There’s a lot of YouTube news today, so we’re bagging it up into one story. First, Google’s video site is beefing up its ContentID system that helps rightsholders identify user-uploaded copies of their videos. The system will be more efficient, while there will be less steps for rightsholders to claim videos and start making money from them. Second, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has admitted that the company overpaid by around $1 billion when it acquired YouTube in 2006. The admission came in a deposition for the ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube, with Schmidt saying he estimated YouTube was worth between $600 million and $700 million when Google bought it, but concern over someone else gazumping the deal fuelled the actual price of $1.65 billion. And third, talking of that Viacom lawsuit… CNET has claimed that Viacom may have a “smoking gun” in the case, in the form of evidence that YouTube employees knew and discussed the fact that unauthorised clips of Viacom content were being uploaded to the site, and did nothing about it. With Google’s defence based on it having no “actual knowledge” of such infringement, any such evidence could be crucial.
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Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…