You’d think YouTube servers would be running out of space by now?!

Nope.

Google (GOOG) today announced that they were increasing the size limit of standard YouTube uploads to 15 minutes.  Of course, they are celebrating this milestone with a 15 minutes of fame contest where users tag a video with “yt15minutes” and the best will be displayed on YouTube’s homepage in the coming weeks.

The change wasn’t just about capacity.  Google also was able to strengthen its tools for copyright holders:

Well, we’ve spent significant resources on creating and improving our state-of-the-art Content ID system and many other powerful tools for copyright owners. Now, all of the major U.S. movie studios, music labels and over 1,000 other global partners use Content ID to manage their content on YouTube. Because of the success of these ongoing technological efforts, we are able to increase the upload limit today. We will continue our strong commitment to provide advanced technology and tools to protect the rights of small and large copyright owners worldwide. We’ll also do everything we can to release incremental improvements like this one that benefit our video creators.

The extra time also boosts the quality of experience for Google YouTube Leanback and GoogleTV products coming this Fall.