【英文原文】
Top China Video Site Steps Up Its Piracy Fight
China's most popular online video site, Youku.com Inc., is trying to shed its reputation for abetting piracy by taking a page from YouTube's playbook: using technology to 'fingerprint' videos, making it easier to find unlicensed copies.
The Beijing-based company, which has been sued over pirated videos, has developed a content-filtering system that generates identifying codes based on characteristics like color combinations and brightness. The company is using the system to help step up its removal of unlicensed content and says the technology will allow copyright owners to search Youku's database for unlicensed copies.
Youku has already started using the fingerprinting technology to find and remove content prohibited by Chinese government censors, a process that was previously done mainly by workers scanning video clips. Chinese authorities require Web sites operating in the country to remove certain content, including pornography and politically sensitive topics, and authorities can shutter any sites that don't comply.
Youku's move to crack down on pirated content comes years after Google Inc.'s YouTube underwent similar reforms in 2007 after facing legal challenges from copyright owners over clips posted to the site without permission. Change has been much slower in China; until recently, unlicensed copies of popular television shows would appear on Youku and other Chinese video Web sites like Tudou.com with Chinese subtitles within a day of airing in the U.S.
Copies of full-length movies have also been found on the Chinese sites within days of the release of their DVDs, and sometimes even earlier. Youku Chief Technology Officer Yao Jian said the company had to remove uploads of Columbia Pictures' '2012,' which was a box-office hit in China last year, while it was still in theaters.
Youku gets more than 15 million unique visitors a day, or almost four million more than its main Chinese competitor, Tudou, according to iResearch. Youku, which made 200 million yuan ($29.3 million) in revenue last year, gets the bulk of its revenue from advertisements.
Youku is betting the new fingerprint system will help it improve its reputation among advertisers who don't want to be associated with piracy. That association can be risky. Last year, an antipiracy group of Chinese Internet companies filed a number of lawsuits against Youku in Chinese courts, including one that alleged that a Coca-Cola Co. ad had run on Youku accompanying a clip from a Chinese TV show that Youku hadn't licensed.
Youku's lawyers argued there were no legal grounds by which advertisers could be held legally responsible for controversial distribution, and a Beijing court dismissed the allegations against Coca-Cola. The other cases haven't been fully resolved yet.
Mr. Yao led a team of engineers to create the fingerprinting system and the software, which cost roughly $146,000 to develop. Youku says it will distribute copies of the software to the Motion Picture Association and approved rights owners. Content owners can use the software to generate fingerprintsfor copyright material, then search Youku's database for other videos that are at least a 20% match. Youku employees will review any videos in question and remove them if they are verified to be illegal copies. The MPA referred questions to the group's officials in Asia, who weren't available to comment.
Though Youku, Tudou and other Chinese video sites say they have employed antipiracy measures before, users say Youku's latest crackdown is making a more noticeable difference since it started about three months ago.
'I watched Friends, Gossip Girls, the Big Bang Theory and Boston Legal on Youku,' said Fiona Zhi, a 24-year-old Youku user in Beijing. 'Nowadays, it's hard to find the American TV dramas I want.'
Mr. Yao says the loss of some traffic is inevitable, but he doesn't expect the move to have a major impact on growth. Unlicensed content from overseas 'actually made up a very small percentage of our content....U.S. television shows and movies make up only about 5% to 6%,' he says. About 70% of Youku's content is licensed from broadcasters and other partners, and the remainder is generated by users or produced by Youku itself.
Youku says viewership of pirated American content is also small because many of its users outside of big cities like Beijing are more interested in Chinese-language content.
Tudou says it uses similar technology to help rights owners find infringing videos.
The fingerprinting technology is also being used to help Youku employees filter out content banned by the Chinese government. But dealing with copyright issues can be more complicated than censorship. Anyone can start a user account, and it is often unclear whether an account holder has the rights to publish a specific video. Youku says it also takes measures to protect users by verifying all removal requests from parties who claim to be rights owners.
【中文译文】
优酷网打击盗版视频迈出新一步
中国最受欢迎的在线视频网站优酷网(Youku.com Inc.)正试图通过借鉴YouTube的经验来摆脱助长盗版的恶名：利用技术为视频设定“指纹”，使发现盗版拷贝变得更加容易。
位于北京的优酷网曾因盗版视频受到过指控。该公司现已开发出一个内容过滤系统，可以根据颜色组合和亮度等特性生成识别代码。公司目前正利用该系统帮助加强盗版内容的去除，并表示这项技术使版权所有者可以在优酷网的数据库中进行搜索以便发现盗版拷贝。
优酷网已经开始使用指纹技术发现并去除中国政府审查机构禁止的内容，此前这一过程主要是由人工浏览视频片段实现的。中国有关部门要求在华运营的网站必须去除包括色情和政治敏感性话题在内的某些内容，有关部门还可以关闭任何违规网站。
在优酷网打击盗版内容的行动出台前数年，版权所有者曾指控谷歌(Google Inc.)旗下的YouTube未获得同意就在网站上发布视频片段，YouTube随后在2007年进行了类似的改革。中国的变化则要缓慢的多；直到最近之前，热播美国电视节目的盗版拷贝会在美国播出后一天之内就出现在优酷网和土豆网(Tudou.com)等中国视频网站上，并配有中文字幕。
在电影DVD上市后几天之内甚至更早，就可以在中国网站上找到完整的电影拷贝。优酷网首席技术长姚键说，该公司不得不在哥伦比亚电影公司(Columbia Pictures)出品的《2012》仍在影院上映期间，移除上传的该片拷贝。《2012》去年在中国是票房大片。
据艾瑞咨询集团(iResearch)的数据，优酷网每天的独立访问量(unique visitor)超过1,500万，较主要中国竞争对手土豆网高出近400万。优酷网去年实现收入人民币2亿元（合2,930万美元）。该公司大部分收入来源于广告收入。
优酷网希望新的指纹系统能够帮助公司提高在广告客户中的声誉，这些广告客户不希望与盗版有牵连。这样的牵连可能风险很高。去年，一个由中国互联网公司组成的反盗版组织向中国法院对优酷网提起了数起诉讼，其中一起诉讼指控可口可乐(Coca-Cola Co.)的一则广告在优酷网上播出时伴有优酷网没有授权的中国电视节目的片段。
优酷网的律师辩称，广告客户对富有争议的页面布置负有法律责任，这是没有法律依据的。北京一法院驳回了针对可口可乐的指控。其他案件尚未完全解决。
姚键带领一个工程师小组开发了指纹系统和软件，开发成本约为14.6万美元。优酷网说，公司将向美国电影协会(Motion Picture Association)和获准的版权所有者发放软件拷贝。内容所有者可以利用这个软件为受版权保护的内容生成指纹，然后在优酷网的数据库中搜索其他视频，与设有指纹的视频有至少20%相符的视频就可以被找到。优酷网员工会对任何可疑视频进行检查，被证实为非法拷贝的视频将被移除。美国电影协会把记者提出的问题转给了该组织在亚洲的官员，不过后者暂时无法发表置评。
尽管优酷网、土豆网等中国视频网站说，它们以前也曾采取过反盗版措施，用户却说，自大约三个月前优酷网启动了最新的打击盗版行动以来，带来的变化却是更加明显的。
北京一名24岁的优酷网用户Fiona Zhi说，我过去在优酷网上看《老友记》(Friends)、《绯闻女孩》(Gossip Girls)、《生活大爆炸》(Big Bang Theory)和《波士顿法律》(Boston Legal)；现在，很难找到我想看的美国电视剧了。
姚键说，损失一些流量是不可避免的，不过他预计打击盗版行动不会对业务增长带来重大影响。他说，海外盗版内容实际上只占我们内容的很小一部分，美国电视节目和电影只占约5%到6%。约有70%的优酷网内容获得了广播公司等合作伙伴的授权，剩余的是由用户生成的，或是由优酷网自己制作的。
优酷网说，由于北京等大城市之外的很多用户对中文内容更感兴趣，盗版美国内容的浏览量也很小。
土豆网说，该公司利用类似的技术来帮助版权所有者发现盗版视频。
指纹技术还被用来帮助优酷网员工过滤中国政府禁止的内容。不过应对版权问题可能比应对审查更加复杂。任何人都可以开个用户帐户，常常不清楚帐户持有者是否有权发布某个特定的视频。优酷网说，该公司通过对自称版权所有者的各方提出的内容去除请求逐一进行核实，进而采取措施保护用户。 |
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