Copyright Owners Hire "Hashers" to Find Their Videos on YouTube

Google says it will implement an automated filtering system this fall that will stop music videos and other copyrighted material from finding their way onto its YouTube site without permission. But for the work of identifying allegedly infringing material is done by humans.

The Wall Street Journal reports (preview only without a subscription) that a company called BayTSP has hired over 20 analysts, which it pays $11/hour and up to scour the site for its clients' material in the recently uploaded section of YouTube and a few other sites. In some cases, they have a standing order to issue takedown notices for anything they find; in others, the analysts log allegedly infringing videos and then issue one big takedown notice consisting of hundreds of thousands of them.

Highights from the article:

- "BayTSP says it has more than five TV and movie-studio clients but for contractual reasons can't disclose names other than Viacom. The closely held company says it bills clients as much as $500,000 a month to track down illegal copies of software, music and video clips. Every month it sends out more than a million take-down notices."

- "'By the time I send notices and take them down, they'll be reposted,' says [BayTSP analyst] Justin Hernandez..."

- "BayTSP thinks human beings will always be needed if only to inspectautomated results. 'There will always be something that falls into thegray area,' says BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa, 42, who is also an activerace-car driver. The company and Viacom have faced criticism formistakenly requesting the takedown of noninfringing clips such asparodies and home videos, though BayTSP says its error rate on Webvideos is only around 0.1%."

- "When YouTube receives such [takedown request] emails, employees review them and then remove the clips."

- Some analysts complain of tired eyes, and the tedium of watching thesame clips over and over. 'The novelty of 'Oh great, I get to look atYouTube videos all day' -- that wears off real quick,' says Mr.
Martine, who has worked at BayTSP since January. "Are you prepared towatch a million videos over and over again?' Mr. Antze asks jobapplicants."