Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Friday, June 8, 2007 at 12:00 AM PT

 

Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report

Audio and visual fingerprinting of copyrighted video is seen as the best way to combat infringement, but in NewTeeVee’s testing this week across multiple sites, it did not work. We were surprised to be able to upload multiple times the exact same copyrighted file, even after we explicitly told the hosting site and the fingerprinting provider about it and they took it down.

What follows is a description of our procedure, accompanied by the vehement disclaimer that we were doing this only for educational purposes.

Microsoft recently took its Soapbox user-contributed video site out of the public eye until it could implement filtering technology from Audible Magic. Last Friday, it relaunched, supposedly armed and ready to fend off copyrighted content. So we asked our intrepid reporter Craig Rubens to test how the system worked by uploading a Daily Show clip.

Surprise, surprise, the clip went up like a charm (screenshot). We called Microsoft to ask what was going on. You should talk to Audible Magic, they said; our system is only as good as their index. We called Audible Magic, who essentially blamed Microsoft, for only implementing the audio version of its software. The reps then set off to nail down statements from their companies, a process that took most of the week.

Only sometime last night did the clip finally get taken off Soapbox, replaced with a copyright violation notice. To see if the system had been corrected we uploaded it again today, and again it appeared about 40 minutes later. At this point, if all went as it was supposed to, the video should have been automatically added to the index of banned clips, and then rejected when we uploaded a duplicate. But again, we had no problem.

dailyshowsoapbox.jpg

Concerns about whether digital fingerprinting is ready for action have persisted, and market leader YouTube has hesitated to deploy its “Claim Your Content” system while it is being perfected. However, confidence in fingerprinting has moved past the optimism stage. “This technology works,” says MPAA Vice-President Dean Garfield, as reported by BusinessWeek.

Audible Magic has bagged most every high profile deal in video filtering: MySpace, Dailymotion, Break.com, and GoFish/Bolt.

The Audible Magic representative insinuated the company’s technology was deployed in fuller form on MySpace — which recently launched its “Take Down Stay Down” and filtering system using AM’s system — so we also tried uploading the clip there. Interestingly, that also posed no problem. See it in action here.

dailyshowmyspace.jpg

Below is Craig’s description of the procedure he used to upload his clip to Soapbox. He says after about 50 minutes of “processing” the video went live and was playable. The MySpace experiment was even quicker, taking about five minutes.

  1. Search for “Daily Show” on YouTube
  2. Select first clip of actual Daily Show with Jon Stewart content and download it via KeepVid.com (selected video)
  3. Convert the video to a Soapbox approved format (shockingly, Microsoft doesn’t like .flv)
  4. Upload Daily Show clip to Soapbox
  5. Allow time for Soapbox to process, convert, and (supposedly) scan for copyrighted material.

Here are the official statements Microsoft and Audible Magic sent yesterday after days of deliberation and phone calls about the issue.

“We are continuing to work with Audible Magic to fine tune our implementation of their proactive automatic filtering services to best meet the needs of our content partners. The fact that a clip of any unauthorized copyright material slipped through is unfortunate, but that’s why we also provide rich notice and takedown tools to content owners to automate and expedite the process of identifying and removing unauthorized content. We are committed to working in partnership with the industry to continue to evolve our technologies and solutions for customers and partners.” — Rob Bennett, general manager for Entertainment and Video Services at MSN
“Audible Magic’s technology has the ability to identify content such as ‘The Daily Show’ clip in question. We are working closely with Microsoft to customize our solution in order to meet the business needs of their Soapbox service.” — Vance Ikezoye, founder and CEO of Audible Magic

Though all these systems, as advertised, depend largely on identifying content once in order to block it future times, we made no bones about identifying our uploads as Daily Show clips. We also had no problem uploading the exact same file after we had informed the proper people about it and they had taken it down.

Of all the videos on the web, Comedy Central clips are a huge bone of contention, figuring into Viacom’s pending $1 billion-plus lawsuit against YouTube and its parent Google. Funnily enough, the original Daily Show video is still live on YouTube.

Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the feed

Sphere
Topic: Software
« Previous Post Next Post »

Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] Written by Om Malik Friday, June 8, 2007 at 12:06 AM PT | No comments Audio and visual fingerprinting of copyrighted video is seen as the best way to combat infringement, but in NewTeeVee’s testing this week across multiple sites, it did not work. We were surprised to be able to upload multiple times the exact same copyrighted file, even after we explicitly told the hosting site and the fingerprinting provider about it and they took it down. Continue Reading. [...]

    GigaOM Digital fingerprints, more like smudges « on June 8th, 2007 at 12:06 am - Permalink

  2. Ohm, while you’re right they should be able to add the rejected video to their database to prevent repeated upload the reason they probably don’t is because they don’t own the rights to the video and the fingerprint is a derivative work of the original movie/tv show. Ironic, huh?

    knowledable user on June 8th, 2007 at 12:41 am - Permalink

  3. Great post guys. Fingerprinting field is still problematic. The key here is not only the technology, but also relations with content owners that will supply the sample for the fingerprint itself.

    Kfir Pravda on June 8th, 2007 at 5:52 am - Permalink

  4. [...] Already Have Too Many – totally agree, but give a good one which is not VLC player and I am happy. NewTeeVee » Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report – it seems that not really… Help Izzy to make his wife happy – I watch his show, so I should [...]

    Weekend Links - Porn, Zombies, Players and Big Brothers « Media,Technology,and Rebel Filmmaking on June 8th, 2007 at 6:07 am - Permalink

  5. [...] NewTeeVee has an investigation into how effective digital fingerprinting is in solving this problem. Apparently not very. [...]

    TubeWire » DRM Not Ready for Primetime? on June 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am - Permalink

  6. [...] Source:Valleywag Fancy fingerprinting technologies are supposed to inhibit the spread of pirated clips, and save video sharing sites from copyright suits. Only problem: they don’t work. [New Tee Vee] [...]

    Microsoft:  »Technology News | Venture Capital, Startups, Silicon Valley, Web 2.0 Tech on June 8th, 2007 at 11:02 am - Permalink

  7. Can there ever be a technological solution to this problem? My unsolicited advice to Comedy Central: make all the clips available in higher quality, with better metadata, better descriptions, and optimized for search engines (so that it comes up in Google before the YouTube results) — in as many outlets as possible, as soon as possible (like, as soon as it airs) with non-intrusive, relevant sponsorships along for the ride. It’ll take a while to get that in place, but in the long term, you’ll kill the destinations with lesser copies available everywhere else. We /want/ to go to the source — you just don’t make it possible. Once you do, Daily Show fans like me will love you and the show even more.

    Tim Shey on June 8th, 2007 at 11:03 am - Permalink

  8. [...] Source:Valleywag Fancy fingerprinting technologies are supposed to inhibit the spread of pirated clips, and save video sharing sites from copyright suits. Only problem: they don’t work. [New Tee Vee] [...]

    Piracy: Google gets a taste of its own medicine  »Technology News | Venture Capital, Startups, Silicon Valley, Web 2.0 Tech on June 8th, 2007 at 11:03 am - Permalink

  9. [...] Source:Valleywag Fancy fingerprinting technologies are supposed to inhibit the spread of pirated clips, and save video sharing sites from copyright suits. Only problem: they don’t work. [New Tee Vee] [...]

    Gotcha:  »Technology News | Venture Capital, Startups, Silicon Valley, Web 2.0 Tech on June 8th, 2007 at 11:41 am - Permalink

  10. Mashable reports that YouTube also has installed Audible Magic. How come you did not upload to YouTube?

    bdc on June 8th, 2007 at 11:43 am - Permalink

  11. bdc, regardless of whether that is actually deployed yet (which I don’t think it is), we downloaded the original video from YouTube.

    Liz Gannes on June 8th, 2007 at 12:01 pm - Permalink

  12. Liz,

    Ok then Mashable is getting their info wrong..
    “Other companies using Audible Magic include YouTube, Daily Motion, EyeSpot and Grouper”

    I think a great test would be for someone to choose a
    couple of copyright files such as a music video and another copyright clip type and upload to ALL services.Then do a side by side test.

    That would be really interesting!

    bdc on June 8th, 2007 at 12:16 pm - Permalink

  13. Shameless plug for Amazons mechanical turk here …

    Artificial Intelligence really doesn’t work . This small experiment proves it. Why not use artificial artificial intelligence – Aka Mechanical Turk – http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

    MechTurk on June 8th, 2007 at 2:52 pm - Permalink

  14. [...] Brutta sorpresa il Fingerprinting di AudibleMagic non funziona! Test fatti da NewTeeVee su Microsoft Soapbox e MySpace (entrambe usano AudibleMagic per prevenire video pirata) hanno rivelato che la tecnologia di Fingerprinting funziona parecchio male. Forse è per questo che Google non l’ha voluta? (tags: Fingerprinting audiblemagic piracy video soapbox myspace google youtube) [...]

    News On NetTV - Saturday 9 June | tommaso.tessarolo on June 8th, 2007 at 8:26 pm - Permalink

  15. [...] been promted by the title “Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report” and the report I thought I had to add my 10cents to this I see all secuirty as been flawed [...]

    Laurence1987 » Blog Archive » Does Digital Fingerprinting Work? on June 9th, 2007 at 7:01 am - Permalink

  16. [...] read more | digg story Posted in news. [...]

    Ink Rambles From Across The Net Digital Fingerprinting - Illegal Uploads Don’t Get Filtered SURPRISE! « on June 9th, 2007 at 7:53 am - Permalink

  17. [...] blog NewTeeVee riporta il resoconto di un test del sistema di identificazione dei video utilizzato da Soapbox (Microsoft) per evitare [...]

    Video Monte Ceneri » I sistemi d'identificazione dei video funzionano? on June 9th, 2007 at 11:41 am - Permalink

  18. [...] Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report Audio and visual fingerprinting of copyrighted video is seen as the best way to combat infringement, but in […] [...]

    Top Posts « WordPress.com on June 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm - Permalink

  19. [...] Get the whole scoop here… [...]

    Digital Fingerprinting - Illegal Uploads Don’t Get Filtered SURPRISE! « Veronica’s Lore on June 9th, 2007 at 11:19 pm - Permalink

  20. Why don’t they just get their own channels on YouTube and the like? All this is going to accomplish is videos that are flipped, squeezed, color altered to get around the filters.

    Whammo on June 10th, 2007 at 12:01 am - Permalink

  21. To combat piracy they must work with users to truly give them what they want

    Live tv on June 10th, 2007 at 2:05 am - Permalink

  22. [...] Does Digital Fingerprinting Work? – NewTeeVee Audio and visual fingerprinting of copyrighted video is seen as the best way to combat infringement, but in NewTeeVee’s testing this week across multiple sites, it did not work. We were surprised to be able to upload multiple times the exact same copyrighted file, even after we explicitly told the hosting site and the fingerprinting provider about it and they took it down. [...]

    Trip Hop Clan » Blog Archive » Digital Fingerprinting is doesn’t work as advertised on June 10th, 2007 at 10:50 am - Permalink

  23. I agree I think they should just syndicate videos with their ads onto youtube. win win for youtube and for the content owners

    Motorcycle Guy on June 11th, 2007 at 4:08 am - Permalink

  24. [...] third-party provider of video fingerprinting, Audible Magic, had not done particularly well in NewTeeVee’s testing of it on various sites last week. YouTube uses Audible Magic’s more established audio recognition [...]

    NewTeeVee YouTube a Month Away from Video Fingerprinting Tests « on June 12th, 2007 at 12:08 am - Permalink

  25. [...] video fingerprinting solution from Audible Magic. Audible Magic’s solution previously botched an independent test by Liz Gannes, even though MySpace chose to deploy it anyway. Fortunately for Audible Magic, YouTube still uses [...]

    YouTube to Test Video Fingerprinting Solution by Google on June 12th, 2007 at 10:07 am - Permalink

  26. [...] are hoped to be the filtering solution to online uploading of content. Naturally there are folks jumping right on the most recent test to prove it isn’t all [...]

    » Time Flies! on June 12th, 2007 at 3:39 pm - Permalink

  27. There must be a silent agreement with Audible Magic and all those companies, where they know it doesn’t work yet but it’ll get worked out while it’s implemented. The development is still being done and it’ll get worked out on-site.

    They would’ve done their own testing like this, so it’s not like it’s a big suprise to all concerned. Maybe Google not going with the hype is the only company indicating the truth; i.e., it ain’t working, yet.

    scooby on June 14th, 2007 at 8:48 am - Permalink

  28. [...] are some posts on the subject here and here and I can understand why this is required.  However the technology is not yet up to [...]

    and the Point is?: Soapbox thinks my videos infringe copyright! on July 27th, 2007 at 3:02 pm - Permalink

  29. [...] If it is ready by September, and it doesn’t screw up the user experience, I’ll be doubly impressed. A Google spokesman calls video fingerprinting “one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken,” and I believe him. Just look how badly Microsoft and Audible Magic both botched it. [...]

    YouTube Video Fingerprinting: More Than Meets the Googlebot’s Eye? on July 29th, 2007 at 5:22 am - Permalink

  30. [...] von copyrightgeschützten Inhalten kein Riegel vorgeschoben wird. Auch wenn in einem ersten Test das eingesetzte Fingerprint-System nicht als durchweg zuverlässig bezeichnet werden kann, könnten [...]

    YouTube startet Filter | Blog.Files.de on October 16th, 2007 at 8:59 am - Permalink

  31. [...] read more | digg story [...]

    Soft Review » Digital Fingerprinting - Illegal Uploads Don’t Get Filtered SURPRISE! on November 2nd, 2007 at 5:05 am - Permalink

  32. [...] web sites have started to implement commercial fingerprinting solutions in recent months, but our own tests have shown that these solutions generally don’t work all that well, resulting in many clips falling through the [...]

    Steal This Film Creators to Launch P2P Donation Platform « NewTeeVee on June 5th, 2008 at 3:02 am - Permalink

  33. [...] NewTeeVee » Does Digital Fingerprinting Work?: An Investigative Report [...]

    Weekend Links - Porn, Zombies, Players and Big Brothers | Pravda on Media, Technology, and Rebel Filmmaking on October 17th, 2008 at 1:09 am - Permalink

  34. [...] reading: Way back in the day, we tested audio fingerprinting ourselves, but on TV shows instead of music tracks. It didn’t do well, to say the [...]

    Fooling YouTube Audio Fingerprints: Speed Works, Volume Doesn’t, And All That Matters Is the First 30 Seconds on April 24th, 2009 at 12:47 pm - Permalink

Leave a reply








Safari hates me

If your comment doesn't show up immediately, it may have gotten caught in our trusty (but occasionally overly ambitious) spam filter. Please drop us a note and we'll retrieve it.