News that YouTube would add links to purchase songs used in its videos surfaced in October 2008. Previously I had seen buy links -- to iTunes and Amazon.com MP3 -- below some videos. Yesterday I saw buy links -- along with artist and song info -- appear on a video overlay (as seen in the screen grab above). The overlay appears for about 15 seconds (from the 10-second mark to the 25-second mark).

This YouTube blog post dated January 21st announced the introduction of the on-screen overlays. In my opinion, the overlay is not intrusive and is a huge improvement over the buy buttons located below the video. A more effective buy button should lead to more download sales. (If Amazon.com's one-click purchasing was integrated into these overlays, I'd buy like crazy.)

And, surprisingly, the first overlay I saw was for a song by independent artist Joi Veer that is the background music for highlight compilation for Spanish basketball player Ricky Rubio. (Rubio should be on the radar of any fan of a bad NBA team. Although some people question his quickness, and his outside shot could use improvement, he played well in the '08 Olympics and is likely to go very high in the '09 draft.)

You may be wondering, as I was, how those links would appear on a YouTube page for a random basketball highlight reel. YouTube's Content Identification and Management System (Content ID) compares the audio in uploaded videos to the audio of reference files uploaded by the content owners. If there is a match, the content owner is given three options: monetize, track, or block.

Assuming Content ID works well, it offers a solution to a few of YouTube's problems. Content owners get a technology that offers the ability to either deny or embrace (and monetize) the content's use. YouTube gets a sorely needed new revenue stream.

Does YouTube's copyright robot work well? Hard to say, although the Ricky Rubio/Joi Veer case was a success. Judging from this help forum post, it is not easy to tell which videos will be singled out by Content ID.

Since I knew EMI was the first to add buy links to its YouTube videos, I checked Capitol's page for Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold." Sure enough, the overlay appears on the Katy Perry video. Same for Coldplay's "Lovers In Japan." And The Killers' "Human," which is a Universal Music Group title.