Manwin and Pink Visual Answer Your Digital Finger Printing/Filtering Questions

Common sense isnt a legal argument. Use available tech is.

I dont think they want to remove piracy at all. I think they want to maintain their standing at the top of the adult traffic world. By setting the example that the technology is available they are forcing the smaller tubes to comply as well. It's a great business move to create a level playing field once they already have the upper hand.

They are never going to just remove a thousand videos because common sense tells them they're copyrighted. That would hurt their position and they're not legally required to do so.

We'll see...
http://removeyourcontent.asia/temp2/subpoena100801.pdf

For the more technically inclined.

It's nice that they can keep it in O(log n). That leads me to believe that they don't have to compare each fingerprint to every other fingerprint to find a match. They probably store it in a manner in which they specify the video generally and then narrow down more.

That would suggest that they have the ability to find similar videos as well.

Seems like this technology requires being able to feed the videos from a site into the engine to fingerprint and then compare. There seems to be a technical and also legal flaw to this.

Technical: You have to write a spider for each site individually because they protect each video. They can detect how many videos you "watch" and if it is over a certain threshold they simply ban you. If they think you are spidering their videos they just have to change the authentication method. IP's suspected of spidering can be banned outright and shared across the network of piraters.

Legal: IANAL but reverse engineering something in order to break its protection is usually considered illegal. The DMCA might have some provisions to allow it or might add some in the future but that still leaves the technical problems mentioned above.

On an unrelated note, this technology has yet further applications. It would be cool for someone to be able to upload a clip or screenshot from a movie and then have the site report back, what movie is this from? Which can ultimately be used for things like, who is this girl?

Too bad the FSC isn't doing things like this if they want to go after piracy.

Your technical & legal flaws are incorrect. It's already been done on both tubes that voluntarily integrate and ones that don't. This is not a science experiment, the FSC didn't invent this, its been done and proven by technology companies already. Get a demo of the technology by contacting the FSC and see for yourself or read more about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital...fingerprinting

* 999999999999999999999999999

Before I start, one important statement.

I have been very honest on this board, very open, very willing to discuss. The emotional crap I get thrown my way is tiresome and thus obviously gets me aggravated sometimes. I do my best for this not to happen as far as I can, but obviously I am not perfect.

I will continue to be very honest in these threads, I will repeat statements over and over again while people think they have to put out false and unproven claims over and over again...

I will start with the basics, just to get them out of the way, which the haters here all will simply claim are lies:
- All content is _user_ uploaded, this includes our own users for brazzers and mofos and users for the partner program people of course.
- We do not make money with APAP. Only in the case of replacing content and putting ads up to the content owner we would. Currently, we are implementing it, but we will see how much use it will have. We are right now simply not letting content fingerprinted up on the site.

Regarding the repeat infringer policy, as far as I know we ban the user, and prohibit him from signing up again via blocking email address and such. Right now, as far as I know, we do not remove all the content, but I am verifying that, I simply did not have the time the past few days.

Regarding Robbie's post long post, saying I am a stupid idiot who knows nothing...

Please, if you do not know me, stop claiming stuff you obviously do not know.
1) I invented NATS, telling me I can not admin a server, build a site with notepad, take care of 2257 docs, is just rediculous.
2) Can I shoot? Myself? No, we contract 3 exclusive studios in the USA, and are testing 3 in europe for exclusivity too. We also outsource amateur content to 150000 individuals around the globe. (Yes, thats 4 zero's).
3) Direct? Again, no.. not myself, the studio's have director's on their payroll.
4) Film editing? Directly, no, we employ a crew of 60 people in-house (yes, 60), who do pre and post production, including script writers, model scouts and managers, special effects artists and video editors.

So, I guess, if I lost my company, my skill sets sadly only seem to be inventing software like NATS, writing high speed server systems, and managing a company...

So, sorry.. I think, that I do really work this business. Btw, I have been on sets, just mentioning since you thought I likely never was.

Just because I post on this board, does not mean I have nothing to do obviously. I enjoy posting here before and after true work, or during to relax. It get's the edge off... so to speak. I'm weird, I know...

I am also unsure why you seem to think I am somehow less valued in the adult industry simply because I do not shoot content myself.. very confusing.

The thing most people here complaining how they are so much more in hurt by piracy because they are content producers just seize to realize is that Manwin currently is one of if not the biggest producer in adult entertainment online.

As I have said from the beginning, months ago, we are slowly doing our plan of changing certain aspects of how the tubes work. This can not happen overnight. Anyone with a sound business mind will understand this. For those that do not accept or understand this fact, so be it, I'll survive and ignore you...

Eric, looking forward to lots of fun fights with you, which you obviously want to have...

You do realize that the FSC doesn't participate in private party litigation right?

No, you're wrong. You assume all the Tubes are subject to the DMCA law. Try enforcing it in Russia, Ukraine or any other country that does not give a fuck about the US DMCA law. Does the "available tech" stipulation apply in the EU?

Paul, yes it does apply.

Regarding the posts about weird looking stuff... like the dates for uploaded and joined and so on... you all do realize that programs have bugs, right? Digging around and posting every little thing you find, is very nice of you for our people in Q&A (or very bad, if they keep missing obvious things and will now get fired) since you are helping them find bugs, but it proves nothing...

Allison, I already read the wikipedia link you mentioned and also found some more technical information from various sources on how specifically it is implemented. I think you misunderstand what I said.

I did not say it could not work at all. I said I saw flaws. Obviously if the content is voluntarily provided by the site it makes it much easier. This can be used to effectively reduce piracy. But to the degree that they (infringers) deliberately prevent you from getting at the videos is where I see the problem.

Can you go into more detail on why I am incorrect? Saying that it has already been done does not make my statements any less true as I am not saying it can not be done; just that there are situations where I see this would not be feasible, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Half Man, Half Amazing:
Your note about finding some content from a studio up there that you assume is infringed on makes a point. However, I have to point out that that is all it does, make a GFY point.

You know that the copyright owner now has two choices here. Send a properly formatted DMCA notice for the takedown or participate in the APAP system and monetize it. If you read the UGC principles, the copyright holder or someone acting on their official behalf is the one that actually has the authority to request the removal.

So maybe the content is infringed. Or maybe the studio wants it there. Or maybe it?s properly licensed content. Or maybe it?s another story. In fact, if a UGC site removes the content without a DMCA notice or reason to believe the copyright holder wants something else done with it, they could be opening themselves to other liabilities.

Fabian has already noted that he has been implementing different operations consistent with the UGC principles since March 1st, 2010 and Manwin acquired Spankwire in August. He doesn?t have to disclose his checklist or timelines to anyone nor anything that might disclose private business information.

I'm not personally defending him, I'm just telling you the reality of this situation despite it maybe being frustrating for you and others. This is the legal and business environment that we have today and people on both sides need to figure out a way to work within those confinements.

This thread is about the FSC APAP and digital finger printing and filtering technology, so I'd like to keep it tracking on that.

Like any legally binding agreement there are contingencies and repercussions if either side does not do what was agreed upon. The same goes with our agreement with TopBucks and I am sure something similar will be in place with the XNXX and XVideos agreements too, although I am not privy to those so I can not say for sure.

I have no desire to be in breach of our parts of the agreement as much as I am sure TopBucks has no desire to be in breach of their parts either.

I doubt the FSC would let a tube signup without signing agreements with them every single time.

I bet the guys with 2300 and 2100 uploaded vids all 40 minutes in length and all copyrighted....that's just a bug too right?

Dude you are sooooo full of shit it's hilarious. If you told me the sun was coming up tomorrow I would be out buying candles because you are completely incapable of being honest for 2 seconds.

You keep saying you are not responsible for what happened before you bought the company and that you're changing things. Well can you explain this please?

This happened under your watch and clearly this guy has been very busy uploading over 8 hours a day, every day for 3 weeks. And how come he only joined 4 days ago and last logged in 3 weeks ago.

If he had to join to upload, he's been a very very busy boy in 4 days. Now why would he tie up his computer and sit at it for all that time? Maybe just cos he loves Tubes or someone is paying him.

There are lots of other uploaders with unusual history.

Many thanks - I certainly hadn't considered the legal aspects of reverse engineering. However, I would have thought analysing a publicly available stream was perfect valid... it isn't reversing to find a fingerprint, since there is none there (in my own train of thought).

In any case, thanks for the technical breakdown - that gives me a great idea for something else that I'm stuck on. Really, thanks - it gives me the push I need.

Look, you do not understand DMCA rules. We run tube sites, we do not plan to not follow DMCA.

For all you know, we could have licenses for all those videos. They could also be there on purpose. or the people owning them do not mind that they are there.

Just because you think they are infringing does not make them infringing. This is the part you do not want to understand.

But please, as Allison says, remain on topic. The thing that at least makes me happy is that its always the same people complaining. Around 10 or so... including people like Eric who obviously have something to lose if piracy goes away... (sorry eric, had to mention it at least once, you are having way too much fun here ;) )

Well, I'll give you a personal example. We've had our content finger printed & we used the APAP software to track all of our content on all 16 sites they had at the time. We also had an employee here individually go through all of the videos on about 5 different tubes and it took him about 2 weeks per tube site to do in detail.

Every single video he found was also found by the technology. Out of 1,000 videos found across 16 tube sites, only 5 were false positives where they were not our videos.

So that's just a statement to it's accuracy that we've seen.

Regarding workarounds. If a UGC company is agreeing to participate in the program in order to comply with UGC principles/DMCA, that's a non issue. If a UGC company refuses to participate & then does whatever it can to evade tracking I believe they would be positioning themselves for even more liability and there would be evidence gathered by the tracking software demonstrating that evasion.

Paul, there is nothing funky with what you pasted, other than possibly a bug in the software (regarding the times). Yes, shocking, we might have bugs in our software.

Why do you tie up your computer posting useless comments on GFY all day long?

The naming of the technology is a little misleading. It doesn't actually change the video at all. There is nothing to remove. Also someone can't distort the video. It can still be identified as that same video very quickly and easily.

Thanks for clearing that up. As I said my guess would have been "No" on most points because I don't know who the heck you are.

Sounds like you're a programmer to me. Which screams "no skin in the game" to me, no matter how many guys shoot stuff for the company. That was my point Fabian.

Your skill sets are definitely good enough from what you just told me to get yourself a nice programming job.

And I'm not trying to attack you personally. Just pointing out that you are NOT in the trenches, never have been, and never will be. And therefore you can't understand why all the vitriol is thrown your way.

IF you were in the same situation as myself & Claudia-Marie, the Azianis, Celeste Fox, Vicky Vette, Brandy Love, Kayla Kleevage, and many many others who LIVE this business from the inside out then you wouldn't post in such a pompous way.

But again, I understand. You feel like you're being attacked and you are defending yourself.

Bottom line is...you just told us all that you "invented" NATS, and that you are a genius at programming.

And then you present yourself as a knight in shining armor for piracy.

And then you refuse to police your own site. Even though your skill set clearly dictates that you could PERSONALLY sit down and write a few scripts in the afternoon and clean it up.

And that's what is causing all the hate towards you.

I know you don't really give a damn what the people on GFY think. I know I don't. The majority of them are useless and it's hard to tell if they even are in this business at all.

But I AM in this business, and I'm not some faceless nickname on a message board like they are. And I can tell you what the REAL pornographers with their hands on the wheel think. Unlike you we do our own work. Make all the decisions. Shoot everything ourselves. Ours is a labor of love and creativity. We don't pay other people to do our work, because we LOVE to do it ourselves. We are REAL.

And you can't invalidate the feelings we have towards piracy by your flippant remarks. Sorry bro, but you're the worst of all the tube site pirates (don't worry, the torrents and file share guys are worse than you). And as such you are the enemy to every real producer in the world.

I can't help you there. Hell, we both know that YOU can't help you. You have a tiger by the tail and you can't let go.
Pornhub and Keez and the rest of your tubes are a cancer. They are built and run to this very day based on stealing. And while I appreciate that you want to be a "nice" owner of a site full of other people's stolen work...the end result is the same whether you're nice or mean.

Just try to understand that "yes" the handful of big corporate companies that hire shooters to shoot all their content for their 2 dozen sites and DVD interests will see this as something they should do and it won't bother them one little iota.

On the other hand...the thousands of mom & pop producers for whom this their LIFE are not going to see this very favorably. That's just the way it is.

And I don't blame you for laughing all the way to the bank.

I just wish I'd thought of "Pornhub" before the Mansef guys did.

But seriously Fabian...what did you think was going to happen? And do you think that the legal troubles you are facing with that company are over? I'm thinking that a shitstorm is on the horizon for the entire piracy "industry". But that is strictly my hopeful opinion based on nothing but watching current events and theorizing.

I hope you don't mind me saying that I wish nothing but the best of things for your Brazzers end of the business and I hope it's very profitable. And at the same time, I hope that your pirate tube sites end up bankrupting you. Nothing personal..but just like pornhub helped put a LOT of long time affiliates out of work...it's just business.

I also realize that they don't "participate" in tracking stolen content. But it looks like they do now.

That's what I meant by my comment. Instead of trying to cash in on tracking down stolen content...how about using all those terrific lawyers to actually DO something legal about it in a courtroom.

Since they dreamed up "APAP" Seems they could also dream up "TPTC" (take pirates to court) But I guess they are being selective on what they want to do.

That's not what I'm talking about. Say a profile has 2300 uploaded videos and I can directly DMCA you for at least 10 of them. At what point do you stop giving that profile the benefit of the doubt and see that clearly they are violating your TOS and are a repeat-offender?

No problem. Enjoy. I think there are many other applications for this technology that people haven't thought of yet. There really are a lot of cool things this can be used for.

Here's a link to a company that does this:
http://yuvsoft.com/technologies/video_matching/

You can license the C code from them.

I think it is a small time shop and not sure if it is the same thing the FSC is using. I called the number but it was one of those, you have reached ###-###-#### please leave a message types (but in Russian).

That's not what I am saying AT ALL.

What I am saying is, how can you find the infringing videos if they (tube sites or whoever) don't let your software have access to the videos in the first place?

There is no such thing as "benefit of the doubt" in DMCA law. This does not represent a red flag.

The profile is banned as a repeat offender.

It's interesting though. If I were highly motivated I might crawl all profiles and see which ones are affected by this "bug" and keep track of them with screen shots/copies*. From there I would see which % have pirated content. It might show some interesting patterns which could be suggestive of something one way or another. Of course a person would have to act fast because fields can be changed to say anything by the people in control of the database. But then again that might show something too and cause a cscade of other "mistakes"...

You're right though it doesn't by itself prove anything. I personally hope you are on the up and up and that you will work to make your properties piracy free and will not break any laws. I think that's the best case scenario for everyone.

* = Actually if I were highly motivated I would crawl everything on the site at least once a day and log it all; retaining it. Like you say "bugs" always exist in software. If someone were hiding something it would probably be a matter of time until it was somehow revealed one way or another. Being in the right place at the right time would be invaluable. As well as properly documenting it.

You are correct, I invite you of logging whatever you want... Looking forward to the outcome...

Awesome. I'm not saying that I'll do it. I was only putting the idea out there in case no one else thought of it. Who knows maybe someone already did it and has the data? Nice to see you have an open attitude about it though.

I have nothing to hide...

And the other videos that person uploaded become attributable to whom? If they become somehow "public" then I would think that YOU have actually violated DMCA law since now a studio wishing to subpoena IP information on an uploader could no longer get that information.

Banning != Deleting

If that's true then I apologize for some of the shit I've given you here. We'll probably find out one way or another soon enough because attention usually has that effect. Have a good night.

So then you WILL delete all the other videos that user uploaded if you ban them?

Then what thresholds must a repeat offender reach before they are banned?

I sent them 7 DMCA's on this user. Nathan said his account was banned but they just ban his email address. Which means hes probably already uploading again. I guess IP blocking was left out of tube design. GFY has better security than that.

I bet there are no bugs in the software when it comes time for uploads or ad delivery.

Hang on brother...in another thread you were just asked the same question and said this:
Then Dirty Dane asked:
And you replied:
But now you say:
I'm getting lost here...IF you have a user who has 3 strikes against them...and let's just theorize that all 3 of his "strikes" were for Naughty America content for instance. And he has 500 other Naughty America vids uploaded. Are you or aren't you going to remove the other Naughty America videos when you ban him?

Fabian meant that banning the user does not delete their IP details etc incase they are needed for prosecutions but the account login info/IP is banned.

I don't know...this is kind of confusing:

And if he DOESN'T delete the vids...then how does DMCA treat all those "orphan" stolen videos that the same user had uploaded? They suddenly are uploaded by "nobody" but they are still on the site?

So how does Fabian legally "prove" they are "user uploaded" ? Or does he just randomly assign a new "user" to all those videos?

This is a perfect example of how Fabian could answer in a way that shows they are committed to removing piracy. He could say, "yeah if the user shows a clear pattern of violating not only our TOS but of copyright law then we will remove that user and all their uploads, even if one video out of 2300 is legitimate, the user has no recourse to sue Manwin because the overwhelming majority of their uploads are shown to be infringing, and by outing themselves the infringer would be opening themselves up to litigation. I hope this sends a message to all studios that Manwin is honest in trying to work with studios towards solutions, both technologically and practically."

Saying that would have won you soooo much goodwill. But instead of doing that...you're sitting here trying to defend users who upload nearly 2300 hours worth of stolen videos by telling us WE don't understand DMCA law.

This is how you take what could have been an opportunity to win goodwill and you've not only dug yourself into a bigger hole, but you've taken Allison and FSC along with you. We all assumed the previous Mansef owners were shady but since they hid in the shadows, all we could do was speculate. You however, have confirmed any doubts any of us had about you.

This should also be a cautionary tale to Allison and FSC...this is the embodiment of the saying "lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas."

I know more about you and your organization than you know about yourself.

We'll know soon enough:

Actually... I had many years of very good income, as an adult affiliate, until folks like yourself came along. I'm not blaming you or tubes. If piracy went away tomorrow, I'd go back to doing what I was doing before.. selling porn. If you think we're raking in cash.. think again.

This guy aint no fun for the likes of you Nathan. If I were you, I'd draw a "settlement" like that with him RIGHT NOW:

Without knowing the details of the Manwin backend... If the account was flagged/banned I would assume there would be no orphaned videos floating about, as all the videos linked to that account should be flagged/disabled as the account is no longer on the "active" setting for pulling videos from the database. However, the actual video data would obviously still exist on the CDN until manually deleted, this is where the trust would need to come in. And that trust will be hard earned after the shambles of the tube "problem" up until this point in time.

Maybe before it got to the rampant-theft-of-content-stage it did, someone should have suggested to the previous owners of the tubes to look into offering verified content owners/eric@ryc have special access accounts so they can log in and kill/remove infringing videos in real time? Maybe just a simple tool that required an authorised code from the verified content producer/content owner to function so they can input the video url or id and the site auto-flags it for instant removal and all the details of who killed the video/who uploaded etc are sent out every day to all verified content owners so nobody can just start deleting a rivals videos etc. Yes, this is a very simplistic explanation/solution but I hope you get the idea. Maybe even of charged a small fee for it would be fine as it would save lots of time on DMCA etc for the content owner/producer. Could maybe even do that now? Or even look into the solutions Andy (b0rked) has shared, they are pretty smart and won't cost "too much" for even Mom & Pop setups to implement.

Real World example... My friend runs a moderate-sized UGC tube (not porn) that doesn't allow anonymous uploads and requires an email validation link be clicked(temp email account hosts are banned, obviously) before account activation and uploads are limited to 16mb per video. His setup is that if a video is flagged X times the uploader account is automatically locked out and ALL associated content that user uploaded is removed from the search results/active content list (at this point it still exists on the CDN, obviously) until the flagged account can be reviewed and the offending content is manually deleted from the CDN as soon as possible. While an automated solution would be great for him, without knowing if the content is being flagged by people who, for example, simply don't like the user and are just flagging his content out of spite, at the moment he handles it all manually. But once the content/account/ip banned/email blocked/etc is gone it stays gone until another user(yes, the same one could sign up again) re-uploads the content again... and the process starts over again. Manual deletion is the same for flagged content or DMCA notices, so basically for him there isn't 1 button he presses and the account and content are gone instantly. While the flagging is automatic, the removal is manual.

Now back to Adult... So on a server cluster the size that Fabian now owns for the Manwin tube network, I can only guess at the huge amount of time to do the same it would have taken remove the offending content (yes, even with staff employed simply to handle DMCA/flagged content). People seem to have the idea that there is this magic button that gets pressed and voila everything is sorted instantly. It doesn't work like that in the real world unfortunately. But now with VideoDNA fingerprinting tech running for the last couple of months, who knows? I can't imagine the feeling, but I can understand just how berserk you content owners must go when your content appears on tube sites without your consent, and rightly so. If it was my content the tubes had stolen I'd probably be going berserk aswell and seeing this as yet another kick in the nuts, only this time I have to pay for the privilege at first glance. But I greatly value the importance of hearing both sides of the debate, so people can make up their own minds without having to trawl through post after post of "HURRRR DURRRR I BLAME TEH TOOBS, BRAH" crap. Did the tubes steal content? Of course they did, everyone knows this. Did Fabian steal the content? No. Did he come here and try to answer any an all questions asked of him? Yes. Is he making an effort to fix the tube "problem", I think he is yes. Does he get shit on by people boxing him up with the Mansef clowns? Yes. And I think that is wrong. I'm in the tiny minority I know, but still, to constantly shit on the guy over something HE HAD NO CONTROL OVER is dumb in my opinion. Why drive the guy away with nonsense instead of asking thought-out questions? Makes no sense to me. I mean, what if he is who he says he is and what if he does what he has promised to do with the tubes? What if we're all siting here next year, and the content guys are going "well shit, it actually does make/is making a real difference" you know. What if.

Oh, and before the usual suspects come leaping in with their "Why don't you kiss his ass more, fucker!" crap, I don't know Fabian personally in the real world, I just know of him from coding NATS. I'm saying this based on the .XXX discussion that started off fine and dandy and both sides were having a great debate on the .XXX subject until the clowns jumped into the discussion and turned it into a game of calling Stuart Lawley playground names, so he left the discussion and rightly so. We're supposed to be adults here, so just for a change instead of going berserk and attacking someone just because it's convenient, let's act accordingly, and maybe, just maybe, come to up with a solution that suits all parties. Just for a change.

"owners have special access accounts so they can log in and kill/remove infringing videos in real time" Too effective

Robbie, I would wonder why NA sent dmca's for 3 of the 500 but not for all 500 since they obviously saw the other 500 too...

And I am not sure why you are confused.... I said "Banning is not Deleting" ... perfectly in line with everything I said before? When a user is banned, we do not delete the account, he is simply banned. Which means, none of his data disappears. So the question I replied to with that remark is therefor not needed to ask... Check what he said.

Why does banning remove a user record from a video? This makes no sense... think about what you are saying...

Eric, it is not hard to notice that you are not a business minded person. All you can do in these threads, although you claim you are this big awesome protector of the content, is be a little kid and call me names... do funky claims like....

And other completely childish and useless comments. The haters in this thread might love you for them, but that is all you get from it... I do not fear you and never will...