Google’s video sharing website YouTube has announced video blocking using digital watermarking technology. The move is aimed at stopping the copyright infringement of movies and TV programmes posted on YouTube by users. YouTube is powered by user-generated video content and it is not easy to check the each video for copyright issues. YouTube was blamed by media companies for breaching their copyrights by allowing such clips on its website.

YouTube video identification tool is in beta testing. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion last year. The website is among top five most visited websites in the world. The new technology based on watermarking technology has been under development for several months.

In a post on Google Blog, David King, YouTube Products manager said, “A few months ago, we announced the initial development of a highly complicated technology platform -- content identification tools for YouTube. Today, we are pleased to launch, in beta form, YouTube Video Identification.”

The Video Identification tool will help copyright holders to find their material on YouTube. The videos will be rated on various factors and the copyright owners will be able to identify their work. Copyright owners will have to provide YouTube with the information necessary to allow the system to recognize their copyrighted videos.

Youtube currently watermarks the clips which original owners have requested to be removed. Such clips cannot be uploaded by other users. With new technology, the entire movie will be watermarked and the clips will not be allowed on YouTube without knowledge of original owner.

More Details on Google Official Blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/latest-content-id-tool-for-youtub...)