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DivX and MP3 Developers Work Together on Watermarks

Posted by timothy on from the not-so-strange-bedfellows dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The DivX and MP3 developers are working on digital watermarking techniques together... Ogg anyone?"

9 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ogg = Beta, MP3 = VHS by david+duncan+scott · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But isn't Beta the one that evolved into a professional standard, while VHS has stayed the same lo-res crap it was from the beginning?

    --

    This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander

  2. Digital rights management won't work this way.... by lucifuge31337 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...there will ALWAYS be a way around it until we have big brother inside of all of our equipment. So don't be concerned about any of this.

    Start getting concerned when all video card manufacturers are forced to include rights management firmware, and when you can't get a PC DVD-ROM without (more) intrusive/limiting firmware.

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    Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
  3. Not surprising... by JoeShmoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Step 1) Create a system or product that, while having some legitmate use, also enables a much more popular illegal use.

    Step 2) Gain a huge user base while fretting and pretending to "study solutions" to the illegal use.

    Step 3) Once your system or product has become a leader in the marketplace, throw a switch and make the illegal use much harder.

    Hey, it worked for countless companies throughout the ages. I mean, when did AOL enable the features that prevented users from e-mailing warez to each other, before or after they became the number one ISP in the US? So, it's not surprising that DivX and Frau. would be following the pattern like everyone else.

    - JoeShmoe

    .

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    -- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
    1. Re:Not surprising... by Cyno · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Excuse me? What illegal use are you talking about? I have a right to fair use reguardless of what any law says. Its perfectly legal for me to use technology to use the music and movies I buy in the same way I used them for years. The only difference now is that we have laws like the DMCA which threaten fair use. That only means that anyone who wants to sue me for using and sharing my content the way I have always done will get a fight destined for the supreme court. And boy would I love the courts to throw away my rights to fair use. That would be the last day I'd ever pay for content again. But as thing are right now, as long as the MPAA and RIAA don't sue me, I'll continue to purchase my DVDs and CDs and rip them onto open unencrypted media formats that are portable and give me access to my content when I want it. No matter what you say there's nothing wrong with that.

  4. DiVX is Falling Behind the Times by LuxuryYacht · · Score: 5, Interesting

    DiVX is a very close variant of MPEG-4 and no longer has its source open. H.26L is open and already provides for 1.5 x better compression than DiVX. XViD is also about 10% faster and is open source and nearly all GPL at this point.

    DiVX will just fade away the same as MPEG-4 due to it's too greedy nature.

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    Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
  5. Why I'm not using OGG by Pope+Slackman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's really only one reason: hardware support.
    I can take my MP3s virtually anywhere and be able to play them, whether it's a computer, a CD player a flash player or something else, it's almost universally supported on digital audio gadgets.
    I like Ogg, I'd say at the [high] bitrates I encode at it's as good if not better than MP3, but it just doesn't have the hardware support to make encoding for it worth my while, it's more time-effective for me just to rip to MP3 directly.

    C-X C-S

  6. ... and the problem is what exactly? by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I look at the headline. I look at it again. I see the word "watermark." I don't see copy-protection, I don't see crippling CD-RW or DVD+RW drives, I don't see the MPAA and RIAA going on a lawsuit spree, I just see "watermark."

    A watermark is just that: A watermark. A way of determining the integrity of the watermarked object that is prohibitively difficult to duplicate. It doesn't prevent duplication per se, it just causes the ducplicate to proclaim that its a duplicate through the absence of that watermark.

    Yes, there are all sorts of immoral and possibly illegal things hardware manufacturers can do by automatically scanning for watermarks, but the watermark itself is pretty much morally neutral. In fact, I can think of many good things that can be done with such a tool. If the RIAA ever got their thumbs out of their asses and realized they should be selling media instead of mediums, a watermark would give those consumers that care about such things a way of finding out if what they have is genuine.

  7. Re:more information by Cerberus7 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've had the same problem with IE6. Damn straight it's annoying. I had a gif-less page working just fine in Mozilla and was content that my work was done. Then I looked at it in IE. Eww.

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  8. Re:more information by minard · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Excellent point. Why would anybody upgrade?

    What many people here seem to be missing is, the question is not "wouldn't everybody switch to ogg vorbis" but "why wouldn't people stick with the version of mp3 they already have?"

    Many people already have mp3 files, tools and players that do exactly what they want. Why would they "upgrade" to a deliberately crippled version that limits what they can do? To persuade people to upgrade, you have to provide them with something new of value that they didn't have before, not less.