Content theft is a constant concern for digital content creators, and while they will probably never be able to stop it completely, every major sharing platform on the internet is continuously searching for ways to prevent users from posting content they do not own. This is especially true of video sharing sites like YouTube, and now that Facebook is pushing video content more than ever, it is becoming an issue for the social network as well.

Today, Facebook announced that it would be rolling out new updates aimed at preventing users from using its platform to host media content they do not own, an act commonly referred to as “freebooting.”

“We’ve heard from some of our content partners that third parties too frequently misuse their content on Facebook,” Facebook wrote in a recent blog post. “For instance, publishers have told us that their videos are sometimes uploaded directly to Facebook without their permission. This practice has been called ‘freebooting,’ and it’s not fair to those who work hard to create amazing videos. We want creators to get credit for the videos that they own. To address this, we have been exploring ways to enhance our rights management tools to better empower creators to control how their videos are shared on Facebook.”

Facebook already fights freebooting using Audible Magic, an audio fingerprinting program that analyzes video sound to see if it matches copyrighted content. It also has reporting tools for content creators to flag content that should be removed, but the social network says that these features are not enough.

“These existing measures work well for many creators, but some publishers with particular needs, including creators whose videos have gone viral, have been asking for more tools,” Facebook said. “To this end, we have been building new video matching technology that will be available to a subset of creators. This technology is tailored to our platform, and will allow these creators to identify matches of their videos on Facebook across Pages, profiles, groups, and geographies.”

Facebook says the new matching tool will be entering beta testing “with a small group of partners,” which includes media companies and other video creators.

photo credit: Pirates of Potrero via photopin (license)