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YouTube Video-Fingerprinting Due in September
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jul 31, 2007 09:11 AM
from the have-you-done-your-homework dept.
from the have-you-done-your-homework dept.
Tech.Luver writes "The Register is reporting on Google's statement to a presiding judge that video-fingerprinting of YouTube material will be ready in September. The development is required to head off a three-headed suit against the company, currently being debated in a New York City courthouse. The system will, according to Google, 'be as sophisticated as fingerprinting technology used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' From the article: 'As Google told El Reg in an earlier conversation, the company already has two systems in place for policing infringing content - but neither are ideal. One system allows copyright holders to notify Google when they spot their videos on the company's sites. When notified, the company removes the offending videos, in compliance with the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A second system uses "hash" technology to automatically block repeated uploads of infringing material.'"
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Hard AI ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
Others pointed out that, no, it's not a hard AI problem to just compare some kind of checksum of the video against a set of banned checksums. That's true. But what about once people know they're using this system? They can just trivially re-encode. Perhaps add a scene break here or there, and totally mess up the fingerprint. To prevent that, it seems, you would need to solve a hard-AI problem: that is, be able to determine if an arbitrarily-encoded video appears to a human to match some copyrighted work. It would have to be robust against minor scene shortenings and lengthenings, scene breakups, color gradients laid over the video, etc.
Anyone know how difficult this program is to circumvent? (Just hypothetically -- not advocating criminal activity here.)
Amazon Mechanical Turk (Score:5, Funny)
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Nobody would know what the keyframes are, so it would be hard/impossible to black out that specific frame.
Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course a little bit of coding and you have a program that takes that 10 minute video, splits it into 10 1 minute videos and uploads them. The ones that got rejected it splits into 10 6 seconds videos and uploads them. Rinse and repeat until you have however small an set of rejections you asked it for. Then it cuts out just the necessary fragments of videos (replacing them with the last good frame or something?).
Of course that can be worked at google's end by adding a delay to the report rejection step, and by banning those who get lots of rejects.
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Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Is there a way around the system? Yes.
2) Does that matter? No.
3) Why is that? This solution shows that Google is making reasonable efforts to comply with the legal issues.
The majority of folks aren't going to take the effort to circumvent these controls. Rates will drop significantly. Google can honestly say they are making every effort to comply with copyright protection. Lawsuits will go away.
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Rates will drop significantly. (Score:2)
Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:5, Insightful)
Note, this can also be applied to "kitchen knives can kill so we should ban kitchen knives." and "people can die in cars so we should ban motor vehicles"
and uh... "People who have killed a lot of people have played video games, so we should ban video games." The states needs to get over the damn prohibitionist culture that's removing any sense of personal responsibility from our great nation.
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Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:4, Insightful)
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As for image recognition, usually this is done using Fourier transforms as an edge finding algorithm. Basically, you can use a computer filter to throw out the bulk of the information, and keep only the most visually identifying features in the video. Changes in tint or timing won't affect the shapes and movements of these predominant edges.
Umm. To visualize this, imagine you take a full colour photo, and you trace it as best you
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Wouldn't some sort of soft AI (expert-system, neural-net) do just as well?
I could be wrong, but doesn't "hard" AI refer to a system that is conscious?
Why would you have to be conscious to recognize movie clips?
Re:Hard AI ftw (Score:4, Insightful)
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Off the top of my head... I would throw out the whole notion of "checksums". They aren't really applicable because their purpose is to compare exactly. Even if doing key frames, all one would have to do is lighten/darken the video and the whole che
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separation of the web (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:separation of the web (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm against long term copyrights, but I'm for showing basic respect to others. I think the most damaging thing to the cause of copyright reform is the childish behavior of its supporters.
Re:separation of the web (Score:4, Interesting)
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How exactly is automatically removing copyrighted content that shouldn't be posted in the first place evil?
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I believe you missed my point.
"Do no Evil" - company motto, remove all copyrighted content
vs.
Survival - being the engine people use to find things
I was trying to point out that they may bo oposing forces in this case. the more they remove, the less people will use google to search.
Obfuscation? (Score:3, Funny)
Two-part Protection (Score:4, Interesting)
The second part sounds more promising, but someone may be able to get around hashing the videos, such as inserting random one-frame images, as in the Fight Club movie, or adding in overlay text, or possibly adding in effects. If they try to hash a few selected time slices, someone will figure it out eventually. As with all digital protection, this just pushes off the inevitable. At least it will make Google look good in court, since they're attempting to comply with Viacom and the other copyright holder's requests for not posting their material.
In the end, it won't count for much. It would make more sense to add in additional protections for false or malicious takedown notices, such as adding in a $50K fine for false claims. This would at least make the big companies scrutinize the videos that they're issuing a takedown notice for.
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My impression is that most of the unauthorized clips on YouTube are put there by fans of the shows in question. They do it because it is easy and fun, and they want to share the thing they like with others. I don't think they will continue to bother if it becomes onerous to post the clips (requiring constant editing, posting, re-editing, re-posting, etc.). This is different from P2P networks, where once someone goes to the effort of making a
As "sophisticated" as FBI fingerprinting? (Score:3, Insightful)
And since they are making the comparison... just how reliable [truthinjustice.org] are fingerprints, really?
True, a character in Mark Twain's 1893 novel Pudd'n'head Wilson tells a court
"Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave certain physical marks which do not change their character, and by which he can always be identified -- and that without shade of doubt or question. These marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so to speak, and this autograph canImage available not be counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or hide it away, nor can it become illegible by the wear and mutations of time. This signature is not his face -- age can change that beyond recognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not his height, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for duplicates of that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very own -- there is no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the globe! This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with which Nature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet."
and ever since Mark Twain said so everyone has believed it, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
Re:As "sophisticated" as FBI fingerprinting? (Score:4, Informative)
The Newman link is from 2001.
The judge who decided the original Llera-Plaza motion, which is discussed and critiqued in the following article, reversed himself on March 13, 2002, holding that expert evidence of a "match" was admissible. Judge Pollak had granted the Government's motion for a reconsideration that is mentioned above, and he also reopened the record to hear additional testimony for the prosecution as well as for the defense. In reversing himself in a 60-page opinion, Judge Pollak stated, in part, "In short, I have changed my mind.' The Reliability of Fingerprint Evidence: A Case Report [forensic-evidence.com]
You'll find links here to many articles on Identification Evidence. For example: Phenotype vs Genotype: Why Identical Twins Have Different Fingerprints [forensic-evidence.com]
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Dumb. Really dumb. (Score:4, Insightful)
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In other words, I have my hopes up that we might get rid of them pretty soon.
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Why isn't Google fighting this out in court? (Score:2)
When notified, the company removes the offending videos, in compliance with the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
...
The trouble with the first system is that neither Google nor the copyright holders can possibly keep up with the vast number of copyrighted videos uploaded each day.
What exactly is the compelling legal argument that spawned three lawsuits?
That GooTube isn't complying with the DMCA?
That complaince with the DMCA isn't enough?
Depending on your POV, the 'right' thing to do is either to create new filters (business), or to try and win the lawsuits (users).
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Take that and the fact that Google is actually a big fat cash cow with a bulls-eye on the side of it and it becomes obvious that the best strategy is one of accomadation. Rather than a long drown out battle that would also hurt googles stock price because of the uncertainity it creates.
So anyway you cut it, this looks like th
Just the start (Score:5, Funny)
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'infringement' (Score:3, Interesting)
But youtube is a little different in that many of the things people go there for are unique or one-time things that the only way you'll ever get a chance to see them again is if you recorded it yourself, or somebody else does and you are lucky enough to find it online.
The biggest issue I have is stuff that you'll NEVER BE ABLE TO ACTUALLY BUY OR SEE AGAIN being taken down. My favorite example is prince performing at half time for the superbowl. Now, not only are the videos gone from youtube, but also all of the comments (which IMHO are equally as valuable to the community) about the videos.
Taking things like this down erodes our culture and destroys valuable records of what has gone on in our lives.
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<stupid question>I seem to remember that one could buy DVD sets of the superbowl, no? Wouldn't said DVD sets include the half-time show?</stupid question>
I only ask because
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Isn't not being able to see Prince perform a feature?
Why is Google doing this? (Score:2)
Doing this is manifestly against the interest of the people who made Google what it is today. What happened to doing no evil?
Google loses Common Carrier Protection (?) (Score:2)
Faster than you can say Napster... (Score:2)
The content industry should take a lesson learned from the past. Right now they have a large concentration of people looking at grainy, low resolution video in one place. Remove that and the sites will go underground, and maybe with even better quality video which would be a real threat to their model. They should take the opportunity to promote their product - h
Another Consideration (Score:2)
Fair Use and the Justice Droid (Score:2)
It's like being found guilty for murder because your fingerprints were found at the scene... on some groceries you bagged for the victim at the supermarket a week earlier, but that is of no concern to the justice droid.
watermark with hue shift (Score:2)
Wide open for abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
If Google are not going to check it, what is to stop me downloading a Quicktime trailer of a movie, generating the data and submitting it to Google for blocking? It will quickly become impossible for even sanctioned videos to appear. Cultists/Scientologists will be screwed too.
As usual, media companies are being idiots. They paniced about the VCR, they paniced about P2P, they are panicing about DVRs and YouTube. In the end, new technology tends to do them good in the long run and besides which, you can't fight it.
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Step3. A neighbour with unprotected WIFI (or just crack their non-WPA2 secure connection)
Cheers!