The company hopes the video matching program, if successful, will change its relationship with potential partners in the media industry.
"This goes beyond what the law requires," said Evan Cox, a partner at law firm Covington & Burling. "It's a way they can get into relationships where they can charge more money for what they are doing and feel safe about it."
The YouTube Video Identification program depends on media companies' willingness to trust Mountain View, Calif-based Google with its content.
Storing copies of copyrighted works without permission got Google in trouble with book publishers in 2005. After the company began scanning books so it could display snippets of pages in its search results, a group of publishers and the Authors Guild filed copyright infringement lawsuits.
YouTube's King would not say how accurate the video identifying technology had proven to be. He said that the more doctored the video, the harder it was to find. But he added that the technology was sensitive enough to match a newscast that was recorded by someone standing in front of a TV with a camera.
In recent tests, the technology was able to find 18 wrongfully uploaded videos belonging to one partner, Hearst-Argyle Television Inc.
"This is the beginning of being able to protect copyrighted video, and we're happy to participate in any effort that could safeguard our content," Terry Mackin, the TV company's executive vice president and head of digital media, said in an e-mail.
Other media companies praised Google's effort.
"We're encouraged that they recognize the need to recognize copyright," Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler said. "I'm told by our general counsel that there's still some work to be done before we would say it's totally sufficient to protect copyright, but we're encouraged so far."
He would not elaborate on what work needs to be done.
Notably absent from Google's early partners is Viacom, which operates cable networks such as MTV and Comedy Central, as well as movie studios including Paramount Pictures.
Viacom in March filed a $1-billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. The media company says it spends as much as $200,000 a month to identify its content on YouTube and ask Google to remove it.
Viacom officials said that they wanted to see more details of the YouTube program but that the preliminary announcement seemed positive.
"They're moving in the right direction," Viacom general counsel Michael Fricklas said. "I commend them for that."
Google shares fell $17.28, or 2.7%, to $620.11.
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michelle.quinn@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Thomas S. Mulligan contributed to this report.
