• Reuters, Thursday, February 22, 2007 11 AM

Google has responded to the leaked information about its anti-piracy program for YouTube, its video Web site. "We are definitely committed to (offering copyright protection technologies)," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. "It is one of the company's highest priorities."

Of course, the big criticism from media companies has been Google's supposed unwillingness to extend the protection software to non-YouTube partners. "We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago," Schmidt said. "It is going to roll out very soon ... It is not far away."

To date, those tools are only being offered to YouTube's media partners. Assuming this to be a service it wouldn't extend to others, Viacom, which pulled its content from YouTube three weeks ago, is said to be taking legal action against Google.

Indeed, other media firms expressed their displeasure about the slowness with which YouTube has developed a service it's been promising for months. Interestingly, the company began to deploy the technology almost immediately after receiving public criticism from Viacom and others.

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