Google is doing some damage control today, after a spate of stories on how it failed to close deals with media companies (or, if you’re so inclined, how media companies can’t seem to get their act together in doing a deal with YouTube)...the latest was the page one story in WSJ today, which we reported on here. The focus of these stories have been on how YouTube has failed to offer enough anti-piracy measures for all media companies.
Now Google CEO Eric Schmidt does an interview with Reuters, explaining that it will soon offer anti-piracy technologies to help all copyright holders, irrespective of whether those companies have a distribution/licensing deal with Google-YouTube or not.
Schmidt declined to give a specific timeframe of weeks or months to cover all potential users, saying that any move would take time to cover all Google’s services, including YouTube, and to be made available to all copyright holders wishing to use the anti-piracy technology.
Also, YouTube gave a formal statement to Reuters on its policy on copyright, and how it prevents piracy: “While we are focused on working with content owners to iron out these sorts of complexities and develop increasingly effective tools, our existing audio fingerprinting tools were not designed for and are not currently suited or scaled for mass public distribution.”