Google working on YouTube copyright checker

New tech will auto-remove infringing vids

30 July 2007 9:14 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

During Google's ongoing court case over a Viacom lawsuit, it has been revealed that the internet giant is working on copyright checking technology for YouTube.

Google, the owner of YouTube, was in court in New York defending a $1 billion lawsuit brought by Viacom and other companies.

The lawsuit relates to the unauthorised viewing of Viacom programming and Premier League footage, as well as other clips, on YouTube.

The revelation came as part of the site's defense, the Google team stating that YouTube was working "very intensely" on video recognition technology to stop copyright infringement.

The new system will be in place as early as September.

Google hopes tech will stop the posting of copyright-infringing videos on its YouTube, and is said to be very sophisticated.

The video recognition technology will let the owners of videos to provide a digital fingerprint so that if anyone tries to post a clip that infringes copyrights, YouTube will remove it within minutes.