Continuing the controversy over just what is and isn't legally allowed to appear on YouTube, the BBC carried a story today describing Google's new attempt to make sure that copyrighted materials are kept off.

If this solution finally works, it'll be much to the relief of Google, which has been struggling recently with the inherent problem YouTube offers: It's incredibly difficult to keep track of what's on there. Of course, if a video is posted that violates a copyright, it's promptly removed. However, that same video might just be posted again tomorrow, in a slightly different format, or under a different name, or by a different person -- or by five other people, or by 50. It's hard to police a site like that.

But, of course, Google has no choice but to continue to police this site. Not to do so is to leave itself open to many potentially disastrous lawsuits. The company's famously deep pockets help make it an even bigger target for such lawsuits. (In fact, the company is currently in the middle of a "billion-dollar legal battle" with Viacom over the spread of copyrighted material.)

So in Google's eyes, it's a problem that desperately needs to be solved. In an attempt to do just that, Google has launched a new tool called "Video Identification", which will "require the cooperation of copyright holders who must provide YouTube with copies of material in order for the firm to compare the files with videos on the site."

The tool will also "give copyright owners the chance to leave their video on the service and to sell advertising around the content."

The question is: Will it work? Either way, it's obvious that Google is taking this matter seriously. As time goes on, we'll continue to cover this story right here.

In the meantime, you can read the original article ("YouTube rolls out filtering tools") here.