After taking criticism for its lack of a system to track copyright violations on its site, Facebook has announced a new video content identification program.

The announcement came as Facebook, which began making video a more prominent part of users’ news streams last year, faced increased criticism from copyright holders, among them Culver City multichannel networks Fullscreen and Jukin Media.

While the social network is seeking to take a bite out of YouTube’s dominance of online video, it hadn’t created an efficient way for video copyright owners to request that pirated videos are taken down.

Many prominent content creators cried foul, alleging Facebook was building its video catalog using stolen content. Fullscreen and Jukin were among those that objected particularly loudly, pointing out that many of their videos illegally uploaded to Facebook gained millions of views with no compensation to them.

Fullscreen Chief Executive George Strompolos took to Twitter to air his grievances.

“I love (Facebook) video but (I’m) getting very tired of seeing our videos ripped there with no way to monitor or monetize,” he said in a tweet.

That may now change. Facebook announced in a blog post Thursday that it is testing a more robust video identification and copyright management system with Los Gatos company Audible Magic. Facebook said its new system will allow content owners to “evaluate millions of video uploads quickly and accurately,” so they can more quickly report and request removal of infringing content.

To apparently prove the sincerity of the efforts, Facebook has invited Fullscreen and Jukin Media to participate in the testing. Zefr, a Venice company that has software used on YouTube to scan and identify video content, will help build the new technology as well.

Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.