NBC to YouTube: Video removal request game to end

In “YouTube, iPhone and NBC: Users in control?” I discuss YouTuber exvia’s upload of a copy of the NBC-SNL Steve Jobs parody and the changing nature of the NBC-YouTube  relationship.

NBC may have already flagged “SNL - Steve Jobs iPhone” for removal.

“Sand is running out of the hourglass,” clip-culture video sand that is. So says Rick Cotton, general counsel, NBC Universal.

Cotton estimates that more than half the videos on YouTube featuring NBC Universal’s television and films are unauthorized, as cited by The New York Times:

There is only so much we can do. As fast as a clip is taken down, YouTube users can always put up another.

Three NBC Universal employees “troll the site every day” looking for studio-owned material and reportedly send more than 1000 take down requests to YouTube every month.

NBC Universal is tiring of the “YouTube removal-request game.” Cotton: 

Companies aren’t prepared to sit by and not let this be addressed. 

Since taking over the YouTube reins in November, Google has moved quickly to bolster advertising and Web site features (see “Why Google wants YouTube independent” and “YouTube vs. MySpace: Is friendly bankable?”).

Google has not met the YouTube deadline for a “new content identification architecture for copyright holders,” however. According to YouTube’s September 25, 2006, statement:

By the end of the year, professional content creators, including record labels, TV networks and movie studios, will have the opportunity to authorize the use of their content within the YouTube community by taking advantage of YouTube’s new tools and architecture. YouTube has been actively working on the operational details and building the infrastructure for this innovative new framework, which will offer media companies the following:

--Sophisticated tools to help content owners identify their content on the site;
--Automated audio identification technology to help prevent works previously removed from the site at the request of the copyright owner from reappearing on the site;
--The opportunity to authorize and monetize the use of their works within the user-generated content on the site;
--Reporting and tracking systems for royalties, etc. 

Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube, said in announcing the Google acquisition, "I'm confident that with this partnership we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide."

Google has been devoting advertising resources to YouTube; Media owners are asking Google to devote content protection resources.