Facebook tool to identify unauthorised video postings

Soon it would not be easy to "steal" videos from Facebook as the social networking giant is introducing a video-matching tool designed to quickly identify videos that are duplicates of those already uploaded directly by their creators.

Facebook has been facing flak from top web-video creators who say it fails to prevent their videos from being posted without permission.

Facebook is working with a group of video creators on the initiative - including the multi-channel network Fullscreen, viral-video specialist Jukin Media, and Zefr, which helps marketers track videos online, Wall Street Journal reported Facebook as saying in a blog post.

"This technology is tailored to our platform, and will allow these creators to identify matches of their videos on Facebook across pages, profiles, groups, and geographies," Facebook said in its post.

"Our matching tool will evaluate millions of video uploads quickly and accurately, and when matches are surfaced, publishers will be able to report them to us for removal," it added.

Until now, Facebook has relied on technology partner Audible Magic to help it identify unauthorised video content through audio fingerprinting.

But that effort has not been effective in quelling the recent chorus of complaints.

Facebbok is locked in a battle with YouTube for web-video supremacy. The latter uses Google's Content ID software, which finds videos posted without permission and flags them automatically.

The Facebook tool, in contrast puts the burden of finding violations on the creators.

Creators will have access to a web-based dashboard that will allow them to identify videos they would like to monitor.

If the system finds a matching video on Facebook, the creator has the option of reporting the clips to the company.

Besides helping to identify duplicate videos, Facebook said it is continuing to improve its policies aimed at consumers who repeatedly post videos without permission.