YouTube Bumps Video Length to 15 Minutes

By Geoff Duncan Published July 30, 2010

Image used with permission by copyright holder

As part of its effort to at least make it at least inconvenient to post unauthorized versions of movies and television shows to its site, YouTube has restricted the maximum length of a single video to 10 minutes. However, the video sharing site now says its Content ID system for identifying and removing illegally uploaded videos is working pretty well…so its raising the maximum length for a YouTube video from 10 to 15 minutes.

“We’ve spent significant resources on creating and improving our state-of-the-art Content ID system and many other powerful tools for copyright owners,” wrote YouTube product manager Joshua Siegel, in the site’s blog. “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. Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today.”

Recommended Videos

Users who previously had a video rejected for being too long will have to delete it from their account before uploading again.

Members of YouTube’s Partner program have already been able to upload videos longer than the original 10-minute limit, and YouTube has occasionally featured long-form videos and content by special arrangement. The increased time limit—Siegel indicates it’s the most-requested improvement to YouTube—reflects changes in the online video landscape: when YouTube was founded, broadband was less common and few people had the patience to watch more than a few minutes of video online. However, the success of streaming video services and YouTube itself have fueled a demand for longer-form online videos…even if, we’re sure, much of them will be adoring videos of cats and babies.

Former Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Topics

Computing

AI is finding Apple security flaws faster than Apple can sort through them

Apple has limited how many bug reports researchers can keep open as AI tools produce both genuine Mac vulnerabilities and a flood of questionable submissions

Lighting, Architecture, Building

Apple has capped the number of security reports researchers can keep open at once after AI bug hunting put its review process under pressure, according to the Financial Times.

Some submissions describe hallucinated or purely theoretical risks. Others uncover vulnerabilities serious enough to require patches. Bynario told the FT that it found more than 50 possible macOS flaws in three weeks, including a privilege-escalation chain that could give an attacker full control of a Mac.

Computing

Anthropic is paying $1.5 billion over pirated books, but it can still legally cut up purchased ones

The settlement addressed unauthorized ebook downloads, not the destructive scanning of lawfully bought physical copies, a distinction now alarming booksellers

Book, Publication, Indoors

A federal judge has approved Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement over nearly half a million pirated books. The same litigation also protected a more physical method of feeding its AI systems. Anthropic bought print books, removed their bindings, scanned every page and destroyed the originals.

The legal divide came down to acquisition. The settlement covers books downloaded from LibGen and PiLiMi, while the court treated Anthropic’s one-for-one conversion of purchased books into private digital files as fair use. Training AI models on lawfully acquired material was also considered transformative.

Computing

Google Earth’s AI misadventure lasted only a day. It was a tale of dangerous ignorance.

Nuclear reactors, tanks, and historical destruction on a life-like satellite map? Yeah, that's bad.

Nano Banana AI image generator representation.

Technology behemoths are clearly not reading the room, or they are just moving faster than they should when it comes to AI deployment. Google has already stuffed its Gemini AI in every corner of its software stack, from Android to daily productivity tools like Gmail that are used by hundreds of millions of users every day. AI is everywhere. Not all of it is bad, mind you. But in a few places, it just feels forced.

In its latest AI-fication experiment, the company targeted Google Earth. The idea was to let the audience use its Nano Banana 2 AI image generator and make images that can be placed on the map view. On paper, it's a cool idea. What would the Colosseum of Rome look like in your urban neighborhood? Yeah, fun stuff like that.