Pirates Are Hiding Movies In 360 Videos

Piracy is a growing problem for movie companies. With thousands of videos uploaded every day, it is hard for companies like YouTube and Facebook to patrol their videos and ensure that you haven’t placed an inverted copy of the latest blockbuster in the corner of your latest uploaded. As a result of the increasing uploads, companies have resorted to using content scanners to compare movies with the onslaught of uploads, but now it seems like pirates are hiding them in plain sight, or rather in 360 videos.

A feature recently released by both Facebook and YouTube, 360 videos are just like their names. With the ability to watch everything from the Space X rocket landing to augmented reality interviews with actors talking about their latest blockbuster movie, the ability to look around in videos comes at a price it would appear.

Using a 360 video, a pirate (full disclaimer: we don’t know if they have a parrot or eye patch) uploaded the entire film of “Clueless” to a 360 video on YouTube. The default view is on the film while the rest of the 360 experience is a mere backdrop, something that resulted in it not being detected by the content ID system.

While many are critical of the Content ID system for falsely flagging up content and issuing warnings to users, it seems the biggest threat to the system is the use of 360 videos which for now let you hide your favourite films in plain sight.