AT&T invests in antipiracy firm: report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AT&T Inc is joining Walt Disney Co affiliate Steamboat Ventures as an investor in Vobile Inc, a company that markets a technology that tracks video content, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday in its online edition.

The total outside investment in the company is less than $10 million, the Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the deal.

Representatives from AT&T were not immediately available for comment.

According to the Journal, AT&T is testing Vobile's antipiracy technology and that of other companies and has yet to commit to a service. Vobile specializes in identifying pirated movies on the Internet, the Journal said.

The source familiar with the deal told the Journal it could take more than a year to deploy the so-called video-fingerprinting technology across a network.

(Reporting by Justin Grant; editing by Sue Thomas)