Harness the power of Pex

Discovery is the premier audio and video copyright search engine created by Pex. Using the most advanced audio and video identification technology, Discovery finds the most uses of copyrighted content across various content-sharing platforms. Discovery is accessed via a dashboard (drm.pex.com) and customers can add assets to track via the dashboard or API for bulk additions.

Discovery scans digital platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), indexes publicly available information, and creates digital fingerprints of published audio or video content. When you provide an asset (such as an audio or video file) to Discovery, it is compared against Pex’s database of over 23 billion pieces of content. Discovery regularly scans platforms for new information, and then data is updated for any tracked assets.

Pex occasionally makes changes to the platforms it tracks in order to keep up with customer demand. The platform list below is as-of 10/09/23. Please reach out to your Pex representative for the most current platform list.

You can use this data for your internal needs, or repackage it to increase your revenue. Discovery data can help you:

● Find new artists or fans to collaborate with

● See the impact of your content and how others use it

● Potentially monetize copies on certain sites

● Strengthen and inform marketing initiatives

● Find your content in order to request takedowns if needed

Historical copies are reuses of your audio or video assets on the platforms that we track These historical copies are surfaced through a lookback. A lookback checks for copies that may have been created during the gap in time between the asset being uploaded to a platform, and when it began tracking with Discovery. This means if a copy of your asset was uploaded to a content-sharing platform before you began tracking the asset, the copy will still be identified.

Pex does not partner with platforms or use their APIs to provide Discovery data. To ensure we are not overloading platforms with our crawlers, and to keep our costs low for customers, we do not continuously check for updated view counts on copies. Because of this, there may be some discrepancies in view counts, which are constantly changing.

Every month, your tracked assets will be checked for additional copies and associated data including views. However, in the interim, you may see a difference between the view count on the platform, and the view count from Discovery. For Discovery plans that offer real-time updates, please reach out to your Pex representative.

Discovery: Snapshot delivers data on your tracked assets every month for a low cost. With these monthly updates available via a dashboard or API, you can leverage the insights internally or repackage the data as a new solution for your customers.

1. Send audio and video assets you want to track, and metadata, to Discovery
2. Discovery creates fingerprints of the assets and compares them to Pex’s database of 23B+ audio and video assets
3. Every month, Discovery will search over 20 digital platforms to find more copies of your content, and looks back as far as one year to find the most matches
4. Data on where your content was discovered, including URLs and engagement metrics, are delivered via the dashboard or API

Pex provides API documentation for Discovery customers. If you or your team has any questions, please reach out to your Pex representative. If using the dashboard, you can upload assets manually via public URL (YouTube) or media file.

If sending assets via API 

Send media files how you prefer:

● MP3, WAV (preferred)

● MPEG, MP4 (preferred)

● Public URL (i.e. YouTube)

We’ll also need each asset’s metadata, including:

● Title

● Production date (release date)

● Media type (audio, visual, audiovisual)

● MIME type (MP3, MPEG, etc.)

● fid (SHA256 hash of the first 512kb of data in your file)

● Artist and album name

● ISRC or ISWC

Discovery data will be returned for every tracked asset, including historical copies. 

Included data for every identified copy:

● Asset IDs and URLs

● What percent of the asset was used (i.e. 5% of your recording was used in the copy)

● What percent of the copy is made up of your asset (i.e. 100% of the copy contains your asset)

● Platform the copy was found on

● Engagement data such as views, likes, and comments

● YouTube claim status

● Find new artists or fans to collaborate with

● See the impact of your content and how others use it

● Potentially monetize copies on certain sites

● Strengthen and inform marketing initiatives

● Find your content in order to request takedowns if needed

Historical copies are reuses of your audio or video assets on the platforms that we track These historical copies are surfaced through a lookback. A lookback checks for copies that may have been created during the gap in time between the asset being uploaded to a platform, and when it began tracking with Discovery. This means if a copy of your asset was uploaded to a content-sharing platform before you began tracking the asset, the copy will still be identified.

Discovery Snapshot includes a one year historical lookback that refreshes on the first of every month. For example, if you upload an asset to Discovery in June 2022, Discovery will look for any copies uploaded between July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2021. The following month, Discovery will look for copies between August 1, 2022 and August 1, 2021. This means that your monthly data deliveries will include additional copies that were uploaded to a site in the prior month, but also additional copies that were uploaded to a site anytime in the one year period.

Data is updated on the first of every month only. For more frequent updates, please reach out to your Pex representative about our other Discovery plans.

The cost of Discovery: Snapshot is based on assets tracked per month. Each asset is $1 per month and must be 10 minutes or less. If more than 10 minutes, the asset will be billed as multiple assets.

Pex Search leverages Pex’s leading-edge Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology to find the most uses of copyrighted works and return match data to clients. Clients can then determine the appropriate action to take, such as licensing the copyright or preventing it from being distributed. The primary tool used by Pex Search clients is the Software Development Kit (SDK).

The SDK enables a client to transform audio or video into digital fingerprints. Via the SDK, these fingerprints are then sent to Pex for identification, and any positive matches are returned to the client.