WO2009081322A1

WO2009081322A1 - Data filtering method

Info

Publication number: WO2009081322A1
Application number: PCT/IB2008/055295
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mehmet U. Celik
Original assignee: Civolution Bv
Priority date: 2007-12-19
Filing date: 2008-12-15
Publication date: 2009-07-02
Also published as: TW200937251A

Abstract

A method of controlling usage of data. The method comprises receiving data (S1); processing said received data to determine (S3) whether said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in a reference database; and processing said received data to determine (S5) whether said received data comprises predetermined data. First usage control processing (S4,S8) is carried out if the received data has said predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database or if the received data comprises predetermined data. Second usage control processing (S6) is carried out if the received data does not have the predetermined relationship with data stored in a reference database and if the received data does not comprise predetermined data.

Description

Data filtering method

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method of controlling usage of data.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Computers are widely used in modern society. Computers are now commonly connected together by way of computer networks, so as to allow data to be passed between the computers, and to allow that data to be shared by users of the computers. Many computers are now connected to the Internet, allowing users across the world to share data with one another. While wide-scale data sharing brings many advantages, it also creates problems. For example, while the Internet provides a convenient mechanism for the distribution of media files, such as video and music files, the Internet also causes problems for media owners by increasing the unauthorized distribution of media files. Unauthorized distribution of media files typically violates relevant copyright laws, and results in a media owner being deprived of income to which it is properly entitled.

One known method for sharing data using the Internet involves a first user uploading the relevant data to a database associated with a website. A second user is then able to download the relevant data, thereby allowing data sharing between the first and second users. While providing an effective way of sharing data which has legitimate uses, such a method of data sharing can result in unauthorized distribution of media files. Such a method is particularly problematic because the operator of the website may attract liability for distributing media files in violation of copyright laws, when the operator of the website has no knowledge of the copyright status of the files which are being distributed.

To mitigate the problems set out above, it has been proposed that fingerprints of media files which are not to be freely distributed may be provided by media owners to website operators. Such fingerprints can be stored in an appropriate reference database by each website operator. Upon receiving an uploaded file, the website operator can determine whether the uploaded file has a fingerprint which matches a fingerprint stored in the reference database. If the uploaded file has such a fingerprint, upload may be prohibited, so as to ensure that media files which are not to be freely distributed are not stored in the database operated by the website operator and are consequently not available for download.

While the distribution of fingerprints in this way is effective, its implementation is made difficult by the need to provide each website operator which a database of fingerprints against which fingerprints of uploaded files can be compared. Such a database must also be periodically updated as further media files are made available by media owners and maintenance of the database can therefore be difficult.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of an embodiment of the present invention to obviate or mitigate one or more of the problems set out above. More particularly, it is an object of some embodiments of the present invention to provide an effective mechanism for controlling the usage of distributed data.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer- implemented method of controlling usage of data. The method comprises receiving data, carrying out first usage control processing if said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database or if said received data comprises predetermined data, and carrying out second usage control processing if said received data does not have said predetermined relationship with data stored in a reference database and if said received data does not comprise said predetermined data.

In this way, any data including predetermined data, such as a copy control watermark, is processed differently from data not including the predetermined data. However, even if no such predetermined data is included, the data is processed as if such data is included if the received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in the reference database. In this way, if a user removes copy control data from data which is received, processing of the data may still be controlled based upon the reference database.

The received data may be intended for storage in a database, and the method may be used to allow or prevent storage of the received data in the database. For example, the first usage control processing may comprise preventing storage of data in the database, while the second usage control processing may comprise allowing storage of data in the database. The reference database can be populated with data based upon received data including predetermined data. For example, a fingerprint of the received data including copy control data can be stored in the reference database. That is, where data including copy control data is received, data based upon the received data may be stored in the reference database for future use. In this way, as a plurality of copies of a file are processed, if a single copy of the file includes copy control data, the reference database is appropriately populated so as to ensure that further copies of the file cannot be stored, irrespective of whether such further copies of the file include copy prevention data. This means that the reference database can initially be empty and can be automatically populated by appropriate processing of received data.

Where second usage control processing is carried out in connection with particular received data, data based upon the received data may be stored in a further reference database. If a subsequent copy of the same data is processed and determined to include copy control data, the inclusion of data in the further reference database can be used to generate an appropriate alert indicating that data the copying of which is prevented has been processed in a particular way.

As indicated, the copy control data suitably takes the form of a watermark. Various techniques can be used to generate a watermark and to embed a watermark in an information signal. Such techniques offer varying resistance to attacks which are intended to remove a watermark so as to allow copying. Using the methods described herein, even if a watermark is removed, processing of data the copying of which is to be controlled can still be prevented based upon the reference database described above.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer program for carrying out the method of the first aspect of the present invention. Such a computer program can be carried on an appropriate carrier medium. Such a carrier medium may be a tangible carrier medium such as a floppy disk, hard disc, CD or DVD or alternatively an intangible carrier medium such as a communications signal.

A further aspect of the invention provides apparatus for carrying out the method of the first aspect of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a schematic illustration of a computer network;

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a process for controlling the upload of data to the server in the network of Fig. 1 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention; Fig. 3 is a schematic illustration of the computer network of Fig. 1 in which the server is configured to operate in accordance with an alternative embodiment of the invention; and

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of an alternative process for controlling the upload of data to the server in the network of Fig. 3 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Figure 1 shows a plurality of computers connected to the Internet 1. It can be seen that two user computers 2, 3 are connected to the Internet 1, as is a server computer 4. The user computers 2, 3 and the server computer 4 can transmit data between one another over the Internet 1 using methods which will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art.

The server computer 4 has access to a database 5 storing a plurality of files which can be downloaded by the user computers 2, 3 over the Internet 1. The server computer 4 is configured to receive such files from the user computers 2, 3 and store such files in the database 5. The server 4 also has access to a reference database 6. The reference database 6 stores fingerprints of files the upload of which to the database 5 is prohibited. The upload of a particular file may be prohibited for a variety of reasons, for example the upload may be prohibited if the uploading of a particular file would violate relevant copyright laws. Figure 2 is a flowchart showing a process for uploading a file from one of the user computers 2, 3 to the database 5 associated with the server computer 4. The processing shown in the flowchart of Figure 2 is carried out by the server computer 4.

At step SI a file for upload is received. At step S2 a fingerprint of the uploaded file is generated. The fingerprint can be generated in any suitable way, and constitutes a brief description of the uploaded file. At step S3 the generated fingerprint is compared with fingerprints stored in the reference database 6. If the generated fingerprint matches a fingerprint stored in the reference database 6, the upload of the file is prevented, and processing terminates at step S4. If however the generated fingerprint does not match a fingerprint stored in the database 6 processing passes to step S5.

At step S5, the uploaded file is processed to determine whether it includes a copy prevention watermark. Such a copy prevention watermark can take any suitable form. The processing of step S5 is arranged to determine whether a watermark is included within the uploaded file, and if a watermark is included within the uploaded file to extract the watermark for processing. If no copy prevention watermark is found at step S5, it can be determined that the upload of the file is allowed, and processing therefore passes from step S5 to step S6 where the uploaded file is stored in the database 5 from where it can be downloaded by the user computers 2, 3. If a copy prevention watermark is located at step S5, it can be determined that upload of the file is prohibited, and processing then passes from step S5 to step S7. At step S7 the fingerprint of the uploaded file is stored in the reference database 6, before processing continues at step S8 where upload of the file is prevented.

From the preceding description, it can be seen that a file can be uploaded to the database 5 only if it includes no copy prevention watermark (step S5), and has a fingerprint which is not included in the reference database 6 (step S3). The reference database 6 may initially be empty, and can then be populated as files including copy prevention watermark are processed. In this way, there is no need for a content owner to transmit fingerprint data to website operators, and instead website operators can create the reference database 6 based upon files which are presented for upload to the database 5. If copy prevention data has been removed from a copy of a file the upload of which to the database 5 should be prevented, the upload of the file should still be prevented by the check determining whether the file's fingerprint is included in the reference database 6.

It can be seen that the prevention of upload of a file including no copy prevention watermark can occur only if a fingerprint of the file is stored in the reference database 6. Where the reference database 6 is initially empty, upload can be prevented only if the server computer 4 has previously been presented with a copy of that file including a copy prevention watermark, and has therefore stored an appropriate fingerprint in the reference database 6. Thus if the server computer 4 is initially provided with a copy of a file whose upload should be prevented which includes no copy prevention watermark, one copy of the file will be stored in the database 5. Such a situation is mitigated by an embodiment of the invention which is now described with reference to Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3 is a further illustration of the network of Figure 1. However it can be seen that in addition to the database 5 and the reference database 6, the server computer 4 additionally has access to a further reference database 7. The further reference database 7 is arranged to store fingerprints of files which have been uploaded to the database 5, and its use is described with reference to the flowchart of Figure 4. Steps of the flowchart of Figure 4 which correspond to steps of the flowchart of Figure 2 are denoted with like reference numerals, and are not discussed in further detail here. Referring to Figure 4, it can be seen that if no copy protection watermark is detected at step S5, processing passes to step S9, where the fingerprint of the uploaded file generated at step S2 is stored in the further reference database 7, for use as discussed below. The data stored in the further reference database 7 is provided with a unique identifier. Processing passes from step S9 to step S6 where the uploaded file is stored in the database 5 as described above.

If a copy protection watermark is detected at step S5, processing passes to step S7 where the fingerprint of the uploaded file is stored in the reference database 6 as described above, before upload of the file is prevented at step S8, again as described above. However, in the embodiment of the invention shown in Figure 4, processing passes from step S8 to step

510 where a check is carried out to determine whether the generated fingerprint is included in the further reference database 7. If this is the case, processing passes from step SlO to step

511 where an alert is provided to the operator of the server computer 4. Such an alert indicates that a fingerprint associated with a file which should not be uploaded to the database 5 is stored in the further reference database 7, thereby indicating that the file has previously been stored in the database 5. The alert can indicate the unique identifier associated with the fingerprint of the data as stored in the further reference database 7. The operator of the server computer 4 can take appropriate action in response to the alert.

It can be seen that processing as described with reference to Figure 4 means that if a file whose upload should be prevented has been uploaded to the database 5, an alert is provided to the operator of the server computer 4 allowing further investigation, and if appropriate removal of the relevant file from the database 5.

From the preceding description, it can be seen that in the embodiment of the invention described with reference to Figures 3 and 4, the reference database 6 stores fingerprints of files whose upload should be prevented, while the further reference database 7 stores fingerprints of files whose upload has been allowed.

It will be appreciated that the embodiments of the invention described above can be used to control the upload of files of any type to a database. For example, embodiments of the invention can be used with audio, video, image, graphics and multimedia files.

The preceding description has made reference to fingerprints of various files being generated, stored and compared. It will be appreciated that such fingerprints can be created and processed in any suitable way, the fingerprints essentially being a short descriptor of the relevant file. It will further be appreciated that, in some cases, fingerprints generated from received data will not be an exact match to a fingerprint stored in the reference database 6 or a fingerprint stored in the further reference database 7 even though the received data is in fact to be controlled based upon a fingerprint stored in the reference database 6 or the further reference database 7. For this reason, it is preferred that a search for a fingerprint of received data is carried out such that any fingerprint which is substantially the same as that of the received data (albeit perhaps not identical to that of the received data) is located.

The preceding description has made reference to copy prevention watermarks. Such watermarks can be generated and embedded within the relevant files in any convenient way. In general terms, it will be appreciated that the embodiment of the invention described above can use any suitable copy prevention data included within uploaded files.

The preceding description has been concerned with a configuration where the server computer 4 (Figures 1 and 3) controls the upload of files to the database 5 associated with the server computer 4. It will be appreciated that in alternative embodiments of the invention, the methods described above can be implemented using a plurality of server computers operating together. In such a configuration a single reference database may be shared by a plurality of server computers, or alternatively each server computer may have its own reference database.

The term "database" as that term is used herein is to be construed broadly to cover any means for storing data such that the stored data can be retrieved. That is, while the term covers formalized database management systems it also includes any data storage system such as for example a file storage system of the type provided by many operating systems.

The preceding description has been concerned with an embodiment of the invention in which data is uploaded to and downloaded from a server which is accessible to a plurality of user computers. The invention is, however, not limited to such a situation.

Alternative embodiments of the invention use the usage control techniques described above in a peer to peer environment so as to control the passage of data between computers connected to a computer network. Indeed, in general terms the methods described above can be used as an effective way of applying a usage control strategy to particular data. For example, received data may be processed as described above and data indicating restrictions on the usage of received data may be generated. Such generated data may be provided to a further process within a computer generating the data or alternatively may be provided to a further computer. The preceding description has been concerned with the use of copy prevention watermarks and the use of a reference database configured such that the presence of data in the reference database is an indication that data should not be distributed. In alternative embodiments of the invention a watermark controlling copying in some way (rather than simply preventing copying) is used. In such a case the reference database can similarly store fingerprints of data the copying of which is to be controlled in some way. Any suitable copy control strategy may be used in embodiments of the invention. For example, if copy control data is included within received data (or appropriate data is stored in the reference database) distribution of the received data may only be allowed upon a payment being made to a third party, or may only be allowed if particular procedures are followed to ensure the integrity of the data.

In some embodiments of the invention the reference database is arranged to implement at least two different usage control strategies. Watermarks can similarly be arranged to implement different usage control strategies. That is, instead of simply using the reference database to determine whether data (e.g. a fingerprint) corresponding to particular data is stored and then carrying out predetermined processing based upon the determination, data stored in the reference database may indicate a particular type of usage control processing which is to be carried out and that usage control processing can then be implemented. That is, the reference database may support a plurality of different types of usage control processing and indicate particular usage control processing which is appropriate to particular data. Similarly, watermarks included within the data can indicate a particular type of usage control processing which should be applied. As will be appreciated from the preceding description, different types of usage control processing include preventing copying, allowing copying under certain conditions, and simply allowing copying without restrictions.

Embodiments of the present invention have been described above. It will however be appreciated that various modifications can be made to the described embodiments without departing from the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A computer-implemented method of controlling usage of data, the method comprising: receiving data (Sl); carrying out first usage control processing (S4,S8) if said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in a reference database (6) or if said received data comprises predetermined data; and carrying out second usage control processing (S6) if said received data does not have said predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database and if said received data does not comprise said predetermined data.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein carrying out said first usage control processing comprises generating first usage data, and carrying out said second usage control processing comprises generating second usage data.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: said received data is intended for storage in a database (5); carrying out said first usage control processing comprises preventing storage of said received data in said database; and carrying out said second usage control processing comprises allowing storage of said received data in said database.

4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein said predetermined data is usage control data associated with the received data.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein said usage control data is copy prevention data.

6. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein said predetermined data is a watermark.

7. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein said reference database (6) stores a plurality of fingerprints, and the method further comprises: processing (S2,S3) said received data to determine whether said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database by determining a fingerprint of said received data.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein processing said received data to determine whether said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database further comprises: determining whether said fingerprint of said received data is substantially the same as a fingerprint stored in said reference database.

9. A method according to any preceding claim, further comprising: if said received data comprises said predetermined data, storing (S7) data based upon said received data in said reference database.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein said data based upon said received data is a fingerprint of said received data.

11. A method according to any preceding claim, further comprising storing (S9) data based upon said received data in a further reference database (7).

12. A method according to claim 11, wherein carrying out said second usage control processing comprises storing said data based upon said received data in the further reference database.

13. A method according to claim 11 or 12, wherein said data based upon said received data is a fingerprint of said data.

14. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein said first usage control processing comprises: determining whether data based upon said received data is stored in said further reference database; and if data based upon said received data is stored in said further reference database, outputting (Sl 1) message data.

15. A method according to claim 14, wherein said first usage control processing further comprises, if said data based upon said received data is stored in the further reference database: removing data based upon said received data from said further reference database.

16. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein said received data is selected from the group comprising audio data, image data, and video data.

17. A computer program configured to control a computer to carry out a method according to any preceding claim.

18. A carrier medium carrying a computer program according to claim 17.

19. A computer for filtering data for storage in a database, the computer comprising: a memory storing processor readable instructions; and a processor configured to read and execute instructions stored in said program memory; wherein said processor readable instructions comprise instructions controlling the processor to carry out a method according to any one of claims 1 to 16.

20. Apparatus for controlling usage of data, the apparatus comprising: a receiver arranged to receive data; a processor arranged to: carry out first usage control processing if said received data has a predetermined relationship with data stored in said reference database or if said received data comprises predetermined data; and carry out second usage control processing if said received data does not have said predetermined relationship with data stored in a reference database and if said received data does not comprise said predetermined data.