METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING MEDIA CONTENT

1 . A method comprising:

receiving a media sample by a computing device executing a server, the media sample having been created from a segment of media content, wherein the media content comprises at least a portion of a work, the segment being a portion of the media content that is less than an entirety of the work, and the media sample comprising a digital fingerprint based on perceptual features of the segment;

comparing, by the computing device, the media sample to a plurality of reference samples from a plurality of known works to identify a known work of the plurality of known works that corresponds to the work, wherein comparing the media sample to a reference sample from a known work comprises:

dividing the media sample into a series of overlapping frames, each frame comprising a distinct digital fingerprint and having a size that corresponds to a size of the reference sample;

making comparisons between one or more of the overlapping frames and the reference sample for the known work; and

for each comparison between a frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work, computing a distance value representative of a similarity between the frame and the reference sample, wherein the known work is determined to correspond to the work if a computed distance value between any frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work is lower than a threshold; and

transmitting, by the computing device, content-related data associated with the known work.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the work is at least one of an audio rendering or a video rendering.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving a log of user activity that is based on the content-related data.

4 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising:

transmitting an offer for purchase of at least one of a product or a service related to said content-related data based on said log.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the perceptual features comprise acoustical features including at least one of brightness, pitch or loudness.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the content-related information comprises at least one of a title of the work, an artist of the work, a name of an album associated with the work or product fulfillment information associated with the work.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving a request for the content-related information, the request comprising the media sample.

8 . A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having instructions that, when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving a media sample by the processing device, the media sample having been created from a segment of media content, wherein the media content comprises at least a portion of a work, the segment being a portion of the media content that is less than an entirety of the work, and the media sample comprising a digital fingerprint based on perceptual features of the segment;

comparing, by the processing device, the media sample to a plurality of reference samples from a plurality of known works to identify a known work of the plurality of known works that corresponds to the work, wherein comparing the media sample to a reference sample from a known work comprises:

dividing the media sample into a series of overlapping frames, each frame comprising a distinct digital fingerprint and having a size that corresponds to a size of the reference sample;

making comparisons between one or more of the overlapping frames and the reference sample for the known work; and

for each comparison between a frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work, computing a distance value representative of a similarity between the frame and the reference sample, wherein the known work is determined to correspond to the work if a computed distance value between any frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work is lower than a threshold; and

transmitting, by the computing device, content-related data associated with the known work.

9 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the work is at least one of an audio rendering or a video rendering.

10 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , the operations further comprising:

receiving a log of user activity that is based on the content-related data.

11 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the operations further comprising:

transmitting an offer for purchase of at least one of a product or a service related to said content-related data based on said log.

12 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the perceptual features comprise acoustical features including at least one of brightness, pitch or loudness.

13 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , the operations further comprising:

receiving a request for the content-related information, the request comprising the media sample.

14 . The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the content-related information comprises at least one of a title of the work, an artist of the work, a name of an album associated with the work or product fulfillment information associated with the work.

15 . A computing device comprising:

a memory comprising instructions for a server; and

a processing device, coupled to the memory, to execute the instructions, wherein the instructions cause the processing device to:

receive a media sample created from a segment of media content, wherein the media content comprises at least a portion of a work, the segment being a portion of the media content that is less than an entirety of the work, and the media sample comprising a digital fingerprint based on perceptual features of the segment;

compare the media sample to a plurality of reference samples from a plurality of known works to identify a known work of the plurality of known works that corresponds to the work, wherein to compare the media sample to a reference sample from a known work the processing device is to:

divide the media sample into a series of overlapping frames, each frame comprising a distinct digital fingerprint and having a size that corresponds to a size of the reference sample;

make comparisons between one or more of the overlapping frames and the reference sample for the known work; and

for each comparison between a frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work, compute a distance value representative of a similarity between the frame and the reference sample, wherein the known work is determined to correspond to the work if a computed distance value between any frame of the media sample and the reference sample of the known work is lower than a threshold; and

transmit content-related data associated with the known work.

16 . The computing device of claim 15 , wherein the processing device is further to:

receive a request for the content-related information, the request comprising the media sample.

17 . The computing device of claim 15 , wherein the perceptual features comprise acoustical features including at least one of brightness, pitch and loudness.

18 . The computing device of claim 15 , wherein the instructions further cause the processing device to:

receive a log of user activity that is based on the content-related data.

19 . The computing device of claim 18 , wherein the instructions further cause the processing device to:

transmit an offer for purchase of at least one of a product or a service related to said content-related data based on said log.

20 . The computing device of claim 15 , wherein the content-related information comprises at least one of a title of the work, an artist of the work, a name of an album associated with the work or product fulfillment information associated with the work.