These media fingerprinting databases are truly dystopian. I have come across a wide range of media recently that is being erased from our culture this way. The media giants say "don't pirate it, you can buy/rent it from us". But - and this is a big but - what if you can't rent/buy it? What if the media giant just adds the content's fingerprint to the database but then erases or locks away all copies of it.

Now you cannot upload it to any site with any serious audience. I have videos that the networks have locked away, but yet I cannot upload them to Youtube/Vimeo or anything similar because they are flagged. I cannot self-host them because the bandwidth requirements would kill me. Sure, they probably exist on places like Freenet, but that is essentially inaccessible for most mortals.

Once all the people that know of these things die off we'll only be left with whispers on the Web where such things are mentioned as having once existed, but can never be seen.