YouTube in piracy hotwater

TECHIES at YouTube might have got the company into more hot water with the music and film industry by failing to deploy a system to prevent piracy of copyrighted music on the video-sharing website.

According to Australian News, YouTube was supposed to have created and installed an "advanced content identification and royalty reporting system" by January 1 as part of an agreement between YouTube and Warner.

Warner agreed to let YouTube distribute its music videos, artist interviews, and other content if YouTube vowed to have a piracy-prevention system in place by year's end.

However, when the system was not working on Saturday, hacks from her Majesty's loyal press rang up YouTube and asked what had happened. Not surprisingly, no one from YouTube, who could provide a quote, was in the building.

Michael McGuire, of Gartner Research, said that YouTube could be in hot water if it didn't get the system in place, but it probably had a week or two before Warner got too shirty about it.

More here. µ