Facebook acquires IP specialist Source3

Facebook has acquired intellectual property specialist Source3 in a bid to clamp down on copyrighted content uploaded to the social network.

Source3 claims to “recognise, organise and analyse” branded intellectual property in user-generated content – spanning genres including sports, music, entertainment and fashion.

The company’s end-to-end platform was built to manage online IP and establish relationships with brands and will now be taken in-house by Facebook.

“Today, we wanted to let everyone know that we’ve decided to continue our journey with Facebook,” said the company in a post on its website.

“We’re excited to bring our IP, trademark and copyright expertise to the team at Facebook and serve their global community of two billion people, who consume content, music, videos and other IP every day.”

The news comes after Facebook last year launched new video matching technology to help its rights owners “protect the content they own”.

The Rights Manager tools that were brought in were designed to help publishers and creators manage and protect their video content on Facebook at scale.

“With Rights Manager, we want to give video publishers the confidence that their content is protected across Facebook, as well as provide them with increased flexibility and greater control over the use of their video,” said Facebook in a blog post at the time.

The social network has put increased emphasis on video in recent years. In May Reuters reported that Facebook had agreed deals with BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Group Nine Media for a forthcoming video service made up of long- and short-form content interspersed with ads.