YouTube’s New Caste System

YouTube’s eagerly anticipated system for rightsholders to discover and flag unauthorized uploads of their material, “Claim Your Content,” has gotten bit closer to reality.

“It’s entering the testing phase,” YouTube co-founder Steve Chen told BusinessWeek’s Spencer Ante in an extended interview for BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting.

What seems to be happening is YouTube content creators are being divided into camps. Based on how I understand Claim Your Content might work — namely, that it won’t pro-actively screen and block infringing content — it’s doubtful YouTube will ever open up its new revenue-sharing program or “Claim Your Content” to all users, so if your home-produced video goes viral unexpectedly, don’t expect to cash in and defend your turf against copiers.