The much awaited content filtering on YouTube is finally starting to take shape.  Google has finally caved in.  After months and months of hard work, roll-out delays, and assurances from Google that the filter was coming, the search company has apparently released version 1 of… Audible Maigc?  The Mercury News is reporting that Google will being using technology from Audible Magic to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material to it's online video portal.

So wait.  What you're telling me is that, after all the talk about filtering being in the works, they're not even going to use a system they created in-house?  *Sigh*  As TechCrunch points out… the past few months could all have been a ruse.

MySpace recently announced that it, too, would use Audible Magic's technology to filter illegal content off of it's network.  But until recently, YouTube stood firm in it's position of offering content filtering only to those providers with whom it had a business agreement.  Well that's all changed.  Just a couple of days ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the company had made anti-piracy on its video networks a "company priority".

Will YouTube survive without the illegal content?  It's hard to say.  But my gut reaction is that it will… but in a different form.  Some of the user-generated content 'stars' at YouTube have followings.  Those people, and others who will create homemade content, will continue to use YouTube.

But other, unregulated sites will see some of YouTube's traffic.  And I know that's why Google has been so resistant to providing content filtering.  They know they're going to lose traffic. And if they lose traffic, YouTube suddenly becomes a proverbial $1.65 billion paperweight on the master Google desk.

And everyone knows that $1.65 billion is a lot for a paperweight.