19 October 2007

Viacom chief criticises Google's copyright system

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Viacom chief executive Philippe Dauman said that Google's recently announced copyright protection system for YouTube is not satisfactory.

Earlier this week, Google announced a beta version of new technology entitled YouTube Video Identification, which is designed to help copyright holders control the distribution of their content over the internet.

In order to achieve this, copyright holders, such as Viacom and Time Warner, upload complete copies of their content to YouTube to enable the video sharing site to recognise copyrighted content.

Although welcoming the effort, Mr Dauman remained sceptical, stating: "What no one wants is a proprietary system that benefits one company."

He added that YouTube and Viacom had discussed having an effective filter in place by the end of last year, but it had not yet materialised.

"I don't think we're quite there. I've been hearing about this coming on board for quite some time," he commented.

Mr Dauman said that the Google system is unsatisfactory and urged the company to join others in adopting a set of industry guidelines announced yesterday (October 18th) aimed at protecting copyrighted material over the web.

According to the Wall Street Journal, firms that have already stated their support for the guidelines include Microsoft, NBC Universal, CBS, Dailymotion and Viacom.

Earlier this year, Viacom filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google and YouTube, accusing them of exhibiting disregard for intellectual property.

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