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YouTube Anti-Piracy Software Issue Detrimental to Google Entertainment?

MSNBC / Financial Times is running a story on how YouTube’s failure to finish a “key piece of anti-piracy software as promised” may impose an obstacle to Google and its relationships in the media & entertainment industry.

Being that almost every news outlet is now using Google Earth and other Google branded services in their stories, this could be a bit overblown.

But given YouTube’s history of success with NBC and NBC.com along with the Comedy Central controversies, the end result could be a coin flip or dependent upon current studio relationships.

This being said, if Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN Live Search are gearing up for new search, video, media and entertainment oriented contracts in 2007 and Google’s YouTube is still lacking in anti-piracy efforts, this may lead to some friction… perhaps from some legal departments.

From Richard Waters of the Financial Times:

YouTube said on Friday the technology would not be formally launched this year and YouTube’s offices were closed until the new year. While providing no further details about when the system would be made formally available, it said tests of the system had been under way with some media companies since October and the system remained “on track”.

Leading music companies have already made clear they see completion of YouTube’s anti-piracy technology as an important step in any closer co-operation. Failure to build adequate systems to protect copyright owners could also add to the risk of legal action against the site.

Doug Morris, chief executive of Universal Music Group, hinted at legal action against YouTube late last summer, accusing both it and MySpace of being “content infringers [that] owe us tens of millions of dollars”. Universal went on to sue MySpace but was one of the companies to reach a partnership with YouTube, partly based on the ability of its promised content identification system to track down copyrighted music.

Hat tip to Barry @ Search Engine Land.

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SEJ STAFF Loren Baker Founder at Foundation Digital

Loren Baker is the Founder of SEJ, an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing ...

YouTube Anti-Piracy Software Issue Detrimental to Google Entertainment?

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