Producers of content want to protect their creations so they can profit off of them. It’s the way that the industry has been working for some time now and it’s no shock that the entertainment moguls want to keep it that way. However, it won’t work.

More people are watching video online and I’m sure that has to do with the proliferation of content that is available (both legally and illegally). I know that I watch a lot of shows online that I can’t get on TV and it’s high time that this is embraced. Google has announced that on YouTube they’ll be implementing a new system that tracks illegally uploaded content. I wonder if this will make YouTube less popular or if it will start bringing in money for the site.

TechCrunch has summed up what Google’s new approach will do:

Copyright holders, such as Time Warner, Disney and CBS (who helped Google test the new identification system), upload full digital copies of their content to YouTube. These copies are not distributed by YouTube at all. Rather, they are stored privately by YouTube so it will know how to recognize copyrighted content.

The copyright holders who upload their content then indicate whether they want YouTube to automatically remove uploaded copies of the same content, or whether they want YouTube to forcefully display advertisements on top of uploaded copies of the same content (revenue from which will go into the copyright holders’ pockets).

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