Patent ID: 7979464

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving possibly unknown digital content; one of (i) ascertaining whether at least a part of the received digital content has previously been associated with one or more matched referenced works by having association data to the one or more matched referenced works, each matched referenced work being associated with corresponding ownership data and with at least one corresponding policy, or (ii) searching a store of fingerprint data of referenced works for a possibly inexact match with the received possible unknown digital content, each referenced work including digital content derived from one or more original works, each referenced work whose fingerprint data is in the store being associated with corresponding ownership data and with at least one corresponding policy, the searching including: determining a fingerprint of at least part of the received digital content; and searching the store of fingerprint data of referenced works for a possibly inexact match with the received possible unknown digital content; and in the case that the searching has produced a possibly inexact match to one or more matched referenced works, associating association data between the received digital content and the one or more matched referenced works, wherein association data includes ownership data to the matched referenced works such that use of the digital content can take into account the ownership data and the one or more corresponding policies associated with the matched referenced works, wherein the searching for a possibly inexact match produces a match for content that has been modified by at least one of editing, distorting, re-coding, mixing with other media, or compositing, and wherein the determining the fingerprint includes determining a secure hash.