YouTube will soon test a new video identification technology with two of the world's largest media companies, Time Warner and Walt Disney. The technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google, will help content owners such as movie and TV studios identify videos uploaded to the site without the copyright owner's permission, legal, according to Youtube representatives.

The so-called video fingerprinting tools, which identify unique attributes in the video clips, will be available for testing in about a month, a YouTube executive said.

These tools will be used to identify copyrighted material, after which media companies can decide if they would like to remove the material or keep it up, as part of a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube, which can sell advertising alongside it.

Once proven to work, the technology could be used to block the uploading of copyrighted clips, YouTube product manager David King said. It aims to make the tools widely available to any copyright owner later this year.