Audible Magic and Stadeum Sports Partner to Fight Piracy in Romania
Partnership Protects Liga Profesionista de Fotbal Club Content Across Social Media Networks
July 23, 2019 (LOS GATOS, Calif.) – Audible Magic, the industry standard for content identification linked to digital rights, and Stadeum Sports, who is digitally transforming football in Romania, announced a partnership to fight piracy impacting sports leagues in Romania. Using Audible Magic’s technology, Stadeum works on social media platforms to remove infringing pages that often host unauthorized live or pre-recorded video content.
Stadeum monitors social media networks on behalf of Romania’s professional football league Liga Profesionista de Fotbal (LPF) and its 14 member clubs. The company works diligently with social media platforms to take down fake pages, and unauthorized video clips and live streams of matches. Additionally, through their partnership with Audible Magic, Stadeum protects against unauthorized sharing and enables authorized club content to be legitimately shared on their official social media networks.
“I am very thankful to Audible Magic and Stadeum Sports for their engagement and support in this important LPF initiative,” said Robert Pongracz vice president of LPF. “We consider the fight against piracy an essential objective to increase the value of our IP in the future. This step will provide us great opportunities to further develop the game in the digital world and to deliver huge benefits for the football community and our member clubs.”
Audible Magic’s Emmy Award™ winning technology fingerprints registered content that has been provided to Stadeum by the football clubs. Once the authorized content has been registered it is assigned a unique fingerprint, which can be identified across the social platforms that Audible Magic has relationships with. This process ensures the legitimate use of audio and video content, including live streams of media in real-time, for the rightful owner.
“As the pioneer of automated content recognition, we view our foray into sporting events as a natural extension for the use of our technology,” said Vance Ikezoye, president and chief executive officer at Audible Magic. “The process of registering content to prevent unauthorized use of audio and video, both pre-recorded and live events, will allow the LPF football clubs to re-direct energy to invest in the production of content that can be made available to fans around the world through the clubs' official social media pages.”
About Stadeum
Digital technology is unlocking unprecedented opportunities in the sports industry, offering the potential to draw fans closer through innovative and customized experiences. To capitalize on this opportunity, however, digital will need to be embedded in every aspect of the business, transforming people, process, and technology. Stadeum Sports helps teams, leagues, and players navigate this digital transformation that is rapidly unlocking new opportunities for growth.
About Audible Magic
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has innovated solutions to identify content, manage rights, and monetize media. Audible Magic's Emmy-winning automatic content recognition (ACR) technology powers billions of transactions monthly. The Silicon Valley pioneer is the trusted intermediary among rightsholders (including labels, studios, distributors, publishers, and collectives) and major platforms.
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6 Things You Must Ask Your Automated Content Recognition (ACR) Vendor
Automated Content Recognition, or ACR, has become an integral part of the consumption of music and video as we experience them today. As more platforms publish user generated content, effectively monitoring use of copyrighted material has become increasingly difficult. So, how does one choose an ACR vendor that can be relied on?
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Guest post by Audible Magic VP of Product Development and Marketing, Jay Friedman on Hypebot.com
Automated Content Recognition (ACR) is essential to music and video consumption as we know it today.
An important aspect for companies distributing content with music and video is the aspect of digital media rights. With the explosion of user generated content, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor and manage the proper use of copyrighted material.
Platforms distributing user generated content typically come from a purely technological background and can easily overlook important aspects of digital media rights. This oversight can cripple a business either via an infringement lawsuit or shortage of capital, especially since content platforms vary widely from large technology providers to popular apps to yet undeveloped offerings.
As an example, the European Union recently approved Article 17 requiring companies who host user generated content and have a European presence or customer base to take responsibility to either license works or prevent usage of unlicensed user-uploaded copyrighted material. If a user uploads a piece of content that infringes copyright, the platform is at risk. According to Article 17, platforms must filter users’ uploaded content for copyright materials or have a license for it.
What’s an online platform to do? Finding a vendor for ACR is a vital business activity for those who are subjected to dealing with digital media rights. This technology puts in place a method for platforms to protect copyrighted content from being improperly used. But with several to choose from, what is the criteria to look for? How does one determine which vendor is appropriate for their business? How can one ensure that the services provided are cost-effective and necessary? Here are six things to look for (or even ask directly) when making a determination.
What is the pedigree of the technology?
ACR is a technology service, so it only makes sense to start the hunt for a vendor by exploring the merits of the technology itself. Ask if the vendor holds patents which the ACR is built upon, or if the technology is licensed from another company. The answer will give you a clue if the vendor will be capable of addressing emerging market challenges in stride. A strong R&D department is a great indicator of a vendor that seeks to push the industry forward.
Does the service scale well?
Does your company need to monitor the usage of a handful of digital media rights, or do you have to cover just about everything under the sun? Several pop-up ACR vendors have appeared recently to address the former, sometimes licensing technology or developing a service that satisfies one specific task needed. These pop-ups are worth investigating if your needs are truly specific and limited in scope, but take caution to ensure that they’ll be able to handle an increased workload as your service demands grow and – more vitally – the amount of content that needs to be scanned or monitored increases.
What is the technology’s false positive rate?
Take heed of the false positive rate, the fine print statistic that cuts through any misleading marketing metrics. If a vendor boasts scalability as a primary value proposition, asking about false positive rate is the follow-up question that will help you find out if service quality was sacrificed in order to achieve scale. A false positive rate of even 0.5% means that for every 1,000 pieces of digital media scanned, five will be mistakenly given an incorrect attribution of ownership. The effect that this has on user experience cannot be understated. A spotty experience easily translates to the loss of users or customers.
Who are the customers?
This segues neatly into the next question. The music industry is chalk full of long-standing partner relationships. Top labels are going to work with vendors they trust to protect their catalogs, and will be hard-pressed to change from companies they trust to do the job right. On the flip side, UGC platforms want to ensure they are in full compliance for rights usage and desire a vendor that understands international nuances – that their vendor has they’re backs. Entertainment may be “fun” to the everyday citizen that consumes media, but in the business world the emphasis is on the bottom line and sound practices. If you recognize a vendor’s customers as major players, that’s a good indicator that the vendor has an established cadence of trust.
What will this cost?
ACR is the technology that the digital media rights ecosystem can’t afford to not have. That said, what good is an ACR vendor if a company can’t afford the service in the first place? Vendors shouldn’t offer a one-size-fits-all solution at a single premium price; rather, cost should reflect the level of service that is being provided. After all, distributors and platforms have varying policies and needs when it comes to identification reporting. Some companies seek basic identification, while others desire advanced reporting and other features. Know what your needs are before you shop, or find a vendor that will help you determine what’s right for you based on your business model and policies.
Will the vendor find ways to open new revenue streams?
This question falls outside the normal line of thinking for basic software-focused ACR vendors, which makes it a hardnose test of business smarts. Those who know how the digital media rights landscape works will be able to work collaboratively with you to suggest and enable new revenue streams. Not only should a vendor have a line of questioning to understand your business model and connect the dots, they should be actively engaged in trying to improve your company. This doesn’t fall outside of the realm of what should be expected from a vendor, because savvy ones know that your success ultimately becomes their success. This line of thinking makes an ACR vendor a valuable asset as an advisor. Keep in mind there’s no substitute for management that has been there, done that, and can draw from the industry to help you succeed.
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MORE: DistroKid Links With Audible Magic To Verify Music Authenticity, Launches DistroLock
Guest Post on 06/13/2019 in Music Business, Music Tech, Publishing & Songwriting, Streaming, YouTube & Video | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: ACR, Amazon, Apple, Apple Music, Google, indie, metadata, music, music business, music industry, music tech, musician, musicians, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube
https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/06/6-things-you-must-ask-your-acr-vendor-.html
Apple's & Spotify's Distributor Tiers Raise the bar for Catalog Management
Audible Magic Offers New Services to Manage Distribution Conflicts
In 2018, the top digital service providers (DSPs) publicized their preferred distribution partners and their ranking criteria. For Apple, whose ranking criteria includes exceptional content review" and "low rejection rate," CD Baby and The Orchard made the "Preferred Plus" list. For Spotify, whose criteria lists "preventing infringement content," The Orchard made the "Preferred" list while CD Baby made the various "Recommended" partner lists.
a 9.2% increase over 2017 - Buzz Angle
The challenge of adhering to these strict DSP guidelines while the keeping pace with the huge growth in the space is daunting for digital distributors. Digital distributors must manage current catalogs and ingest large numbers of tracks every day in an efficient and cost-effective way. Buzz Angle Music’s 2018 report on U.S. music consumption indicated that the number of unique titles audio-streamed was 36.3M tracks, a 9.2% increase over 2017. The sheer number of tracks eliminates manual review and metadata checks prove to be unreliable.
As a result, digital distributors use automated content recognition (ACR) technologies to scan new releases, as well as their back catalog, to ensure they can meet these strict content review requirements. A distributor can improve their overall score and ranking if they can deliver a clean catalog that doesn’t create a lot of copyright ownership conflicts at a DSP. The impact on their business is significant. For example, as an Apple Music Preferred Plus distributor a company will have access to support for advanced customer features and analytics as well as early access to product features.
Audible Magic’s newly launched services, RightsAudit™ and RightsRx™ are a great cost-effective way to proactively identify potential ownership conflicts prior to delivering to a DSP. Audible Magic’s ACR technology combined with one of the most comprehensive and most up-to-date reference databases in the world provides a highly accurate and method to compare audio and video recordings.
Learn more about The Orchard and CD Baby partnering with Audible Magic for catalog management.
EU in Final Stages of Clarifying Copyright Law for User Generated Content Platforms
The European Union is nearing finalization of significant changes to the copyright law, which will increase the legal obligations of websites and apps that allow sharing of user-uploaded content, often referred to as UGC or user-generated content. While it is still progressing through the legislative process, it seems likely some form of this legislation will become law. The three current versions approved by separate arms of the EU government share a few common provisions.
If it becomes law, it will likely apply to websites and app platforms that meet four basic conditions:
First, the platform allows the storing and distribution of UGC that may include copyright content, even if use is just incidental. If users can upload content with embedded clips of music or video as part of their content, this provision applies.
Second, the platform promotes or optimizes content for commercial purposes. Commercial purposes would include the generation of income through advertising, subscriptions, app and in-app purchases, and other creative income producing schemes, or attracting users to the service to increase the capital value of the platform.
Third, the platform is located in the EU or if it is located outside of the EU, is it accessible by users from any of the 28 countries currently in the EU. That means if the platform is based in the US but allows users in the EU to access it, this law applies.
Fourth, the platform is above a certain size, currently proposed to be more than 50 employees or annual revenues in excess of €10 million.
Some exceptions to the type of platforms covered are expected. For example, cloud storage services that are for individual use. Other examples include not-for-profit encyclopedia services (such as Wikipedia), open source software platforms (such as GitHub) and online markets whose main activity is selling of physical goods (such as eBay).
If a platform falls under these qualifying conditions of the directive, then what? The company will be required to obtain licenses from copyright owners or must take preventive measures to ensure that copyright works are not available through their service. Since there are inconsistencies between the three versions, it’s not yet clear what will qualify as a preventive requirement. However, it is expected that copyright owners will be obligated to specify what content they want protected.
So where do things go from here?
A trilogue process is currently underway by the EU to reconcile the three different approved versions. A compromise version is expected to be finalized before the end of 2018 and approved in the first quarter of 2019. Once approved, there is a two-year period before it becomes law in every EU member state.
New Mobile App Enhances Cinema Experience for the Vision Impaired
Swedish Cinema Uses Audible Magic Content Recognition to Synchronize Audio Descriptions and Spoken Subtitles with Movie Sound Tracks
April 08, 2015 12:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Audible Magic, the leading provider of automatic content recognition software solutions announced that Cybercom Group of Stockholm, Sweden has licensed its technology for Sweden’s “Available Cinema” project, making movie experiences more accessible to those with sight and reading impairments.
Available Cinema, a government project managed by the Swedish Film Institute in cooperation with the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, enables audiences with any range of vision impairment or dyslexia to enjoy pre-recorded audio descriptions of the screen action and spoken subtitles. A mobile app provides narrative through the user’s earphones, using Audible Magic’s audio fingerprinting technology for frame-accurate synchronization with the movie soundtrack.
Lisa Wacklin, project manager for Available Cinema at the Swedish Film Institute says, “It's a huge change. In the past, audio descriptions were performed live and limited to about 150 movie screenings per year. Now they will be available for more than 150,000 screenings every year in Sweden.”
Cybercom created the Disabilities Platform, consisting of a software development kit, which can be easily incorporated within a mobile app, and separate tools to enable movie post-producers to package ‘fingerprints’ of the movie soundtrack with audio descriptions for app users to download from Sweden’s Cinema Guide server. The Swedish Film Institute intends to make the Disabilities Platform available internationally to movie distributors, broadcasters and organisations representing the vision and reading impaired.
“Working with Cybercom on this project has been truly rewarding,” said Mike Edwards, General Manager EMEA for Audible Magic. “Witnessing the delight of users at the launch is an experience I will not forget.”
“It is a very successful project with great cooperation between our companies,” said Cybercom project manager Magnus Månsson.
Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity and generate usage reporting. Audible Magic’s customers and partners span technology and media industries and include industry leaders such as Dailymotion, Deluxe Media, Ensequence, Intel, Sling Media, Sony Music and SoundCloud.
Cybercom is an IT consulting company that assists leading companies and organisations to benefit from the opportunities of the connected world. The company’s areas of expertise span the entire ecosystem of communications services. Cybercom’s domestic market is the Nordic region, and in addition the company offers global delivery capacity for local and international business. Cybercom was founded in 1995 and has been quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm exchange since 1999.
The Swedish Film Institute works to promote film across the board – from idea to finished product, during launch in Sweden and around the world, and by preserving films for posterity in their archives.
The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) monitors the electronic communications and postal sectors in Sweden. The Authority provides leadership on consumer and competition issues, efficient utilization of resources and secure communications.
Audible Magic Introduces Upgraded DMCA Tool for Colleges and Universities
CopySense® Appliance 10G Automates DMCA Notice Reduction for Campus IT Networks
Los Gatos, Calif., February 3, 2015--(Business Wire)--Audible Magic, the leading provider of enterprise-class content recognition solutions announced the CopySense® Network Appliance 10G. This is a new version of Audible Magic’s CopySense Appliance that now accommodates a 10 GB network interface.
The CopySense Appliance is popular with college and university IT organizations for its ability to reduce workload and expenses related to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices. It also automates actions that educate students and other campus network users toward good digital citizenship with regard to the use and sharing of copyrighted content.
With a CopySense Appliance monitoring the campus network, users that engage peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to download or share copyrighted media content get automatically redirected to information on campus network use policies. These responses are only initiated when the user attempts copyright-infringing, public sharing of media content. Sharing of non-copyrighted files on P2P networks is ignored, thus allowing the campus to embrace and allow P2P file sharing for non-infringing uses.
As users become educated and stop participating in public sharing of copyrighted media, the number of DMCA infractions is reduced. The institution then spends less resource following up on takedown notices.
“The CopySense Appliance has helped top educational institutions large and small across the United States reduce their DMCA takedown notice workload,” said Vance Ikezoye, Audible Magic CEO. “The latest 10G version helps them keep up with their growing network bandwidth requirements.”
Visit Audible Magic’s website for more information on the CopySense Network Appliance.
Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity and generate usage reporting. Audible Magic’s customers and partners span education, technology and media industries and include industry leaders such as Dailymotion, Deluxe Media, Ensequence, Sling Media, Sony Music and SoundCloud.
Audible Magic Receives Its 30th Patent Award
Latest Patents Add to Portfolio in the Areas of Audio and Video Content Recognition and Related Services Optimization
LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Audible Magic, the leading provider of enterprise-class automatic content recognition (ACR) solutions announced that the company was recently issued three new patents. This brings the total patents awarded to the company to 30 overall in areas such as digital fingerprint-based media detection technology, detection of content on media-playing devices, identification of content flow across networks, and approaches to media identification information systems performance.
“Audible Magic’s intellectual property portfolio, plus our experience in massively scalable content identification and information services, makes the company’s offerings a preferred choice among the largest names in media and technology industries”
The recently-issued patents include:
- European Patent EP 1 490 767 B1, for copyright detection and protection system method regarding digital data processing. This patent involves identifying, reporting, and/or protecting digital works from unauthorized transmission and/or copying, such as over networks or network segments connected to the Internet.
- U.S. patent 8,732,858 B2, for identifying digital data content; a computing system selects data from an unknown work and detects each event. It determines an event metric between each successive event and generates a list of metrics between the events, comparing event metrics for the unknown work to those of a known work, to determine if the unknown work is a copy of the known work.
- U.S. patent 8,645,279 B2, in copyright detection and protection system method, for detecting against unauthorized transmission of digital works.
The generation of patents by this privately-funded company has enabled Audible Magic to establish itself as the leader in ACR solutions. “Audible Magic’s intellectual property portfolio, plus our experience in massively scalable content identification and information services, makes the company’s offerings a preferred choice among the largest names in media and technology industries,” said Vance Ikezoye, CEO. Visit Audible Magic’s website for the full patent documents.
Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity, generate usage reporting and activate content monetization. Audible Magic’s customers and partners span technology, entertainment and media industries and include industry leaders such as Dailymotion, Ensequence, Sling Media, Sony Music and SoundCloud.
Crunch Digital Announces RegistryID™ and Strategic Partnership With Audible Magic to Streamline Licensing and Reporting to Record Labels and Music Publishers
Crunch Digital Forms Strategic Partnership with Audible Magic
Los Angeles, CA, October 28, 2014 - Today Crunch Digital, the data management and reporting service that bridges digital rights owners with content licensees, is announcing RegistryID™, their new system that will streamline music licensing and reporting. As an integral part of the RegistryID system, Crunch Digital has entered a strategic partnership with Audible Magic, the leader in automated content recognition (ACR) solutions for copyrighted content.
Matching music to copyright ownership data affects many digital services, apps and games. Finding the correct copyright owners and verifying licensing can become a monumental barrier for digital services. Over the last four years, Crunch Digital developed one of the most comprehensive registries for sound recording and musical composition metadata in the world. The release of RegistryID™, expected early next year, will enable distributors to verify licensing rights with music publishers for their content worldwide, ensuring that proper permissions have been obtained before the work is made available on their platform. RegistryID™ will be integrated with Crunch Digital's existing data management and reporting solutions.
When content is added to a provider's platform, RegistryID will use Audible Magic's fingerprinting solution to match the content against registered sound recordings. If a match is found, RegistryID will then associate registered content with an underlying musical composition and its owners or administrators. Then the system can determine if a license is in effect for the musical composition to ultimately "block" or "allow" use on the platform based on licensing terms specified by the provider.
"Crunch Digital's RegistryID addresses a problem we have seen for years in the digital marketplace," said Vance Ikezoye, Audible Magic's CEO. "Being able to match sound recordings to the underlying composition and verifying licenses can certainly enable access to more music for many delivery platforms."
"We are excited to work with Audible Magic to enable our RegistryID," said Keith Bernstein, founder of Crunch Digital. "Their fingerprinting technology allows us to deliver fast, robust responses to our customers so that they can focus on the customer experience without worrying about copyright issues."
About Audible Magic Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity, generate usage reporting and activate content monetization. Audible Magic's customers and partners span technology, entertainment and media industries.
About Crunch Digital Crunch Digital™ is an independent technology firm whose mission is to eliminate the barriers of licensing and payments in the media & entertainment marketplace, fueling better revenue flow, improving business intelligence, and reducing operating costs for content licensees and content owners. Crunch Digital manages data flow for content licensees - digital service providers, multi-channel networks, game companies, app developers and mobile carriers - including royalty reporting for direct licenses. Crunch Digital also services content owners - including record labels, music publishers, audio book publishers, film & television studios and game publishers.
Audible Magic and RGB Networks Announce Dynamic Ad Insertion for TV Broadcast Streams that Lack Advertising Markers
Audible Magic’s ACR Technology Couples with RGB Networks’ Ad Marking and Insertion; Demonstrations at IBC 2014
Los Gatos, Calif., September 3, 2014—Audible Magic, the leading provider of high-precision automatic content recognition (ACR) solutions, and RGB Networks, the provider of the industry’s most scalable, unified solutions for multiscreen video delivery, announced the companies are working together to enable cable and satellite broadcast network operators to replace ads embedded in broadcast streams when those streams originally lack advertising markers. The solution is particularly applicable outside the U.S., where ad markers such as SCTE-35 cues are often not included in broadcast content.
Audible Magic will demonstrate the solution September 12-16 at the IBC2014 Show in Amsterdam, RAI Hall 14, stand number 14.K03.
“Many network operators outside the US want to realize new revenue opportunities where advertising in broadcast streams could be replaced,” said Vance Ikezoye, Audible Magic’s CEO. “Lacking SCTE-35 markers, network operators can’t automate ad insertion. Now with Audible Magic detecting ad placements in the content itself with frame-accurate precision, RGB Networks can insert a marker and enable the use of ad insertion equipment.”
Audible Magic offers a hardware appliance that monitors incoming broadcast streams and applies its patented content fingerprint-matching technique to identify advertising content against a hosted database of all ads appearing in the network. When ad content is detected in the broadcast stream, Audible Magic’s Ad Detection Appliance signals RGB Networks’ ad-marking device that then injects SCTE-35 cues, with splice-frame accuracy, into the transcoded stream. Ad insertion equipment that responds to SCTE-35 cues can then be utilized downstream to enable ad replacement that is invisible to the viewer yet cost-effective to implement.
Audible Magic’s ad detection can be applied to live linear broadcasts or to video on demand, cloud DVR or personal DVR applications. The combined Audible Magic-RGB Networks solution works for both QAM or IPTV distribution networks.
“In working with Audible Magic, we’ve provided international network operators an immediate solution to increased revenues that easily plugs and plays with their existing infrastructure,” said Simone Sassoli, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at RGB Networks.
About Audible Magic Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity, generate usage reporting and activate content monetization. Since its founding in 1999, the company has been awarded 29 patents in the US and in Europe. Audible Magic’s customers and partners span technology, entertainment and media industries and include CBS, CBC, Dailymotion, Discovery, Disney, Ensequence, EMI, Facebook, Fox, Intel, Metacafe, NBCUniversal, Sony, Soundcloud, Univision, Universal Music, Verizon, Viacom, Vimeo, and Warner Music.
About RGB Networks RGB Networks provides the industry’s most scalable, unified solutions for multiscreen video delivery to any device. With core strengths in nDVR, ad insertion, packaging, and transcoding, RGB’s ‘Multiscreen 2.0’ cloud-based solutions enable video service providers to streamline and monetize TV Everywhere and OTT services, with unmatched reliability and future-proof scalability. RGB’s high-capacity cloud, software, and hardware solutions uniquely offer the density and scalability required to support the growing demand for video delivery to TVs, tablets, PCs and mobile devices with integrated functionality that simplifies service provider’s network architectures and minimizes operational costs. RGB’s award-winning products are deployed with over 400 video service providers worldwide, delivering solutions for traditional and OTT video services. Venture capital investment firms include Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive, Focus Ventures, Granite Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners. RGB is a private, profitable company based in Sunnyvale, California with offices around the world.
What’s Going On With Twitch and Audible Magic?
During the last few days the Internet has been buzzing with comments about Audible Magic as a service provider to Twitch.tv. Some of these comments contain rumors or misinformation, so we’ll mention a few things in this post to raise the level of information out there.
What happened?
Twitch turned on a new feature that aids its site in protecting copyright owners. When Twitch users' VOD videos contain copyrighted media content that has been flagged by the copyright owner as a “do not share” item, Twitch responds with an action to mask a portion of audio.
What’s Audible Magic’s part in this?
Twitch contracted Audible Magic to provide a content matching service. Twitch provides Audible Magic a sample of audio content and Audible Magic reports if a match is found in a database of submitted works. Matches, plus the content owner’s specified business rules, are reported to Twitch, and Twitch handles all actions from there. Audible Magic performs no blocking of content. Audible Magic is simply an information provider.
What’s in Audible Magic’s database?
Audio and video media copyright owners or their licensed agents submit “fingerprints” of media works, enabling those works to be identified by Audible Magic matching services. The copyright owners also submit business rules to associate with those works. If a copyright owner does not want their work shared freely on individual social media sites, they provide business rules specifying that. Copyright owners can also submit “allow” rules by title. Each month, Audible Magic receives on average 250,000 new media titles, including each title’s business rules, submitted by copyright owners to Audible Magic’s database.
Does Audible Magic work for the copyright holders?
Audible Magic receives no revenue from any media copyright owner for registering content in its database or for providing a matching service. Our paying customers are companies, like Twitch, that are looking for matching services to automate a part of their process or workflow.
What if Audible Magic incorrectly reports a match?
We believe Audible Magic offers the most highly trusted matching service available. We treat any match error as a bug, and we aggressively pursue prompt resolution of all bugs. We’re very serious about getting it right.
What’s next?
Audible Magic is devoted to continual improvement of its products and services. We work closely with our clients and partners to ensure we offer the best possible solutions. We also proactively evolve with our customers and their user’s needs to improve solution offerings. We are always open to feedback about how our services can be enhanced or what we can do to help our customers deliver great products.