YouTube Video Fingerprinting: More Than Meets the Googlebot’s Eye?

Last month, Google announced tests of a video fingerprinting solution to automatically keep copyrighted content off YouTube. Those Googlers work fast. Phillip Beck, one of the lawyers representing Google in Viacom’s stupid billion-dollar lawsuit against the video-sharing site, says the system could be operational as early as September. What’s more, Beck claims the system can identify infringing videos within minutes.

If it is ready by September, and it doesn’t screw up the user experience, I’ll be doubly impressed. A Google spokesman calls video fingerprinting “one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken,” and I believe him. Just look how badly Microsoft and Audible Magic both botched it.

YouTube already fully complies with the DMCA; all the lawsuits against them are just desperate negotiating tactics. If it does come out with this system by September, it will go far above complying with DMCA in very quick order indeed. Google’s motto is do no evil; let’s hope this system does no evil to YouTubers. YouTubers rallied against Viacom for indiscriminate video takedowns earlier this year; I’d hate to see the same thing happen to Google.

You might ask yourself why Google is in such a hurry to risk the YouTube user experience to do something they legally don’t have to do. It might sound crazy until you see the possibilities. This same video fingerprinting technology could be expanded into pattern identification for search indexing and ad contextualization.

Given how easily Google brushes off silly lawsuits, copyright protection just might be a pretext to publicly test video pattern identification technology in its embryonic stage. Copyright holders themselves would provide free dummy data; user complaints and takedown notices would provide free accuracy data.

Online video ad revenues are rising fast; that could be why Google’s in such a hurry to test a technology that could lead to better video ad contextualization while risking wrongful YouTube takedowns. Huge lawsuits from media conglomerates serve as convenient scapegoats.

Google likes to harvest data for future technologies in non-obvious ways; that’s the whole point of Google 411. YouTube’s enormous market share will provide a fantastic data harvest.

Video fingerprinting will allow the Googlebot to “see” patterns in videos. Perhaps there’s more to that vision than meets the eye.