> we set out to recognize, organize and analyze branded intellectual property in user-generated content

Looks like technology to fight copyright infringement

Might be a smart move by Facebook: if this technology was used on Facebook, then they might have to shut down half of Facebook. Better to buy them out.

Possibly, but they could also choose to enforce copyright claims on people who can pay. Or maybe facebook just doesn't care about my meme pages and wants to purge them so I spend more time looking at branded content.

The porn industry has been doing this for a while. I remember about 4-5 years ago were services available to content producers that scanned tube sites and newsbins for copyrighted content. You had to pay for it though (SaaS, they wouldn't sell the code). It was somewhat of a racket, because the people selling the detection service were also running the tube sites that were condoning piracy.

It's amazing how the porn industry is often on the front line of technology. They rarely get any notice though.

Does it predate content ID on youtube? I suppose the difference with ContentID is that it's free to file a claim and it's limited to youtube and not multiple tube sites.

Agreed; also, turn it around and it becomes a user-generated-content tool as well. As in anything that goes viral, the brand owner can take ownership of and exploit as an unauthorized derivative work, free of any user recourse.

Well, except Fair Use, but I'd hope that's part of their model to consider, because it's important I think.

But nobody really knows what fair use means. We have a general idea but that's it.

No, we do know what Fair Use is it's just that people like to claim it as an excuse when it's not valid.

CASE IN POINT: Mike Masnick. That sonofabitch is the most ignorant loud-mouth "I ain't never made nothing creative so everything is Fair Use" sinkhole asshole since Nick Denton.

Fair Use is alive and well. Idiots who try to wear it as a defense cloak get what's coming to them. I know the right lawyers to dail up if I ever need to, but I haven't needed to, because I'm not Masnick.

I'm guessing something like a "Let's Go Crazy Babydance" detector. Combine Shazam with image recognition seeded with brands and product images and you can cover a lot of UGC with takedowns or ad rev takeovers.