People are creating content that gets picked up by everyone from their followers and friends to the traditional media.

Yet no one knows who the creator of the video clip they saw on their nightly news program is. Once videos, songs, and images are in the wild on the Internet, they take on a life of their own, almost completely detached from their original creators.

Today, Pex is launching its new Attribution Engine to connect this content with its creators and address the pervasive lack of transparency in digital rights attribution.

Pex’s Attribution Engine allows any rights holder to declare ownership of their audio and video assets, and opens up the database of accurate, up-to-date ownership information to all media sharing platforms and content creators. Using snippets as short as half a second.

Attribution Engine is available unconditionally to any and all creators, rights holders, and platforms, completely free of charge.

How Attribution Engine Works

Attribution Engine is a clearinghouse for digital copyrights. It pairs a complex database of media ownership information, with a custom look-up for any interested party.

In its current form, the system supports any video or audio content.

All information stored in the database comes directly from the creators and rights holders. Anyone can create a free account. To prevent abuse, anonymous submissions are not allowed.

Each entry in the database is immutable. All content is fingerprinted by Pex’s proprietary algorithms and the results are stored in the database, available for future lookups.

The database of registered assets is searchable by Attribution Engine users. Anyone, from individual content creators to large platforms, can become a user and look up copyrights using an audio, video, or audiovisual file.

Underlying Technology

The fingerprinting and look-up capabilities of Attribution Engine stem from the established technology on which it is built. Pex’s algorithms, which have been powering Pex products for the past few years, allow for content identification with matching segments as short at 0.5 second in length, melody matching, and detecting compressed, cropped, or otherwise modified copies.

The technology behind Attribution Engine grants substantial data storage and swift look-up for creators and platforms.

The infrastructure already processes billions of messages daily, across thousands of servers. With response times within 5 seconds, high-volume users can scale with Attribution Engine.

It's Free

Yes. Pex aims to broaden access to copyright information. By offering Attribution Engine at no cost to users, more rights holders can make their assets discoverable, and more platforms and creators can get obtain useful media ownership information.

Pex is able to provide Attribution Engine free of charge because the business lies in the greater scope of its unique search technology.

Asset registry and asset look-up services are only the start of the Attribution Engine’s capabilities. Revenue opportunities will come from transaction fees and emergent analytics solutions.