As announced in July, Google is working on a video fingerprinting technique for its YouTube site, which aims to automatically detect copyrighted clips and prevent users from uploading them. On Tuesday, the company announced that it made significant progress in this direction and its YouTube Video Identification has now been launched in beta phase.

The system is designed to help owners of copyrighted videos crack down on pirated versions distributed over the video-sharing site.

"We expect to hit unforeseen bumps and bottlenecks as we refine, improve, and scale the system to meet everyone's needs," YouTube product manager David King and partner development manager Glenn Brown said in a web posting. "We have worked with Google to develop one-of-a-kind technology that can recognize videos based on a variety of factors," King and Brown said in the joint posting. "Video Identification is brand-new, cutting-edge stuff. Early tests with content companies have shown very promising results."

What this Video Identification technology does is it requires copyright owners to submit to YouTube their copyrighted clips, which are processed and "fingerprinted". Whenever a user uploads a video, it is checked against this "fingerprint" database to see whether it is, in full or part, a copyrighted material. If that is found to be the case, the video is rejected and won't show up on the website.

The tracking and identification system was developed in response to complaints by large media companies at the prevalence of pirated content on YouTube.

Earlier this year, Viacom, which owns MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, sued Google, which owns YouTube, for massive copyright infringement and demanded 1 billion dollars in damages.

"We're delighted that Google appears to be stepping up to its responsibility and ending the practice of profiting from infringement," said Michael Fricklas, general counsel of Viacom, in a statement.

However, it's quite clear that for the system to be effective, it needs the continuous input of videos from copyright owners, something they have been reluctant to do. Even if it's quite obvious that this is the only way of blocking illegal video from showing up online, some media creators are yet reluctant to cooperate with video sharing sites, maybe fearing that their content will leak to the public.

"No matter how accurate the tools get, it is important to remember that no technology can tell legal from infringing material without the cooperation of the content owners themselves," Brown and King said in the posting.

"We really need the content community to work with us," King explained. "We need them to help us help them."

Google said nine media companies, including Disney and Time Warner, participated in an initial 10-day test.

Earlier this month, Google announced that the web publishers enrolled in its AdSense program will have the opportunity to increase enrich their content and altogether their income by embedding ad-supported videos from YouTube content creators. The new service, called Video Units, will enable publishers to display relevant, targeted video content within a customized, embedded player that’s ad-supported. The videos are delivered via YouTube and for the moment Google is working only with selected content partners such as TV Guide Broadband, Expert  Village, Mondo Media, lonelygirl15, Extreme Elements, and Ford Models.

In order to solve the copyright issues MySpace.com unveiled a technology called Take Down Stay Down which prevents users from re-posting video content in the MySpace community after that content has been removed.