How YouTube fights copyright infringement
Even though YouTube users are instructed to only upload content that belongs to them and that they have the right to use, copyrighted content is still uploaded thousands of times a day. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), YouTube isn’t responsible for the copyright violations of its users, provided the company removes that content when notified by the rights holders.
Still, thanks to a barrage of lawsuits targeted at the service (including Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube), the company has had to turn to technology to figure out ways to help deal with copyright issues, notifications and takedown requests.
To help counter these lawsuits and better work with rights holders, YouTube created its own content detection system known as Content ID.