Proactive intellectual property enforcement system

摘要

A proactive intellectual property enforcement system is disclosed. File sharing services may be disrupted by uploading a collection of multiple modified versions of a media file. The collection of modified copies may each include a distinct portion of modified and unmodified content. However, even though each modified copy includes a distinct variation of modified and unmodified content, the set of modified files are constructed such that some common portion (or portions) of the media file are always created as the modified version. Thus, a complete, unmodified copy of the media title cannot be reconstructed from the set of modified copies.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method for generating a plurality modified copies of a source file storing digital media content:
generating each respective modified copy by:
determining an initial, unmodified portion of the modified copy, wherein the initial, unmodified portion is set to a first point in the source file in a first modified copy and incremented by a specified amount for each successive modified copy, up to a second point in the source file and wherein each modified copy is assigned a unique identifier, andfollowing the initial unmodified portion, generating an alternating sequence of modified and unmodified portions, based on a fixed modification size, until reaching an end point in the source file, wherein each modified portion degrades a playback quality of the digital media content and wherein each of the plurality of modified copies share at least one portion of modified content in common, such that a complete, unmodified copy of the source file cannot be reconstructed from the plurality of modified copies; and tracing at least one of the modified copies spreading from one location to another location using the unique identifier.