1. A method for generating a characteristic fingerprint for a multimedia signal, the method comprising: receiving a media object, the media object comprising at least spatial components; identifying a region of interest within the media object, the region of interest comprising a portion of the media object within a set of boundaries in the media object; scaling at least a portion of the region of interest into a plurality of sets of columns, each set of columns comprising a plurality of columns containing data from the region of interest at a different horizontal scaling thereof; computing a plurality of sub-fingerprints for each of the sets of columns, each sub-fingerprint comprising characteristic information about one or more of the columns in the set of columns; combining the sub-fingerprints into a characteristic fingerprint for the media object; and storing the characteristic fingerprint in a storage medium.