Social networking giant Facebook is on a buying spree. The company this week announced that it had acquired the New York-based Source3, intellectual property (IP) management technology. Facebook has not disclosed financial terms of the deal.
According to TechCrunch, the Menlo Park, the California-based company is on the hunt to fight piracy on Facebook. The company has been working with many content creators in sharing their contents in the website’s News Feed. However, Facebook has one big challenge ahead. It needs to prove to the world that it can help monetize those user-generated contents, and more importantly, protect them from piracy.
This is the single big reason why the company has decided to acquire the content right management specialist Source3 this week.
Source3: The target company
Founded in 2014 and based in New York, Source3 is the world’s first platform for organizing and managing the intellectual property in user-generated content or UGC. The company, which has a strong focus on 3D content, provides IP recognition, licensing and rights services for content creators to manage online IP and connect with brand owners. The company’s technology also allows brand owners to measure their online presence or take action some infringements of their IPs.
Before its deal with the social networking giant Facebook, the startup has managed to raise more than $4 million from the seed funding round in 2015.
The said funding round was backed by Contour Venture Partners.
This is not the first time founders Patrick Sullivan, Scott Sellwood, and Benjamin Cockerham has sold a content management startup. The founders have previously worked on a music right management platform called RightFlow, which they sold to Google in 2011 for an undisclosed amount.
Latest buy to further enhance Facebook’s technology
Facebook previously announced plans for a "video first" approach on its social network. That’s the reason why the social networking giant last year started to focus more on original video contents. The Source3 deal is reportedly being planned for this. The social networking site is reportedly on the hunt for the best technology in the market.
The company believes that Source3 will give them the tech they needed.
As mentioned earlier by TechCrunch, the company’s technology could further enhance Facebook’s Rights Manager software, which reportedly works like YouTube’s Content ID. Facebook’s Right Manager, which was introduced last year, is a set of admin tools that help content creators and publishers manage and protect their video contents on the Social Networking Site. The technology allows creators to fingerprint their video contents, and then stop unauthorized uploads or pirated copies of them to the social networking site.
At VidCon event last June, Facebook announced plans to build a special standalone application intended for content creators only.
Some analysts believe that the latest buy would give the social giant the help it been looking for. Facebook has been working hard on the content creation side, addressing some issues, including piracy.
As for the right management startup, Facebook said that Source3 would be fully integrated into the social networking site, which also means that it will no longer operate as a standalone company.
Finally, Source3’s employees who join Facebook will work out of the startup’s New York head office, though it still not clear how many Source 3’s employees that will be. Facebook declined to comment on this matter.
