Digital Fingerprinting and the Piracy Fight
LOS ANGELES – The addition of digital fingerprinting technology to a popular anti-piracy program “virtually assures pirated material will be found and reported,” according to a spokesman for the company behind the product.
Takedown Piracy’s proprietary digital fingerprinting application is part of the company’s Nemesis tool, which analyzes tube sites to pinpoint content that likely has been pirated. Available to all content creators—including DVD producers, pay sites and webcam sites—the digital fingerprinting program is a separate service. For a nominal additional charge, companies can track all of their content, according to owner Nate Glass.
During beta-testing, Glass and his staff were able to verify the accuracy of the digital fingerprints by identifying the copyright holder of hundreds of thousands of videos on tube sites, he said.
“I want to stress how big of a game changer this is in the fight against piracy,” Glass said. “With this weapon, we will be able to ensure content from our studio partners will not appear on pirate tube sites.
“Previously, the adult industry tried to use a form of fingerprinting requiring tube sites to voluntarily take part in it,” he added. “This is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Now we are able to dictate the terms, so we don’t have to rely on the moral conscience of pirates and tube sites.”
The program has been implemented on 52 tube sites, and more than a dozen more will be added soon, Glass noted. The program is designed solely for detection and removal of infringing content from tube sites and search engines like Google.
“I’ve never believed in partnering with tube sites,” Glass said. “It’s a deal with the Devil. Too often copyright holders have tried to monetize piracy by searching for a middle ground with the tube sites. At the end of the day, the tube sites make more money from pirated content than trying to monetize a promotional trailer. Because of this, the tubes will never have enough incentive to totally clean up their act. This new digital fingerprinting program gives content creators the power back.”