<videovortex> Deleted YouTube Videos Still Available

[geert lovink]

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/03/16/deleted-youtube-videos- 
still-available

Deleted YouTube Videos Still Available
Submitted by Joe Lewis on Fri, 03/16/2007 - 10:26.

When it receives a complaint from content owners regarding copyrighted  
videos, YouTube is usually pretty quick to comply with regulations and  
pull down the infringing clips. As it turns out, those clips may still  
be available for viewing and/or download on YouTube’s servers.

The news doesn’t seem to be getting any better for YouTube.

Since the beginning of the year, negotiations with several content  
providers have stalled or altogether fallen apart. And of course we all  
know by now about the billion-dollar bomb that Viacom dropped on the  
video-sharing site earlier this week. Now it seems that YouTube is  
taking its sweet time in removing copyrighted content from its data  
libraries.

Of course, evidence of this won’t be found on YouTube’s end. If you try  
to pull up a video that infringes copyright, most likely you’ll  
encounter some sort of message stating that the clip has been removed.  
If you surf on over to Delutube, however, chances are you can still  
take a peek at the video.

So what’s the big deal about that? Well, Delutube pulls the video data  
from YouTube’s servers, which means that video clips the site claims  
have been remove are actually still accessible.

Nate Anderson at Ars Technica has more on the particular details of how  
to find deleted YouTube clips:

Delutube allows visitors to enter the video ID (pulled from the end of  
the YouTube URL) of a deleted clip, then attempts to retrieve the clip  
from YouTube's system. Clips are not apparently deleted from YouTube's  
database at the moment they are taken down (or they at least persist in  
YouTube's cache before being cleared), allowing Delutube a chance of  
retrieving them. The site also allows for the easy downloading of  
clips.

This could be very bad news for Google & YouTube if more content owners  
step up to file suit against them. YouTube claims that it immediately  
removes clips that infringe upon copyright once they are notified of  
the offense, but the very existence and functionality of Delutube shows  
evidence to the contrary

To be fair, however, there is no clear data to determine how long  
“deleted” clips stay on YouTube’s servers; it could range from several  
hours to several weeks for all we know. What is certain, however, is  
YouTube’s need to address this issue immediately, especially given the  
unfolding events of the past week.