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#3 Concept Series : What is Digital Fingerprinting

Posted In Media Concepts - By Nitin Narang on Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 With No Comments »
15
5 Reason why 2015 is the year of OTT
Digital Fingerprinting is a technology which enables content owners  exercise greater control on their copyrighted
content by effective identification, tracking and monitoring across distribution channels (broadcast, radio, live, web
etc..) while opening additional monetization avenue by exploiting extended value of digital assets.

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 India and Over the Top (OTT) Video Services – An overview

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Broadcast Industry Trends

Why TV Everywhere –Stimulator for Change– Part III

What is Digital Fingerprinting

Digital Fingerprints are compact digital impressions extracted from the original content (audio or video) which
TV Everywhere
represent : Is it the
contents’ characteristics hanging
and have enough carrot
details to ?identify
Part aIIcontent variant upon comparison.
Fingerprinting algorithm utilize variety of content properties like frame snippets,  motion and music changes, camera
cuts, brightness level, object movements etc. to represented fingerprints which are stored as asset references (along
with content metadata) in database repository. They can identify whenever a variant of audio/video content coming
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bitrates, equalization) or  content degradation (e.g distortion due to conversion, loss in quality, blurring, cropping,
Cloud Media Services realizing true content ubiquity – Anywhere,
addition of background noise etc.). The fingerprint algorithm manages a balance between ideal amount of data
AnyDevice
capture to enable – Part comparison
granular I (frame level) across the length of content while keeping fingerprints
lightweight for manageable access, indexing, search, and storage.  There are several digital fingerprinting products
in the market today offered by companies like Audible Magic, iPharro etc.

Digital Fingerprinting Workflow

Fingerprint generation and identification forms an integral part of the content distributor’s media workflow with
Connected
ability TV +
to identify, track, Smart
monitor TV – Key
and monetize Challenges
their content. and
It empowers Roadwith
publishers Ahead – Part
technology III
to prevent
copyright infringement, provides means to extend due financial benefits to rightful content owners and obviate
themselves from legal liabilities arising due to unlicensed spread of copyrighted material (DMCA rules). A typical
Digital Fingerprinting process involves content owners/ studios registering their content for fingerprinting and
creating reference digital representation of their content which is used for future comparisons. Key steps include

Connected TVcharacteristics
1. Extracting unique + Smart ofTV – Trends
digital and Opportunities
content – fingerprints – Part
and submission to Rights II along with
registry
metadata
2. Identifying audio/video content by comparing against fingerprints in the database to check for infringement
3. Take appropriate action based on comparison result under agreed business rules (block, delete, authorize)

Why Digital Fingerprinting  is important

While rapid growth in Internet, digitization and compression have reduced the cost and time for content production,
processing, storage and distribution it has also introduced far greater challenges in monitoring and controlling
  media piracy.   Copyright Infringement can manifest in multiple ways e.g. ripping content from the CD/DVD,
capturing content from Television, distributing digital copies over social networking and P2P networks, video
recording from Theatres, content copying and duplicating etc.

Digital Fingerprinting enables publishers (and   performing rights societies) to reap benefits by expanding and
extending the value of their content through newer monetization avenues like content publication on paid video
portals, social networks sites generating advertising revenues, performance and playback of content across radio,
television and promotional events, use of content in advertisements, Television and radio programs and marketing
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Digital Fingerprinting Applications

Content identification for contextual and targeted advertising

Mechanism for content delivery verification
Audience measurement
Content filtering and  Broadcasting monitoring
Contractual compliance
ACR (Automated content recognition) enabling enhanced user experience and greater engagement through
second screen applications
Content publishing sites (UGC, content portals, social networking etc.) to control copyright infringement and
revenue from advertising
Version control and content duplication
Content searching using fingerprint fragments…….

YouTube and Digital Fingerprinting

Youtube is the largest online video aggregator which receives approx. 48 hrs of content every min, 24×7 round the
year and preventing copyright infringement is paramount for them. Youtube introduced content management and
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empowers original content owners to either remove all previously uploaded copyrighted work,   prevent newly
uploaded pirated content or authorize pirated content while retaining benefits from advertising, follower tracking 
and content promotion. Youtube’s adherence to DMCA by taking down infringing content when it received notice was
the major reason in the legal win against Viacom in copyright infringement case.

Digital Fingerprinting is not Foolproof

No technology is ever foolproof and digital fingerprinting is no exception. As fingerprinting algorithms become more
mature to quickly detect copyright infringement, content pirates work overtime to find techniques to evade detection
(modifying sections of content, mixing content etc). Similarly there have been instances where content gets
incorrectly blocked for infringement  (popular case of Democrats’ Convention Video) or content used for education
and training getting marked for infringement.

Like any technology Digital Fingerprinting is evolving and improving, although it may not prevent piracy it acts as
a deterrent for pirates and technology enabler for publishers to monitor authenticity and reduce instances for
copyright violation.

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Tags: ACR, copyright infringement, TV, YouTube

About Nitin Narang - Digital Media Technology Consultant. I have passion for TV technology, digital
convergence and changing face of Media and Entertainment industry.

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