david123

I tend to have brainfarts now and then. Some of them end up as actual projects, some are erased even from my memory...

I read a few posts about the problem of having your videos 'stolen' and put up on tube sites without permission and stuff.

Has anybody considered a 'robot' that could identify a video just by loading it in the browser, and if that video is not authorized to be on that tube site, it alerts the owner of the video (webmaster)?

Here goes nothing:
Have you guys heard of MP3 DNA? (not sure if that's what is actually called, because I can't find the link to the site now...) Essentially, it analyzes an mp3 and creates a DNA of it. A key (like an md5 hash) that is unique to that MP3 file. So if you have an untitled MP3 and want to know what it is, you can either submit it or get it analyzed on your own computer and upload the key, to find out what the title and artist of that MP3 really is. Makes sense? It's like a fingerprint database for the FBI, except they search for fingerprint matches. These guys made it happen for music.

Now music is just data. Just like a video. A video too can be analyzed and such a unique key created for it.

Now imagine that every video you create or buy, that belongs to you and want to protect it, gets its own key. This key resides in a central database. A robot searches the tube sites constantly, analyzing every new video posted. If the new posted video's key matches that of a key in the database, it alerts the owner of that video about the possible 'theft'.

From a technical point of view, the above project is doable.

Now from the webmaster's point of view...
This means that either the owners of the video would have to get their videos analyzed on their own computer, or send the videos in to processing places that have the capacity to analyze the incredible amount of content you guys might want to protect.

Also, does it worth if for you? I mean, what percentage of the community would be willing to take part in something like this? How many of you are willing to spend more money for this protection?

Also note, that this would generate you an alert, nothing more. Of course, an automated letter could go to the tube site, asking them to remove a content, but most likely every alert would have to be first verified by the owner of the content. As for legal action, you should look for a company. I think there is a company dedicated to removing content for you from these tube sites.

The above application could probably help their job too, so such a company is reading this post, perhaps you can think about such a development project.

Also, if something like this actually works, and the community uses it, then tube sites are most likely to become active members and evangelists of this as well, since it will be in their interests to 'play nice' and respond to removing 'stolen' content. Heck, even the tube sites could come together and commission something like this. It would save them face, since then it's not the community who built this and they just conform to it later on, but it would be them proactively taking action. And that means good reputation, and reputation is pretty important not just in this business, but in any business...

Anyways, enough rambling on. What are your thoughts?

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David
video and web 2.0 geek