AfterDawn: Tech news

Humans employed to filter YouTube

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 11 Aug 2007 9:27 User comments (10)

Humans employed to filter YouTube

Although Google says it will be implementing an automated filtering system later this year to stop copyrighted material from finding its way to YouTube, it seems for now, humans are employed to find the "infringing" material.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, BayTSP, infamous for its anti-piracy dealings worldwide has hired over 20 analysts to sit around all day and search for infringing material on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Some clients, such as Viacom ask that the analysts issue takedown notices for each and every video they find but others ask to have tons of videos logged and then have one large takedown notice sent. A recent log for one company consisted of over 100,000 videos.

BayTSP has said that it bills clients up to $500,000 USD per month to track down illegal copies of software, music and video clips and that on any given month it sends out more than a million take-down notices.

"BayTSP thinks human beings will always be needed if only to inspect automated results. There will always be something that falls into the gray area," says BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. The company, as well as Viacom have faced criticism from groups such as EFF for their mistaken requests to take down non-infringing content but Ishikawa says its error rate on Web videos is only around 0.1 percent."



One BayTSP analyst however, reveals the problems with the job he does. "By the time I send notices and take them down, they'll be reposted."

You take one down, and ten new ones will appear. It is a cycle that cannot be stopped however much money Viacom pays out to try to stop it.

Source:
Wired

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10 user comments

111.8.2007 09:33

these "humans" just don't understand that youtube is way better as it is if all copyrighted material goes away there is nothing to watch then and youtube will suck

so now instead of employing people to catch real criminals such as drug dealers and murderes they employ ppl to sit on the computer all day looking at video clips and ruining youtube for everybody

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 11 Aug 2007 @ 9:36

211.8.2007 10:31

Originally posted by narmo:
these "humans" just don't understand that youtube is way better as it is if all copyrighted material goes away there is nothing to watch then and youtube will suck

so now instead of employing people to catch real criminals such as drug dealers and murderes they employ ppl to sit on the computer all day looking at video clips and ruining youtube for everybody

Are you willing to pay for youtube so you can watch illegal videos (then legal) it cost's google a f*ck load of money on law suits


Although i agree with more people on drug case's then this bullshit.

311.8.2007 13:21

Another score for all of the illegal uploaders. The creation of jobs is great for the economy.

It's like that Circle of Life thing...

411.8.2007 20:21

YouTube:
*
Land of Dweebs and Kittens learning how to walk. Don't play a Prince CD in the background tho! :o

511.8.2007 23:21
SamNz
Inactive

Originally posted by Unfocused:
Another score for all of the illegal uploaders. The creation of jobs is great for the economy.

It's like that Circle of Life thing...
so true :)

612.8.2007 08:47

If they would get rid of all those lame videos that these stupid little kids put on you tube wile they're at it I'd be much obliged.

712.8.2007 14:35

Why not just add the same commercials that follow the clips from the tv. Youtube would have a 'commercials' database that would add the appropriate sponsor of the tv show before the clip is played. This way everyone is happy. I say this because if you have a clip from a tv show that is not on cable, it should be free since it was free originally. I agree youtube would suck with all those star wars kid homemade movies.

813.8.2007 06:38

You Tube is opressing creativity and expression in favor of being a lap dog for the RIAA and MPAA.

917.8.2007 12:38

YouTube can blow my...

1017.8.2007 18:43

No wonder Google is looking at a automated response cause the cost to deal with it at the moment is too high.

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