Google just announced that it is integrating its Content ID system, which alerts YouTube’s 1,000 partners when one of their videos or audio tracks is being used without authorization, and YouTube Insight, the analytics package that gives uploaders usage stats for their videos. Content ID gives copyright owners the ability to block a video or audio track, but most importantly, it also allows them to make money from these uploads by selling ads against these new videos (like Sony did with the JK Wedding Entrance Dance). Until today, YouTube’s partners only got a very basic set of stats about these videos, but they will now get the same stats that the uploader gets as well.
Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee had a chance to talk to the Content ID team and offers a lot more detail about the technical details behind the system. One interesting aspect of the system is that it is now being used more often to geoblock videos in certain regions. Google also told Gannes that Google regularly does ‘legacy scans of its entire library’ so that it can compare older videos against new claims from its partners. It is also interesting to note that Google now actually checks videos for copyrighted material before they even go live on the site. In the early days of Content ID, Google would only check after the video was already live.
Giving Partners a Better Idea How their Content is Being Used
This will hopefully mean that fewer copyright owners decide to completely block videos that use their content. After all, there is a lot of interesting demographic data in these mashup videos that YouTube’s partners and their marketing firms can use. According to Gannes, Google’s partners who leave user videos up “have seen their overall views more than double.”
