Last year, an Independent company Audible Magic developed a method of fingerprinting music to determine what songs are being transferred based on their acoustics and then blocking the transfer if detected as a known copyrighted track. Now Philips has is developing a similar technology, but instead works on video files such as identify and block the distribution of video content. Unlike filtering tools that check for hashes or file name keywords, Philips’ technology aims to work by analysing the data itself, whether compressed or broken into segments.
At the moment, Philips’ technology is only in the early stages, but Philips is already showing off its technology to potential customers and partners. So far software manufactures claim it is impractical to filter content, but it seems that Philips is determined to continue its development. The main issue Philips is encountering is how to efficiently identify video frames as there is more content and detail in a given duration of video compared with a similar duration of audio. However Audible Magic has found a better solution by using their existing technique on the audio sound track only, thus requiring a lot less processing power.
Even if the software is completed and successful, there is still a lot of preparation work required before the tool will work. Like building a virus definition database for a Virus Checker, a fingerprint database will need to be built by running every movie, show and other content to block through the tools to get their fingerprints. So far the MPAA’s only method of reducing piracy is through the use of lawsuits (like the RIAA) and watermarking content to trace the source.
The technique would be similar to technology already being used to track and prevent copying of music files on some university networks. Philips’ audio fingerprinting technology is central to Napster founder Shawn Fanning’s new company Snocap, which aims to turn file-swapping networks into digital-song stores. Once completed, Philips’ technology–along with related tools from other companies–could be a powerful weapon in Hollywood’s increasingly aggressive attempts to choke off the flood of films being traded online. For now, the tools are in an early stage of development, but Philips has begun to show them to potential partners and customers. Read the rather lengthy source article here. |
Researchers at Royal Philips Electronics are developing new “fingerprinting” technology that could automatically identify and block transmission of digital-video files, potentially handing movie studios a new weapon in its war on peer-to-peer networks. So far Audible Magic’s technology usage has mainly been used in Universities, so Philips’ technology will likely be put to the same use. As Philips’ tool aims to work on compressed files, it will be interesting to see if it manages to cope with encrypted content also, like how some mail distributed viruses aimed to get through E-mail scanning tools by encrypting its payload an putting the password in the E-mail text itself.
Chances are that most ISPs are unlikely going to add this sort of filtering on the network unless forced by the entertainment industry or some future law. However as a main bulk of content on file sharing is sourced from users sharing content on school and University networks, filtering the content at these sources is likely going to have an impact on the amount of shared video content and thus putting more contention on other users.
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