So what Rep. Marino essentially wants is for Google to build a Shazam-like service that doesn’t just identify a song by “listening” to it, but also determines if whoever playing that song has the legal right to do so. Thus, this anti-pirate-Shazam would have to determine from the musical signature of a song such things as whether it came from an iTunes or Amazon MP3 or a CD. And not only that, it would have to determine whether or not the MP3 or CD is a legal or illegal copy.
This isn't as hard as the author is making it sound and I suspect Youtube already handles it with movie clips. With the aid of an external "copyright registry", Google could see if the fingerprint of an unknown song is close to one in the registry. Obviously, there would be many false positives and true negatives, but that is certainly true with child porn detection as well. Indeed, it wouldn't take all that much coordination to pull off; a better-funded copyright office could handle this.
I don't agree with Google/internet being forced to do this due to the burden it creates, but it isn't that hard to pull off...
Especially since basically zero major label music or Hollywood movies are legally available for free, so if Google detects such a file it's presumptively infringing. (Oops, is that something you can't say?)
This isn't as hard as the author is making it sound and I suspect Youtube already handles it with movie clips. With the aid of an external "copyright registry", Google could see if the fingerprint of an unknown song is close to one in the registry. Obviously, there would be many false positives and true negatives, but that is certainly true with child porn detection as well. Indeed, it wouldn't take all that much coordination to pull off; a better-funded copyright office could handle this.
I don't agree with Google/internet being forced to do this due to the burden it creates, but it isn't that hard to pull off...