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Mpeg 7 To Include Per-Frame Content Identification

Posted by timothy on from the you're-watching-us-and-vice-versa dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NEC has announced that its video content identification technology has been incorporated in the upcoming Mpeg 7 video standard, allowing for each video frame to have its own signature, meaning that even minute changes to the file such as adding subtitles, watermarks or dogtags, and of course cutting out adverts, will alter the overall signature of the video. According to NEC this will allow the owners of the video to automatically 'detect illegal copies' and 'prevent illegal upload of video content' without their consent. NEC also claims that its technology will do away with the current manual checking by members of the movie industry and ISPs to spot dodgy videos."

11 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. modest proposal by drDugan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think we should mandate legislatively that all video created should use this technology from now on. TV shows, documentaries, big hit movies, home movies, birthday parties, independent films, security cameras, everything. This way, we can clearly establish ownership of video content in all cases. Anyone who has digital video not maked per frame with ownership should be prosecuted immediately.

    Furthermore, we should mandate that all hardware created in the future, including TVs and cable boxes, computers and everything capable of reading video - all of it should only be able to play video with the new "who owns this frame" technology - otherwise, people might play video that doesn't belong to them.

    And we should include vetting of licensing terms into the hardware system; so that only with the correct license can the hardware play back the video in question.

    And we should impose fully automated reporting systems in hardware that detects and reports tampering to the local authorities. Open up that computer case and put in a non-approved, black market video driver: the machine sends and email to law enforcement. Connect a pirate cable box to your TV, and then your TV immediately stops working, and broadcasts a wireless signal that only law enforcement can detect.

    I think this technology for copyright enforcement should be placed into prosthetics that sits inside the eyeballs of everyone who wants permission to view video. These prosthetic devices could similarly verify the authenticity of videos frame by frame, check for an approved license, and send out signals to law enforcement if pirated video is detected. Approved prosthetics should be compulsory to obtaining permission to view all videos.

    Finally, we should up the penalties for copyright infringement, to instant death - basically we should have our eyeball prosthetics simply explode when unverified video is detected. /s

    1. Re:modest proposal by Vectormatic · · Score: 5, Funny

      iDo

      wow, i finally figured out what will kill mariage in western culture, it wont be rising divorces, or just outright oligarchy with harems, it will be an apple trademark...

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
    2. Re:modest proposal by grantek · · Score: 5, Funny

      OMG, you must watch kiddie porn!! Witch! Witch! Burn it!!

    3. Re:modest proposal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Shut up. I watch kiddie porn, and I don't want to be compared to this pirating bastard.

    4. Re:modest proposal by andi75 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I didn't miss the sarcasm. I just think it's time for consumers to start making some demands of our own.

      Outlaw every single DRM measure! Outlaw copy protection, region encoding, viewing restrictions (like the annoying mandatory ads on DVDs).

      All these things are just hurting the honest paying customer, while the pirates actually get the better product.

      Also, think of the children! They can be easily influenced by scrupulous advertisers and shouldn't be forced to sit through any commercials at all (while we're at it, let's outlaw all commercials during day time programming).

    5. Re:modest proposal by Golddess · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Own it today on DVD and Bluray!"

      Me thinks then that a case could be made against Bestbuy and any one else who makes such a claim in advertisements.

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    6. Re:modest proposal by andi75 · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you believe you have only the right to do the things worded in the unreadable legalese you have already successfully been brainwashed.

      If you buy a movie, you get to watch/mutilate/ignore the movie. On your terms. The movie is protected by copyright, which is ment to govern *redistribution* of said movie (wholesale or in parts), and nothing else. What you're doing with it is 100% your choice.

  2. How it works by scdeimos · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the technically curious, there's a high-level overview of the technology in an NEC media release here:

    http://www.nec.com.au/News-Media/Media-Centre/Media-Releases/NEC-Develops-Video-Content-Identification-Technology-that-Detects-Illegal-Video-Copies-on-the-Internet-in-a-Matter-of-Seconds.html

  3. Re:First of all.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, this is pretty hilarious, also your comment is a bit misinformed, but I don't really blame you for that, so here's the low down...

    MPEG-7 is a content description standard - that is, it can be used with MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (which includes h.264 quite notably...) to add metadata to the data streams.

    Okay, so now we're talking about an NEC extension to MPEG-7 that they're trying to sell - even though MPEG-7 is largely unused right now. Also, notice I say unused now, implying the standard is done. That's because it is done. MPEG-7 isn't "going" to contain anything - it already exists! This is just an extension to it being proposed by someone who has a new patent and wants to get in the patent pool doubtless.

    Okay, now to address your comment. MPEG has nothing to do with patents or licensing. MPEG = Motion Picture Experts Group, they help design and create video standards, and they're very intelligent people. The people you want to be mad at is MPEG-LA - no relation to MPEG whatsoever except their name. MPEG-LA creates patent pools for "essential" patents and then license them to implementors, distributors, and anyone who they can convince people needs them. MPEG-LA is pretty bad, but compared to some other patent people (look at Via's licensing for AAC...) they're not so bad - first 100,000 units sold don't have to pay royalties, any freely distributed videos don't have to pay royalties. Not saying they're good, but they're just not quite as bad as everyone else out there doing patent enforcement...

    So please, don't blame the kind people a MPEG for MPEG-LA. Blame MPEG-LA themselves, http://mpegla.com/

    Sincerely,
    Your friendly codec developer/implementer

  4. Re:Re-encoding? by qbast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course you don't have to transcode. You can ask distributor to sell you the movie again in different format. More profit!

  5. Re:First of all.... by williamhb · · Score: 5, Funny

    So please, don't blame the kind people a MPEG for MPEG-LA. Blame MPEG-LA themselves, http://mpegla.com/

    It's that blasted media franchising culture again, isn't it! CSI, great. CIS-Miami, wall to wall sunglass gestures. CSI NY, ghastly. MPEG, lovely. MPEG-LA, rubbish. And you just know the next one's going to be MPEG-Hawaii or something equally horrible.