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YouTube, looking to make room for the 24 hours-plus of video uploaded to its Website every minute, has boosted its upload limit to 15 minutes from 10 minutes.
In extending the minute limit for user-generated broadcasts, the Google-owned concern is meeting the No. 1 request of its amateur video makers.
Many of these self-made auteurs are looking to make a career of video production, and they like to use YouTube as their main utility to bare their wares to the public to let them comment and vote on their content. The more time erstwhile producers have to play with, the more adventurous they may be with their videos.
YouTube attributed the minute increase, which could be followed by additional time limit increases in the future, to improvements in its Content ID system and other software that protects copyrights for videos uploaded to the Website.
“Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube,” wrote Joshua Siegel, product manager of upload and video management, in a blog post July 29.
“Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today.”
Google and YouTube in June scored a coup in court over Viacom, which sued the companies for gross, deliberate copyright infringement going back to March 2007.
U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton ruled that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. Viacom is appealing the ruling with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The court victory and technological improvements make YouTube a safer haven for producers to offer their content because they won’t have to fear the Website being shut down.
YouTube is now urging video makers to celebrate the 15-minute upload time by making a video of their “15 minutes of fame.” YouTube clearly intends this as an audition utility, or at least a major self-promotional tool.
“Imagine that this video is all the world will ever know about you: What would you want to communicate? What will be the enduring stamp you’ve left on us all?” Siegel said.
Users must tag their video “yt15minutes” and upload it by Wednesday, Aug. 4. YouTube will pick a handful of videos to feature on the YouTube homepage.
Also, users uploading a video that was previously rejected for being too long must delete it from “My Videos” before uploading it again.