YouTube fails to implement copyright identification

Chicago (IL) - YouTube’s New Year’s resolution is probably to implement the system that it was supposed to have finished by the end of 2006. According to a Financial Times report, the anti-piracy software that YouTube said would be up and running by December 31 has yet to actually be finished.

After a slate of threatened legal action from copyright owners like NBC Universal and and Time Warner, the video uploading site agreed to put into place a system that would be able to automatically detect whether or not an uploaded video is likely copyrighted.

YouTube, which claims that it was never obligated to implement the content identification system by the end of 2006, was able to stay out of litigation because of the agreement it made with media companies, promising to crack down on users who post copyrighted content.

Users who post videos are able to view them on the site immediately. Videos can later be pulled by YouTube but there is virtually no pre-screening process in place. Last month, a Japanese media organization called for YouTube to screen every single video sent in to the site before they were allowed to be viewed by other users. However, the site failed to agree to these terms.