Visual Guardian- AI-Powered Infringement Detector

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Sky Yap
Project Owner

Visual Guardian- AI-Powered Infringement Detector

Expert Rating

n/a
  • Proposal for BGI Nexus 1
  • Funding Request $50,000 USD
  • Funding Pools Beneficial AI Solutions
  • Total 4 Milestones

Overview

Visual Guardian is an AI-powered platform that helps marginalized creators protect their visual work from copyright infringement. By leveraging advanced computer vision and AI-driven image fingerprinting, it detects unauthorized usage and provides actionable alerts, empowering creators to safeguard their content and uphold digital equity. Our commitment to ethics and safety is reinforced through zkML and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), ensuring secure, private and transparent data processing. As a DePIN, we collaborate with Story Protocol to strengthen digital IP protection, further amplifying our mission to support underrepresented creators.

Proposal Description

How Our Project Will Contribute To The Growth Of The Decentralized AI Platform

This proposal empowers underrepresented creators by providing an accessible tool to monitor and protect their visual work. Leveraging computer vision and data analytics, it promotes digital equity, safeguards intellectual property, and fosters a transparent creative ecosystem—directly advancing the BGI mission of inclusivity, ethical technology, and community support.

Our Team

Our diverse team includes experts in computer vision, data science, and full-stack web development with deep experience in startups projects. United by a commitment to digital inclusion, we combine technical expertise with a passion for empowering creative communities, ensuring that our solution is both innovative and community-centric.

AI services (New or Existing)

Visual Infringement Detector

Type

New AI service

Purpose

To automatically identify and alert users about potential unauthorized use of their visual content online.

AI inputs

User-uploaded images along with associated metadata.

AI outputs

A detailed report listing detected infringements including matching images source URLs timestamps and confidence scores.

Company Name (if applicable)

SkyLabs Studio

The core problem we are aiming to solve

Underrepresented creators often lack the resources and technical tools needed to track the unauthorized use of their visual work online. Manual searches are inefficient and error‐prone, and many existing infringement detection services are costly or complex. This leaves creators vulnerable to intellectual property theft and revenue loss. The absence of an affordable, user-friendly tool tailored to their needs creates a significant barrier to protecting their creative rights in an increasingly digital world.

Our specific solution to this problem

We propose to build a specialized module for the open-source tool ActivityWatch that integrates state‐of‐the‐art computer vision algorithms. Instead of developing a dedicated web scraper, our module will extend ActivityWatch’s capabilities to monitor websites, social media, and digital platforms for visual content matching a creator’s original work. Users will upload their images, and our system will generate a unique visual fingerprint for each piece. Leveraging ActivityWatch, our module will continuously monitor online content, using deep learning models and data analytics to identify potential infringements.

Project details

Visual Guardian – Scraping Feature & AI Model Development

Visual Guardian leverages the open-source ActivityWatch tool by extending it with a custom module tailored for visual copyright protection. Instead of building a dedicated web scraper, we utilize ActivityWatch's open-source, community-driven infrastructure as the backbone of our scraping and monitoring system.

ActivityWatch Integration

ActivityWatch is originally designed to track user activity in a privacy-preserving manner. We will develop a specialized plugin for ActivityWatch that integrates our computer vision algorithms for image fingerprinting and infringement detection. When users install this plugin, it will run in the background, scanning websites for content that resembles the visual fingerprints of the uploaded artwork.

Project Scope
This grant focuses solely on developing the scraping feature and the AI model for converting images into unique fingerprint hashes and detecting potential infringements. The Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) aspects, including community-driven incentivization, are not included in this project.

Workflow Summary

  • Image Fingerprinting: Users upload their images; the plugin generates unique visual fingerprints using deep learning models.
  • Continuous Monitoring: The plugin continuously scans online content through ActivityWatch’s infrastructure.
  • Match Analysis & Alerts: When a match is detected, the plugin assigns a confidence score and sends an alert along with anonymized metadata (e.g., source URL, timestamp) to Visual Guardian.
  • Centralized Review: The Visual Guardian dashboard aggregates alerts for creators to review and take appropriate action.

This approach leverages open-source software and advanced computer vision techniques to create a scalable, secure, and efficient solution for protecting the creative rights of underrepresented artists by focusing on the core functionalities of web scraping and AI-driven image fingerprint detection.

Needed resources

We are seeking additional expertise in legal advisory from each country as well as partnership opportunities with digital rights organizations to enhance outreach and compliance strategies.

Existing resources

We already have access to open-source computer vision libraries (e.g., OpenCV, TensorFlow), initial cloud computing credits, and an open-source scraping engine, ActivityWatch. Additionally, we've engaged with Story Protocol, a digital IP-focused Layer 1 blockchain, to integrate our solution and further enhance our mission of protecting underrepresented creators.

Open Source Licensing

MPL - Mozilla Public License

The plugin developed for ActivityWatch will be licensed under MPL-2.0, consistent with ActivityWatch’s licensing. Additionally, we plan to open source our AI model for converting images to fingerprint hashes and detecting them. This approach invites community collaboration and allows anyone to contribute improvements, ensuring the tool continuously evolves to better support underrepresented creators.

Additional videos

N/A

Was there any event, initiative or publication that motivated you to register/submit this proposal?

Online event

Describe the particulars.

Yes – Recent discussions in creative communities on AI models copying creator content, along with digital rights issues and grassroots creator protection initiatives, motivated this proposal.

Proposal Video

Placeholder for Spotlight Day Pitch-presentations. Video's will be added by the DF team when available.

  • Total Milestones

    4

  • Total Budget

    $50,000 USD

  • Last Updated

    24 Feb 2025

Milestone 1 - Develop User Dashboard & Alert System

Description

Develop an interactive user-friendly dashboard that aggregates all detected infringement alerts in one central location. This dashboard will display detailed metadata such as source URLs timestamps similarity scores and image comparisons enabling creators to quickly assess potential infringements.

Deliverables

A prototype dashboard integrated with our alert system complete with documentation and user guides. Key features include filtering sorting and detailed reporting capabilities that allow users to manage and review infringement cases efficiently.

Budget

$10,000 USD

Success Criterion

The dashboard responds in under 10 seconds for at least 90% of queries. A demo clearly validates the system’s process—including image upload and report generation using dummy data—ensuring users understand what data is captured and how the process works.

Milestone 2 - Build ActivityWatch Modules

Description

Develop and integrate ActivityWatch modules to monitor system performance user interactions and scraping activities. This will allow us to diagnose issues optimize performance and ensure system transparency throughout the platform.

Deliverables

Implementation of real-time tracking modules with comprehensive logging of system metrics. Documentation will be provided outlining monitoring protocols performance benchmarks and alert configurations for abnormal activity.

Budget

$10,000 USD

Success Criterion

Real-time monitoring covers at least 90% of user activities.

Milestone 3 - Establish Server & Connection for Scraped Data

Description

Set up a secure and scalable server infrastructure to store process and retrieve scraped data from various online platforms. Emphasis will be placed on data efficiency and security ensuring encryption in transit and at rest.

Deliverables

A robust server environment with established and reliable connections to data sources. Documentation detailing the server architecture data handling protocols and security measures will be provided to support future scalability and audits.

Budget

$15,000 USD

Success Criterion

The server infrastructure achieves at least 90% uptime during testing. Data pipelines integrate seamlessly with minimal error rates.

Milestone 4 - AI Model for Fingerprint Detection

Description

Develop and train a deep learning AI model capable of generating and comparing visual fingerprints for infringement detection. The model will be optimized to handle image variations such as cropping resizing and color modifications to ensure robust performance.

Deliverables

A fully integrated AI model within the platform including performance metrics comprehensive model documentation and a user testing interface. Procedures for periodic model retraining and updates will also be included.

Budget

$15,000 USD

Success Criterion

Model achieves a minimum of 75% detection accuracy in controlled trials Ability to correctly identify modified images with a false positive rate below 25%

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