Reuters reports that YouTube.com has implement a maximum length for videos distributed on its video sharing service. Videos longer than than 10 minutes will no longer be allowed. The move is an effort to reduce the amount of copyright infringing videos posted to the site.
San Mateo, California-based YouTube, the Web's top destination for "viral" videos spread via word of mouth, has already been forced by broadcaster NBC to remove clips of the popular "Lazy Sunday" hip-hop spoof, which was originally broadcast on "Saturday Night Live."
Tens of thousands of videos are submitted to YouTube and about 15 million are viewed every day. Many of the videos are amateur footage, but copyrighted TV and movie clips can easily be found.
"We're constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users," YouTube said in a posting on the site. "We did some analysis of the videos in our system over 10 minutes in length, and we found the overwhelming majority of them were full length, copyrighted videos from TV shows and movies."
However, YouTube.com does have a director program which allows longer videos from directors and publishers that own the copyright to the videos.
