YouTube copyright filter by September? Will it matter?

Last week, a US court heard that YouTube "hoped" to have its long awaited copyrighted content filtering system by September, according to an Associated Press report. The key questions are will Google once again fudge its self imposed deadline and, more importantly, could YouTube survive with such a system in place.

Last year, YouTube was supposed to implement a copyright filtering system by the end of the year. Then early this year a rumour surfaced that YouTube would license content filtering technology from Audible Magic. Then in April, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said YouTube would soon release a copyright filtering system soon.

Now once again Google, under attack from a triad of content producers lead by media giant Viacom, is seeking to assure the US authorities that it is doing its best to implement technology that will curb the excesses of its copyright infringing posters. Out of the other side of its mouth, however, Google continues to invoke the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), with which it says YouTube has always complied.