Patent ID: 7565327

Claim:
A method for altering the behavior of a network device of a copyright protection computer system based on transmissions of digital works comprising: maintaining a registry of information permitting identification of digital works in a database hosted by a computer system; monitoring a network for transmission of at least one packet-based digital signal associated with a digital work, the digital work including at least one of audio content and video content, the digital work optionally having information about the least one of the audio content and the video content; extracting at least one feature from the at least one digital signal, the at least one feature being part of the at least one of the audio content and the video content of the digital work, the at least one feature not including the information about the least one of the audio content and the video content; utilizing, by the copyright protection computer system, the extracted at least one feature to compare the digital work associated with the at least one digital signal with registry information to assess whether the digital work associated with the at least one digital signal is a registered digital work; and altering, by the copyright protection computer system, the functional behavior of the network device based on the comparison of the digital work associated with the at least one digital signal with the registry information, wherein the altering comprises: upon determining that the digital work associated with the at least one digital signal is a registered digital work, triggering the network device to cause at least one of: blocking or interrupting the transmission without notifying an intended recipient of the transmission that the transmission includes a registered digital work, sending a message to at least one of a source address of the transmission and a recipient address of the transmission to provide additional information pertaining to the work or the transmission of the work, and redirecting a future communication from the recipient address to a web site.