YouTube software threat to Google plans by the Financial Times shows that an anticipated software release by YouTube to crack down on pirated videos with an “content identification system” software was delayed. The content identification system is technology that YouTube has been testing for months now that will better enable them to fight piracy by locating copyrighted music or video on YouTube’s servers.

Google reportedly needs this software in order to make the media companies they intend to work with secure enough in the service to partner with them on future plans. YouTube said that the release of this software would not be here by year’s end (which passed) and they claim that they “never promised general availability by the end of the year.” Mike McGuire, a digital media analyst at Gartner, said that if the software release is delayed more than a couple weeks, it would “be a serious issue” for Google.

Related Topics: Google: YouTube & Video | Legal: Copyright

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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