Digital media recognition apparatus and methods

1. A method of identifying illegal uses of copyright material, comprising the steps of:

a) providing a primary digital media object;

b) associating an auxiliary construct with the object; and

c) transforming the construct electronically using at least one of the attributes of the object to generate a unique digital key representative of the primary object;

d) receiving a plurality of secondary digital media objects;

e) performing steps (b) and (c) on the secondary objects to generate unique digital keys representative of the secondary objects; and

f) comparing the digital keys of the secondary objects with the digital key of the primary object to identify if any of the secondary objects are substantially similar to the primary object.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the auxiliary construct of Step (b) is a grid of points, each having an initial position.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the transformation of Step (c) warps the grid, thereby moving some or all of the points to different positions.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the primary and secondary objects are derived from an electronic waveform.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the primary and secondary objects include images.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the primary and secondary objects include video clips.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the primary and secondary objects include audio clips.