1. A method for generating a characteristic fingerprint for a multimedia signal, the method comprising: receiving, by a computing device, a media object, the media object comprising at least spatial components; identifying, by the computing device, 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, the identifying of the region of interest comprises detecting the boundaries in the media object and comprising calculating statistics of changes in pixels across multiple frames and identifying areas of maximum variation of pixel values; transforming, by the computing device, the region of interest into a format for fingerprinting, the transforming based on size, stability, and length of the region of interest, the transforming comprising scaling, by the computing device, 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, by the computing device, 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, by the computing device, the sub-fingerprints into a characteristic fingerprint for the media object; and storing, by the computing device, the characteristic fingerprint in a storage medium.