Launched yesterday Google’s newest tool has nothing to do with maps, search or news alerts.

Instead its latest device is aimed at preventing lawsuits, or to give it a less windy title, it’s the YouTube Video Identification gadget.

Demands made by Viacom earlier this year led to over 100,000 clips being removed from the Google-owned website, because they had been used without permission.

But the new tool will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube, and choose what they want done with it, whether this be removal or licensing.

“Like many of these other policies and tools, Video Identification goes above and beyond our legal responsibilities,” says a post on the Google blog.

If this wasn’t hammering it home enough – the post also lists the series of steps taken by Google to protect copyright, from limiting the length of uploaded content to 10 minutes to blocking accounts of ‘repeat infringers’.

Content owners interested in the video id programme will have to sign-up first to ensure their footage is protected by this tool.

What happens when someone hasn’t signed up – will the implementation of such devices provide sufficient defence against accusations of infringement? or will this tool make no difference if does not actively apply to all YouTube users?

UPDATE:

As if in answer to some of the questions posed above, Viacom have said the new tool won’t have any impact on Viacom’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Google.

Simply put – “The new technology obviously has no bearing on the past and we don’t even know if the technology works yet,” Viacom spokesperson Jeremy Zweig is reported as saying by MediaPost.

Worth a shot though.