Attribution Engine

The copyright solution for the creator economy, providing compliance, real-time licensing, and dispute resolution for platforms, rightsholders, and creators.

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Asset Registry

Open to everyone and completely free

The asset registry contains millions of copyrighted videos and sound recordings along with their corresponding metadata and licensing information, including composition information for sound recordings. Lookups return a complete profile of ownership for each identified copyright. Attribution Engine enables all rightsholders to register their full catalog and has an ownership conflict resolution system that works to resolve ownership disputes and inconsistencies in the data.

Once content is registered, rightsholders set licensing policies for each piece of content dictating how it can be used online, such as monetize, custom, free license, or block. The registry and policies are used to enable content identification on digital platforms as well as real-time licensing and publishing decisions.

Content Identification

Identify all uses prior to publication

Attribution Engine offers content identification technology for digital platforms. The software, in the form of an SDK, sends fingerprint hashes of user-generated content to the Attribution Engine where it is matched against the asset registry in 5 seconds or less. If there is a match, platforms will receive all the information they need to attribute correct ownership and license the content before it is published.

For example, if a user uploads a video to a social media platform that contains as little as 1 second of a copyrighted song in the asset registry, Attribution Engine will identify the use, lookup the rightsholders and any set licensing policies, inform the platform of every rightsholder (sound recording and composition), and of the policy for the song.

Identify all uses prior to publication

  • Identify content matches down to 1 second across both audio and video content

  • Detect recordings, melodies, mixes and remixes, regardless of distortions or alterations

  • Detect semantic variations of music such as remasters, instrumentals, live versions, and karaoke

  • Detect videos regardless of distortions such as speed, cropping, text, noise, rotations, color, or splicing

Licensing

Real-time, global and centralized licensing

Attribution Engine enables licenses to be transacted and recognized at all points in the content creation process. Platforms can recognize and understand any license that has been transacted through the engine at the point of content upload to ensure that all user-generated content is appropriately licensed and any payments are properly distributed.

The licensing infrastructure works within existing blanket license structures but also offers other forms of licensing that meet all of the platforms legal obligations. This flexibility will enable new opportunities, models and markets for copyrighted material to flourish.

Licensing policies

  • Monetize – Content containing this asset can be published by the platform with a standard, pre-negotiated license agreement.

  • Direct – The platform will be informed on each lookup to refer to the signed deal that it has with the rightsholder.

  • Block – Content containing the asset cannot be published on the platform, even if it is part of a longer composition.

  • Free license – All lookups will be accompanied with the selected license. This includes Public Domain, Creative Commons, and other licensing options available in certain jurisdictions.

Reporting

Quality, consolidated reports on catalog use

With all content and licenses managed in one place, Attribution Engine provides quality, consolidated reports on content use across platforms and royalties earned.

Complaint & Redress

Resolve rights conflicts efficiently

To ensure attribution and licensing accuracy, Attribution Engine incorporates a rights dispute resolution process, available to all platform partners. The object of the process is to ensure the quick resolution of disputes between rightsholders and content uploaders and minimize the amount of time content is unavailable due to claims of copyright infringement while respecting rightsholders’ licensing objectives and uploaders’ rights to content.

When Attribution Engine informs a platform of a copyright match in user-generated content, the platform applies the associated rightsholders’ licensing policy to that content. Users are given the chance to dispute the application of the policy against their content. If a user deems their content is clear of copyright infringement, they can raise a dispute in order to clear the content for distribution. The platform, through the API, registers the dispute with Attribution Engine. Once the dispute is registered, Attribution Engine verifies the claim is valid and informs the rightsholder. The rightsholder will decide how to proceed with the dispute.

Rightsholder dispute resolution options include:

  • Release the policy – this will allow the content to be published

  • Affirm the policy – this action will inform the uploader that the rightsholder is standing by the policy application.

If the claim is affirmed and the user still disagrees, both parties can direct complaints to a dispute resolution panel, in collaboration with trusted institutions, which reviews the claim and decides what action to take for that upload. The platform is indemnified from any legal risk once they comply with the panel’s decision. All parties may resort to other litigation once the dispute resolution process has been exhausted.

Payments

Global royalty payments for platforms

For all monetized and licensed content, Attribution Engine distributes appropriate royalty payments to all rightsholders globally on behalf of platforms.

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