What's the deal with fuzzy framed YouTube videos?

I’ve come across a lot of videos on YouTube that have a round, fuzzy-like dark filter around the screen. Here’s an example (the pretty good 1940 scifi film* Dr. Cyclops*). Is it some kind of trick to fool their copyrighted material auto-scanner? Or is it just something wrong with my YouTube player config?

I don’t notice anything like you’re describing on the video you linked to.

So either it isn’t there or I’m not understanding what you mean.

Here’s what a random frame looks like for me. (At about 22:11 or so into the video.)

http://www.yearofglad.com/images/frame.jpg

That’s exactly what it is. This is the new fad after flipping the video left-to-right stopped working. It’s a constant cold-war with these guys.

maybe you should get your eyes checked.

That’s weird. I mean, yes, maybe I should. I didn’t notice it on the video (not like I watched much of it) and now see it on the frame. I guess I didn’t pay much attention and I think I also assumed it was just poor quality. Oh well.

Well, what’s the point, then? The movie is pretty much unwatchable like that.

Stickin’ it to The Man, I guess.

Yeah, I was expecting the edges to be darkened or fuzzy, but wow, that’s bad.

Perhaps those in the know can unfuzzy it by some process.