Custos employs imperceptible watermarking technology and blockchain to protect digital media files from piracy and track unauthorized distribution. This solution enables content owners to safeguard sensitive materials and quickly identify leaks, ensuring their intellectual property remains secure.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Content owners face significant challenges in protecting digital media files from unauthorized distribution and piracy, especially after distribution to reviewers or for educational purposes. Traditional Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems can be cumbersome and ineffective, failing to prevent leaks and identify the source of infringement. Detecting and tracing the source of leaked content across various online channels, including the dark web, is difficult and time-consuming.
Solution
Custos provides a content protection solution that uses imperceptible watermarking and blockchain technology to safeguard digital media and trace unauthorized sharing. The technology embeds unique, encrypted digital bounties within each file, enabling rapid detection of piracy. When an unauthorized copy is shared and the bounty is claimed, the content owner receives an immediate alert, revealing the source of the leak. This approach leverages a distributed network of bounty hunters, incentivizing them to identify and report pirated content, even in hard-to-reach places like the dark web and private networks.
Target Audience
The primary target audience includes movie studios, book publishers, educational institutions, and enterprises that need to protect their digital content from piracy and unauthorized distribution.
Features
- Forensic watermarking integrated via API for Video-on-Demand (VOD) workflows
- Plugin for Moodle platforms to protect EdTech content such as PDFs, ebooks, and videos
- Integration with Enterprise Information Management (EIM) systems for document security
- Bitcoin bounties embedded within digital files that can be claimed if the file is shared illegally
- Real-time alerts when a bounty is claimed, revealing the source of the leak
- Distributed bounty hunting network that penetrates hard-to-reach places like the dark web
- Rapid detection times, averaging 42 seconds on social networks and less than 5 minutes on the dark web