Attributor to track viral content

Digital fingerprinting is attracting an increasing number of companies’ time and money, as we wrote this morning. Attributor is the latest startup to join the space, launching today with a WSJ writeup.

We haven’t seen proof that anyone has fingerprinting working at scale, and the pre-launch Attributor certainly doesn’t offer that. Attributor CEO Jim Brock was circumspect in a call today, not willing to elaborate on his company’s technology, business model, or timeline. All he would say as to the feasibility of fingerprinting is it’s “working well in beta.”

Brock emphasized that the company hopes to not just combat piracy, but also to “create opportunities for content used in context.” That’s across text, images, and video, for any size publisher.

When we asked if fingerprinting could lead to the phasing out of digital rights management, Brock replied, “We didn’t start the company to necessarily compete with DRM—that’s always going to have its place.”

“There will always be situations where you try to contain the content,” he continued. “But particularly when you have content that’s ad-supported or could be sold through subscription service, we think there’s an opportunity to use transparency and visibility about where the content ends up.”

Attributor has raised $10 million from Sigma Partners, Selby Venture Partners, Draper Richards, First Round Capital, and Amicus Capital.