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Copyright Tool Will Scan Web For Violations
Wall Street Journal ^ | 18 December 2006 | KEVIN J. DELANEY

Posted on 12/18/2006 6:12:03 PM PST by shrinkermd

To deal with the mounting copyright issues swirling around video and other content online, a start-up founded by some respected Silicon Valley executives is taking a novel approach: combing the entire Web for unauthorized uses....

...The start-up, which was founded last year and has been in "stealth" mode, is emerging into the public eye today, at a time when some media and entertainment companies' frustration with difficulties identifying infringing uses of their content online is increasing. The problem has intensified with the proliferation and increasing usage of sites such as Google Inc.'s YouTube, which lets consumers post video clips.

Media and entertainment companies have so far relied on a combination of technology and their own scanning to protect their content online -- but with mixed results. Media companies have used digital-rights management technology designed to make it hard to copy or transfer files. But such measures have often proved to be clumsy, despised by consumers or quickly thwarted. That's the case for DRM technology built into DVDs to prevent them from being ripped onto computers, for example. Entertainment and media companies have also relied on their own staff to scan Web sites for infringing content. But even when such content is spotted and taken down, the companies often see the content pop up in the same places or elsewhere soon after.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News
KEYWORDS: copywright; violation
"...Its co-founders, former Yahoo Inc. executive Jim Brock, and Jim Pitkow, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has sold companies to Google and VeriSign Inc., claim to have cracked the thorny computer-science problem of scouring the entire Web by using undisclosed technology to efficiently process and comb through chunks of content. The company says it will have over 10 billion Web pages in its index before the end of this month...
1 posted on 12/18/2006 6:12:04 PM PST by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd

Strange that Google's fantastic success may be the source of the entire Internet's failure as the unlimited greed of small minds brings the system to a halt.


2 posted on 12/18/2006 6:20:22 PM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: Old Professer

Imagine how google must feel, just having paid over $1B for YouTube only to have most of vulnerable to being shut down for copyright violations.

That said, copyright law has to come into this century.


3 posted on 12/18/2006 6:34:31 PM PST by wouldntbprudent (If you can: Contribute more (babies) to the next generation of God-fearing American Patriots!)
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To: shrinkermd
...blah blah blah claim to have cracked the thorny computer-science problem of scouring the entire Web by using undisclosed technology to efficiently process blah blah blah...

Something tells me the jr. high kids are already one step ahead of them!

4 posted on 12/18/2006 6:35:16 PM PST by VoiceOfBruck (Feed me)
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To: wouldntbprudent
paid over $1B

No worries, they have plenty of Bs.

5 posted on 12/18/2006 7:43:59 PM PST by razorback-bert (Posted by Time's Man of the Year)
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To: Old Professer
the entire Internet's failure as the unlimited greed of small minds brings the system to a halt

This is a natural evolution of a complex life like system. Same as with computer viruses.

It will not shut down Internet exchange of content, it will make it less open and less transparent.

6 posted on 12/18/2006 7:57:02 PM PST by A. Pole (John McCain: "Pick lettuce!" - http://projectusa.org/db/forums/lettucepickers100.php)
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To: A. Pole

This could set off massive lawsuits. While I'm all for getting paid for one's copyrighted work (I write myself), the reality is that attempts to collect on every bit of intellectual property will be like a tax on the air to breathe.


7 posted on 12/18/2006 8:42:07 PM PST by FastCoyote
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To: ShadowAce

ping


8 posted on 12/18/2006 8:43:51 PM PST by stainlessbanner
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To: rdb3; chance33_98; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; Bush2000; PenguinWry; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; ...

9 posted on 12/18/2006 9:26:35 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

I makes me laugh that these are the same folks whose policy it is to ignore standards such as robots.txt files and the like. They think that whatever is on your system, is theirs for the taking (oh yeah... its just to examine it to make sure you are not infringing on a copyright).


10 posted on 12/18/2006 9:43:18 PM PST by rit
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To: shrinkermd

This gonna work in the streets of China???


11 posted on 12/18/2006 11:42:17 PM PST by Dallas59 (Muslims Are Only Guests In Western Countries)
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To: shrinkermd

hmmmmmm


12 posted on 12/19/2006 2:40:08 AM PST by dennisw
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To: FastCoyote

The other side of the coin is that, as is so often the case, the cost of pursuing one's rights (legal fees, etc.)and the risks inherent in litigation will be so prohibitive that most people will have to accept their losses, even in truly egregious cases.


13 posted on 12/19/2006 6:08:38 AM PST by wouldntbprudent (If you can: Contribute more (babies) to the next generation of God-fearing American Patriots!)
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To: FastCoyote

On both ends, in and out.


14 posted on 12/19/2006 8:32:03 AM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: wouldntbprudent
That said, copyright law has to come into this century.

Please don't say that! Congress would interpret that to mean extending copyright of anything Disney to life plus 500 years. LOL

15 posted on 12/19/2006 9:08:50 AM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: rit
oh yeah... its just to examine it to make sure you are not infringing...

And we'll just take a "reference copy" that's more convenient to examine... after all, we think we're working on behalf of the copyright owners, so it must be all right.

16 posted on 12/20/2006 6:48:01 AM PST by TechJunkYard (cough)
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To: wouldntbprudent
That said, copyright law has to come into this century.

Yup. Copyright needs to be reduced to 14 year terms renewable once for a total of 28 years, with automatic copyright abolished from the code. If you want something to have copyright, you should have to register it. 

While this may sound pretty draconian considering the modern eternal copyright, it would just take us back to the more reasonable state of the law circa 1900. 

17 posted on 12/20/2006 2:51:27 PM PST by zeugma (If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.)
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