YouTube can't guarantee that its new filtering system will catch every case of piracy. But one company says it can help plug the hole.
Web Sheriff, the British company hired by performers such as Prince and the Village People to protect their music from Web piracy, is now branching into a new service on the heels of Monday's announcement by YouTube.
John Giacobbi
(Credit: Web Sheriff)The juggernaut video-sharing site owned by Google rolled out a long-awaited filtering technology that's designed to automatically detect whether a piece of digital video uploaded to the site is pirated or not.
Here's the rub: Copyright owners must first send YouTube copies of the material they want the system to recognize.
In addition, the more degraded the quality of the pirated copy, the greater the chance it will be missed and not flagged as an illicit copy.
John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president, said that what hasn't been established is whether YouTube's new system can recognize music playing within a video. This is of special interest to one of Web Sheriff's clients, the Village People. (Giacobbi's site even features a clip of them.)
YouTube was already using technology from a company called Audible Magic, which offers copyright holders a way to police music, video, and computer software that is being reproduced without permission. MySpace has also licensed Audible Magic's product.
The Village People band has threatened YouTube with legal action over a clip that features its music combined with archival footage of Adolf Hitler. The clip, which has been removed from YouTube hundreds of times and keeps getting reposted, shows images of German youth and the Nazi leader.
"There's still a lot of unanswered questions about the system," Giacobbi said. "YouTube has acknowledged that if you change the file's characteristics enough, video may not be filtered. The site will still need to be monitored, and that's what we do."
Web Sheriff says it will, on behalf of its clients, also handle the transferring of video clips as well as turning the clips into digital fingerprints and dealing with YouTube on a day-to-day basis.
(Editor's note: We couldn't immediately reach YouTube for comment on Thursday. This story will be updated if YouTube replies.)
Somebody combined the Village People's hit song, "YMCA," with footage of a dancing Adolf Hitler and posted the clip to YouTube. Now the company that owns the rights to the band's music is preparing to sue YouTube.
(Credit:
Island/Mercury)
John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, which hunts down pirated material on the Web and tries to get it removed, said his company has sent 500 "take-down" notices to YouTube. Each time the video is pulled, someone else uploads another copy. Giacobbi believes that YouTube has the ability to screen for copyright content in the same way it does for pornography.
The Hitler video is edited to make it look like he and other well-known Nazis are singing and dancing to "YMCA," the Village People's biggest hit. What's more aggravating for Giacobbi and the group is that copycat videos have begun cropping up. Many show the same footage but are combined with other songs by the group, a '70s disco band whose members dressed in costume.
"It's highly inappropriate," Giacobbi said. "Consider that the song's composers were both Jewish. It's not funny. It's stupid and hurtful."
Web Sheriff, headquartered in Great Britain, made news on Thursday for announcing that the company is preparing to launch civil litigation against YouTube, eBay and the Pirate Bay on behalf of rock performer Prince. In that case, Prince is accusing the companies of encouraging people to commit copyright violations.
YouTube said Thursday in response to Prince's criticism that the company enjoys excellent relations with copyright owners.
"Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights," said Zahavah Levine, YouTube's chief counsel in an e-mail. "We work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better."
This is the month that YouTube representatives said the company would roll out a new filtering system, which would block copyright material from showing up on the site. An attorney representing YouTube in an unrelated copyright lawsuit brought against it earlier this year by Viacom, told a judge recently that the system was due around September.
Representatives from Can't Stop Productions, the company that owns the rights to the Village People's music, could not be reached for comment.
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