one source. How many copies of "Hamlet" are online? And yet, this edition has the SparkNotes commentary, that edition has the Oxford Complete Shakespeare annotations, another edition has class assignments from Professor John Doe's Literature 201 class at the University of New South Wales, and so on.
Fact is, copyright law (at least in the U.S.) is supposed to be designed for the purpose of making MORE information accessible. Google has the same mission. And the presence of large amounts of public domain material--millions or perhaps billions of pages--suggests that any "solution" which might block public-domain information is socially malevolent at best, and probably outright illegal.
C
