The secret of watching videos that have been forbidden by Youtube…

Posted on May 24, 2008
Filed Under User Gen. Content |

logoYou probably remember our discussion about Deletube, the site that used to allow users to watch videos that have been forbidden by Youtube. Nowadays, there DeleTube is down and everyone is trying to find an alternative… and I am sure that you are one of those guys who are impatient to know how to do it…

It’s really simple. There is a site called YouTomb, nice name isn’ it? Whenever a video is deleted by YouTube, they publish it! So next time you write, what a pity I haven’t seen it, check it out… you might find it there…

So what’s the site about? YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation. More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm. Sounds like a really ambitious project.

YouTomb was built by MIT Free Culture, a student organization at MIT. Active Free Culture chapters exist at many schools and universities; they work together to promote open access to knowledge and culture. Here is a list of contributors.

When a user-submitted video is suspected to infringe copyright, the rights holder is contacted and given the option to take down the video in question. In addition, rights holders can submit DMCA takedown notifications at any time that cause YouTube to immediately remove alleged infringing content.

MIT Free Culture became especially interested in the issue after YouTube announced that it would begin using filtering technology to scan users’ video and audio for near-matches with copyrighted material. While automating the takedown process may make enforcement easier, it also means that content falling under fair-use exceptions and even totally innocuous videos may receive some of the collateral damage.

As YouTube is not very transparent with the details surrounding this process and the software used, YouTomb was conceived to shed light on YouTube’s practices, to educate the general public on the relevant copyright issues, and to provide helpful resources to users who have had their videos wrongfully taken down.

Ok, I know. It’s not perfect, but right that’s the best site in its category. I don’t know if this is an amazing startup for you, but to me it definitely has potential… what I personally don’t like is that you can’t (theoretically) download the videos…

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