Attributor software scours the internet for copyrighted material

While we can't argue the usefulness of sites like YouTube, certain content "owners" have some (understandable) beef with their media (or text, etc.) being passed around the internet like hors d'oeuvres at a reception. While scanning programs aren't exactly new, Attributor Corp. is hoping to cash in on the recent push to eliminate unlicensed content from floating around so freely. The company's yet-to-be-named software purportedly scans the internet for specific "digital fingerprints" tailored to a client's media, and can sniff out occurrences with "as little as a few sentences of text or a few seconds of audio / video." The firm says that it will have "over 10 billion web pages" in its index before the end of the year, presumably implanting fear in the hearts of dubious uploaders everywhere. Of course, the company could stand to make hefty profits by extracting portions of royalties companies and individuals are able to garner thanks to its eagle-eyed software, and also hopes to "encourage more owners to put their content online with confidence that they'll be able to police its use and share in any profits." Although Attributor has started testing the system already, it won't be officially available until "the first quarter of 2007," and more notably, it won't be sweeping those oh-so-dodgy P2P networks anyway (at least initially).

[Via Slashdot]

[Crazylink @ Dec 20th 2006 8:40AM]

I wonder if this thing can find media that's been compressed in a .rar.

[netdroid9 @ Dec 20th 2006 9:18AM]

Of course not, it only reads RIAA approved formats.

[ChronoZaga @ Dec 20th 2006 9:08AM]

If it can't change the laws in other (non-US) countries it's of limited use.

[Matt B @ Dec 20th 2006 9:42AM]

Since I always build my computers, I'll never have to worry about this coming "pre-installed" without my knowledge.

[Manuel @ Dec 20th 2006 10:17AM]

Next step : Blog posts also scoured !

[whiskey @ Dec 20th 2006 2:38PM]

So let me get that straight. It will tap on downloads, check (using ALL codecs around) to see if something is illegal or not and then report. Hmmm? Does this sound far fetched to you?

How will it know what kind of media is being used if somebody was to (let's say) rename the extension of the file? Ok, google can reach inside your rar's and zip's to prevent you from sharing your source code in pascal (hey, it happened to me) but once you rename that puppy, how on earth would it know what to do with it? Remember we are talking about scanning the WHOLE internet...