With a view to halting the plethora of copyright cases and complaints brought against YouTube, Google will soon offer anti-piracy technology for copyright holders to prevent their content being shown on the site.

Google has been heavily criticised for seeming to be willing to take action over copyright infringement only when they have an existing content agreement with the content owners.

Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said that this was a priority for Google:

“We are definitely committed to (copyright protection technologies), it is one of the company’s highest priorities. It is going to roll out very soon… It is not far away”

When Viacom backed out of talks with Google and demanded the removal of 100,000 of its clips, it cited Google’s reluctance to deal with the copyright issue as the reason for their actions. Meanwhile, Viacom has just jumped into bed with Joost, providing Google - and other media owners - with food for thought.

Today’s news comes soon after Microsoft announced that it would be testing a content filtering system to prevent unauthorised content being uploaded onto MySpace.

In fairness to Google, such content filtering technology does require the co-operation of the copyright owner, as they would need to provide a ’signature’ so that MySpace/YouTube can build up a database of material to filter out.

Meanwhile, the BBC, having previously asked for its material to be removed from YouTube, is reported to be close to a deal with the video sharing site. e-consultancy.com

Related Posts

• Revenue from AdSense continues Google’s momentum as the company looks forward to acquiring DoubleClick
Revenue from AdSense continues Google's momentum as the company looks forward to acquiring DoubleCli...
• Mark Cuban says buyer of YouTube would be a moron
Valuations for YouTube have attracted a lot of attention. Part of the reason is that analysts recent...
• YouTube Founders Net Millions from Google Buy
Chad Hurley, YouTube's chief executive, was paid in Google shares with a current indicated value of ...
• Ron Paul to Visit Google and Daily Youtube Video
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) will pay a visit to Google headquarters in Mountain View Californi...
• Google’s Grainy Video Strategy
Google didn't create the idea of building a great product and then figuring out how to make money fr...
• Dangling some ‘evidence’ that Saddam is still alive
Saddam Hussein is "alive and well" - or so says an agent selling what he purports is "forensic evide...
• Google can show nude thumbnails
Google has won an appeal against a court case over its use thumbnail images in its search result...
• Tsunamis, browser detection, and google ncr
OK, so you're on vacation in Asia (let's say the Philippines), and then a tsunami hits. Of cours...
• Top 5 Funniest Apple iPhone Youtube Videos
The Apple iPhone has launched and the blogosphere is buzzing about the release. I went about ...
• Youtube Videos : Haley Scarnato
Here are all the videos of Haley Scarnato on American Idol. Haley was cut tonight, and we think ...