YouTube (and other such websites) are a great source for watching copyright material: everything from music videos to TV shows to movies. The convenience of having video on demand with no commercial breaks makes the poor quality bearable. And since the demand is so great, there is no shortage of uploaders of copyright material.

Naturally, copyright holders are not at all happy with the current situation. And given the nature of copyright legislation, the duty falls upon the copyright holders themselves to police YouTube, notifying the staff when infringement occurs, upon which the video is taken down. As such, many illegal videos slip through the cracks.

Google, the owner of YouTube, wants to prevent the uploading of illegal videos altogether by using video recognition technology to compare newly uploaded content with  a digital fingerprint of the copyright material. If the fingerprint matches, the material is blocked from being uploaded.

This system is expected to go into effect this fall, with the target set on sometime in September.

More at PCWorld.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Google, Antipiracy, Video, Copyright