MySpace.com, the immensely popular social-networking site owned by News Corp., Monday announced a pilot program to filter unauthorized copyrighted video from its Website.
Using software developed by Audible Magic, the new filter screens video uploaded by MySpace users and blocks any video matching a "fingerprint" in MySpace’s database. The filter is similar to an audio filter already in use by the Website.
Initial partners in the pilot include Universal Music Group, NBC Universal and corporate sibling Fox.
If successful, MySpace will be the first major site with video-sharing capabilities to offer a filter for copyrighted material. For major media companies, such a filter is a holy grail of sorts.
Google’s YouTube, the leader in online-video sharing, has been under intense scrutiny for promising and so far failing to provide such a filter. When Viacom publicly demanded YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos two weeks ago, a major factor in its complaint was YouTube’s failure to deliver on its long-promised filter.
