GRD Google Fans

Finally. At last. Phew. About F*&ing Time.

YouTube announced yesterday that they have begun testing an anti-piracy video batching database to protect themselves from copyright infringement lawsuits. The original announcement of the YouTube Video Identification system was back in June.

According to the Official Google Blog, the Video Identification system goes above and beyond the company’s legal responsibilities, but I’m not entirely sure thats the right message for them to be putting out. “We do what we can,” isn’t the warm, fuzzy sentiment that will prevent future lawsuits.

It remains to be seen…

Major League Baseball is testing Teletrax digital watermarking technology reports Broadcasting & Cable. MLB becomes the first sports league to protect its content this way and joins broadcasters CBS, FOX, ABC & NBC already using Teletrax.

A division of Medialink, Teletrax enables broadcasters to embed an invisible digital watermark “by subtly manipulating the noise that naturally occurs in moving images”

The company also provides global monitoring, providing “full details of the station and location where your video was aired as well as the section of your footage used and the duration of broadcast.”…

Indie online film distributor Dovetail.tv has launched a facebook application allowing users to view Dovetail’s high quality independent programming without leaving the social networking site.

Dovetail has differentiated themselves by offering a high-quality solution using P2P technology. Their facebook app promises to allow users to view HD quality content without leaving the social networking site after installation of their desktop client.

Like Pando and a growing number of companies, Dovetail is offering DRM-protected downloads ensuring peace of mind for the producers on their platform as well as an outlet for them to offer their…

CNet’s Greg Sandoval explores the impact of P2P file sharing on Hollywood movie releases. Do they build buzz or bust ticket sales?

Personally, I don’t believe that file-sharing helps build buzz. Its the result of buzz. People want to see a movie without standing in line, sitting in a bad seat, and paying for an overpriced ticket. But they download because they already have made the decision whether or not to see the film. Just not how they’ll see it.

How do you see it?

This whole Digg fiasco involving distribution of an AACS processing key used to unlock the DRM on HD-DVD and BlueRay disks has raised some big questions. In the web 2.0 era of media democracy how can intermediaries work without being held responsible for user content?

The YouTube liability argument is clear - videos that are not licensed are physically hosted on their servers. But in the case of Digg and companies like Bittorrent the content being “dugg” or the torrent being downloaded is taken from third party sources. The company simply exists an efficient…