YouTomb: the cemetary for videos removed from YouTube

15:20 Wed 21 May 2008

Where do evil YouTube videos go when they've been removed for copyright infringement? Say hello to YouTomb. Set up by a group of MIT students, the site compiles information on clips deleted from YouTube, although they are not available for viewing.

YouTube has been recently criticised for removing a number of satirical music videos due to copyright claims. The site has also introduced a filtering service that identifies possible violations of copyright giving the rights holder the chance to decide if they want the clip to be removed.

YouTomb provides a screenshot of each of the deleted videos, details about who posted the clip, viewing statistics and when and by whom the video was removed, e.g. the user, the copyright holder or a third party..

Launched around two months ago, YouTomb is currently monitoring only the most popular videos deleted from YouTube but they are hoping to widen their scope by providing bloggers with code to use when embedding videos. This would allow the user to have an explanation for why the video was removed instead of just an error message.