The fingerprinting technology Google will deploy to stop copyrighted works from hitting YouTube works best when Google has a copy of the work in question first.

As part of the Google Analyst Day, CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin took part in a question and answer session. Barron’s said that Brin, seated between Schmidt and outgoing CFO George Reyes, looked like “a guy in custody, sitting between his two lawyers.” The t-shirted Brin could easily make bail, one would think, as he’s worth roughly $17 billion.

This was no booking session, but a question and answer session instead. Among the topics came the discussion of YouTube and the fingerprinting technology to be used to catch uploaded material that violates copyrights:

Schmidt: On fingerprinting, we have a problem in the world that people are taking unauthorized copies of content and uploading them. In looking at solutions, the only one that looks to work is where we have copy of correct product; when illegal copy comes over, we throw it out. My feeling is that this is a permanent requirement going forward. We did fingerprinting thing because it was the right thing to do.

That solution works well for Google, but content providers, like the big Hollywood studios, may need some convincing. As with traditional fingerprints, Google would need a copy of every potential work that could be infringed, including ones that have not been released yet to catch people uploading pre-release content.

There would be a fun job for the budding Tarantinos out there, joining Google’s content fingerprinting division and having an early look at all of Hollywood’s output, including the big budget summer releases, before anyone else.