Solution to finding your content on tube sites

[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?

[Varzi Network]

There was a company doing this fingerprint stuff with images before anyone else had even imagined it was possible. You would be suprised at some of the services at the disposal of companies like Playboy and Perfect 10 who have deep pockets.

Google also uses this technology on Youtube Google's video fingerprinting tech used to fight child porn

[apcwebmaster]

It's a great idea but wouldn't the fingerprint get lost once the video is converted to whatever format the tube site uses? unless it was a visible fingerprint then the bot could recognise it like the characters in a captcha

[Georgie]

As Varzi points out this technology exists, to one degree or another, and it's not cheap. Only the very largest tube sites would even bother to support it, because they'd be bigger targets for lawsuits (like YouTube became when Google bought them). The DMCA basically gives these guys a free ride.

Technically it's easier to parse and sample the audio track than video. Lots less data to keep track of, and people don't "crop out" the audio like they do a logo on a video. There are some patents for this already. The big movie studios can probably afford to license them. I know I can't.

The big player in this area is Digimarc.

As for companies dedicated to removing content from tubes and other sites, yes there are several of these. Do a Google search and you should turn up a few - removeyourcontent dot com is a start. At least one I'm familiar with is operated by a lawyer.

[Varzi Network]

Originally Posted by apcwebmaster

It's a great idea but wouldn't the fingerprint get lost once the video is converted to whatever format the tube site uses? unless it was a visible fingerprint then the bot could recognise it like the characters in a captcha

Even if you used a video camera to tape a movie in the movie theater there is a digital fingerprint embedded. You cannot see this fingerprint which is hidden from the eye but it can be tracked. It matters not how you encode it because its embedded into the picture like a transparent watermark. The technology some big like George Lucas Films use is even more cutting edge then much bigger names like Warner Brothers.

"The clip — drained of color, with dialogue dubbed in Chinese — appeared to have been recorded with a camcorder in a dark movie theater before it was uploaded to the Web, so the image quality was poor.

Still, Mr. Ikezoye’s filtering software quickly identified it as the sword-training scene that begins 49 minutes and 37 seconds into the Miramax film “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/te...3E&oref=slogin

"Fingerprints are used to enforce content copyright by enabling the copyright owner to trace back the source of a piracy act. An example would be that all users are given different copies of the content, such as now via a hard drive sent to the theater, where each copy contains a fingerprint—a user-specific watermark. If an unauthorized client redistributes the fingerprinted content, its uniqueness is used to trace back to the offending exhibitor."

Star Wars in Digital

[apcwebmaster]

woah that is just genius, big brother is watching

[Comrade]

there's also this: Remove Your Content

would love to hear if anyone here is using them... they've got a customer listing on the side but not sure if that includes everyone

[Georgie]

Originally Posted by Varzi Network

The technology some big like George Lucas Films use is even more cutting edge then much bigger names like Warner Brothers.

Actually most any 35mm film duplicated at Technicolor (and probably Deluxe by now) has or can have a watermark embedded in it. The mark, which appears as a "random" sprinkling of colored dots, flashes on the screen very quickly. It's really a barcode that uniquely identifies that print. I don't know how it's made, but my guess it's a precision waterjet - could also be a laser, as they also use these to subtitle movie prints.

Like fingerprinting done in digital cinema the watermark is designed to identify the theater. As noted in the article, the idea is that theater owners will be more proactive in thwarting piracy if a video that winds up on the Internet came from their establishment. Theatres detest the notion. The reality, is however, is that most pirated first-run films originate well before they are released in theaters. The vast bulk are inside jobs.

The digital cinema standard has the ability to embed optical but virtually unnoticeable watermarks throughout a movie. It's basically free, as in no licensing, but it costs to have someone hand-insert the marks at suitable places. The watermarking on the Star Wars films would have been with a previous generation of digital projectors, and before everyone agreed on the standard that is in use today. Things have progressed a lot since then.

[david123]

Wow! Excellent replies.

So why doesn't somebody in California get in touch with Audible Magic and find out about licensing options. If they are a normal business, I am sure they would be interested in licensing their technology to another single business who could be 'the' copyright enforcer for the porn industry. Money is always important to any business, and everybody knows that the porn industry means money.

as for developing your own software for this and worry about patents. all you need to do first, is pay a patent office to do a worldwide search on patents related to this. if patents exist only in the US, then I believe you can patent in the EU or somewhere else without problems.

Expensive? It probably is. But all it takes, is a single company to start investing in this, then offering their services to the webmasters. That company could make a nice profit if they do things right. In the article mentioned by Varzi, it states that 13 companies are developing such applications, so there could be cheaper solutions already available.

I might be wrong, but after reading more on this on the net, I think that eventually such video analyzing services will be made available to the public. Most likely not now, but 1-2 years from now. Right now the big guys are gonna start using it (Myspace, Youtube, movie studios), but eventually there will be companies popping up, offering services that will enable you to upload your video and get it's 'video dna' file created for a fee.

So let's say this service becomes available tomorrow. That's nice.
But what about a company, dedicated to the videos on porn tube sites?
You see, it's one thing that Youtube is gonna use this technology, since they got the videos they need to analyze. But you can only analyze something, that you have something to compare to. So it's one thing YOU uploading a snippet from a tv show to Youtube, but Youtube has to have that 'video dna' file for that TV show in order identify it as a copyrighted material.

So it's a matter of either Google going out and analyzing ALL video content in the world (or the tv stations at least ), or it's done proactively by the tv stations themselves. they submit their videos to google for analyzing and 'video dna' file creation, because they want to protect their content.

Now, do you think that Google in this case would allow porn videos to be submitted like this? I am not sure.

Do you think that porn tube sites will invest in licensing this technology to protect themselves? I don't think so?

So it is upto a third party company, to generate these 'video dna' files for adult contents, AND to search the porn tube sites, analyze their videos and find copyrighted material. This is the service that will have to be created for the porn industry then.

Money. Not sure how much licensing technology would be, but if it's something realistic, then it should be nothing more, than a software that you pay royalties after each file analyzed. You can easily push this cost onto the webmaster submitting their original contents. It will boil down to cost vs. loss due to tube sites for a single video, for the webmaster. If it's worth like 10-20 bucks (no idea, just throwing out numbers) for a webmaster to not a video of theirs on tube sites, then they will do it and this service/company will work.

In my mind, the above scenario is almost inevitable, just a matter of time.... and who will take initiative.