(28 July 2007 5:06 pm)

MUMBAI: Google's video sharing site YouTube will launch a system in September designed to prevent copyrighted material from going up on the site, said an official statement.

The search engine giant plans to generate a library of digital video fingerprints that would be used by a computer system to screen clips being uploaded to YouTube. The screening process would take only a few minutes to determine whether a clip is copyrighted or not.

This is the first time that Google has set a firm launch date for a filtering-system roll out.

"We hope to have the testing completed and technology available by sometime in the Fall," said a Google spokesman. "But this is one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken, and as always with cutting-edge technologies, it is difficult to forecast specific launch dates."

Google currently faces several lawsuits related to the copyrighted videos hosted on YouTube by its users. These lawsuits have been filed by companies including Viacom, The Football Association Premier League Ltd. and Bourne Co.