A couple of sources of celebrated YouTube’s recent announcement that they have technology which can recognize copyrighted music in videos when a video is uploaded. YouTube’s using this technology to work with Warner music in order to license the content as it’s uploaded (instead of being forced to remove the content under DMCA compliance). Most of the praise is for the deal with Warner, but I fear that there is a great hidden cost in this deal in the new technology involved.

There are little-to-no details as to how exactly YouTube is identifying copyrighted material, but I assume it’s not something as trivial as a flag or ID in the video content because that could be too easily sidestepped. So YouTube likely now has technology to look at the content of a video and determine if the music is a match to any video in the Warner (or other major recording studio) library.

I appreciate the fact that YouTube is making it easier for me to upload and download copyrighted content without being overbearing or invasive, but my fear about this technology is applications outside of YouTube. One could easily see how this could be extended to work with packetshaping at ISP gateways or other major network hubs. Packetshaping is already occuring on most ISPs (traffic that has packet headers which indicate that they are involved in P2P networks or online gaming and being throttled). However, packetshaping that can detect whether traffic is violating a copyright or not would have negative implications. It might put more responsiblity on the ISPs to monitor and shape their traffic. That’s scary to me.

How about another application of this music-matching technology, censorship. Right now, the Vchip in televisions is implemented by looking at the metadata of the ratings system, but if offensive material can be identified simply based on content, then censorship technology doesn’t have to rely on metadata. I’m not at all in favor of reducing barriers for censorship, but I’m pretty progressive in my anti-censorship beliefs. The main reason I quit using Blockbuster a year ago is that they won’t stock NC-17 movies, so I get shit, chopped-up versions of great films like L.I.E. and Requiem for a Dream. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are parents out there reading my blog who sing the praises of the Vchip (and certain applications of censorship in general) and on those grounds I think we have to respectfully disagree.

In summary, I’m not trying to say that I wish this technology had not been invented. Furthermore, I like YouTube’s intentions and applications of this technology (so far). But, I don’t like the directions that this technology could take…