YouTube Rolling Out Video Fingerprinting

Rush could have the option to remove this video or take in profits from it

In an effort to curb the constant copyright-infringement occurring over at YouTube, the company announced plans to test a new form of video identification. Disney and Time-Warner are the first companies in line to test the waters on this new form of digital fingerprinting and others will soon follow if the trial is successful. These new fingerprinting tools have been in testing for about a month now and pick out unique identifiers in videos to ensure they’re of a legit nature.

But if an illegally uploaded clip or movie is found, Google/YouTube will contact the owner to see if they’d like the clip to be pulled or if they’d like to take part in revenue sharing. Seems like a decent deal where everyone wins. No one gets sued, companies make money, and viewers can still enjoy premium content. If only the rest of the world was like YouTube. Wait, no.

YouTube to test video ID with Time Warner, Disney [Reuters]