• by Tameka Kee , May 9, 2007

Eyespot has announced a partnership with content recognition firm Audible Magic, in an effort to bring more legalized, premium music content to its community of video mashup creators.

After Eyespot launched its Web-based video mixing playground last year, the San Diego, CA-based company quickly secured deals with media providers like the NBA and Paramount Pictures. While this move gave users a host of legally accessible media clips to create mashed-up videos with, it also demonstrated that premium content providers didn't have to clash with social networks --they could actually use them to derive new revenue streams.

"We have two monetization models," said David Dudas, co-founder and CTO of Eyespot. "Content providers can use us as a marketing platform to offer opt-in promotions on Eyespot.com, or by taking our technology and embedding it onto their Web site."

As the industry waits to see how legal scuffles between social networks and some of the largest premium content providers play out, Eyespot's partnership with Los Gatos, CA-based Audible Magic encourages record labels like Sony/BMG and Universal to allow users to play with copyrighted music clips.

By harnessing a database of digitally fingerprinted multimedia content, Audible Magic's technology ensures that recording companies control which songs are available for video mashups on Eyespot. Once clips are identified as having unlicensed content, the company can either license the clip or instruct Eyespot to take it down.

Audible Magic has been actively providing content identification and anti-piracy services for MySpace and MTV Networks. "Implementing content management systems has almost become a prerequisite for business negotiations between social networks and copyright holders," said Vance Ikezoye, the company's CEO and founder. "And we're excited to be able to help Eyespot deliver such an innovative platform with benefits for both users and content providers."