Google ups YouTube video limits for selected users

Google has decided it’s time to increase the time limit on YouTube videos again, but the online video service is not increasing them for everyone.

In a post to the YouTube Blog, product manager Joshua Siegel and software engineer Doug Mayle made the announcement. Users are being selected for a limit increase based on them having, “a history of complying with the YouTube Community Guidelines and our copyright rules to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes.”

What the new limit is has not been announced, so we can only assume it’s going to be somewhere in the region of 20-30 minutes .

The last limit increase was made in July this year when Google decided to increase the time allowed by 50% to 15 minutes. Doing the same again this time would take that time to 22.5 minutes, so 25 minutes is the most likely new limit.

Google hasn’t put this latest increase down to bringing new storage or bandwidth online, but instead due to the success of its Content ID system:

This launch has been made possible in part by the continued advances in our state-of-the-art Content ID system, as well as our other powerful tools for copyright owners. Over 1000 global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube, including every major U.S. movie studio and music label. We remain as dedicated as ever to building and improving the most sophisticated technology

in the world to help copyright owners protect their rights.

Read more at the YouTube Blog