Using Watermarks to Combat Piracy

TheEvilOverlord writes to tell us PC Advisor is reporting that researchers at the Fraunhofer Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute have developed a new watermarking system to help track and combat piracy. From the article: "The system lets content providers, such as music studios, embed a watermark in their downloadable MP3 files. Watermark technology makes slight changes to data in sound and image files. For instance, the change could be a higher volume intensity in a tiny part of a song or a brighter colour in a minuscule part of a picture. Even the best-trained human eyes and ears, according to Kip, can't detect the change."

Comments

Human?

[biocute]

Even the best-trained human eyes and ears, according to Kip, can't detect the change.

Who says anything about using human senses to detect the watermark? If these watermarks are embedded by machine, I'm sure it won't be long until Watermark Bob creates a "cleanser" program to detect anything unusual, and maybe even remove it.

Re:Human?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

I'm sure it won't be long until Watermark Bob creates a "cleanser" program to detect anything unusual, and maybe even remove it.

Good point. All you'd really need is two or more copies of a given file, each with their own watermarks. Do a relatively straightfoward binary diff on the files and you'd quickly spot the watermarks. Normalize the diffs based on the similarities between the multiple file copies, and voila! Instant un-watermarked file.

Re:Human?

[Kadin2048]

The intended use of watermarking, at least as I see it, is less for mass-released files than for prerelease or limited-release uses.

E.g., radio stations get copies of songs weeks before the CDs actually hit stores -- and suspiciously, the songs tend to show up on P2P networks soon after they go out to radio stations. What the music producers would really like to be able to do is trace the leaked files back to whoever put them on the internet, and then get medeival on them for breach of contract.

You can imagine similar uses for prerelease screenings of movies that go out to critics, film review boards, etc. It's less about preventing piracy than it is about finding the snitch afterwards so they can be made an example of. Really, the piracy deterrent is not technological (the watermark), but social (whatever punishment gets inflicted). The watermark is just facilitating the latter.

I suppose in theory if you had a watermark that could be embedded into the file quickly and easily, you could use it on downloaded music (like the iTMS) to see if people were sharing files that they purchased, but really I think systems like this are designed to catch big fish, not Joe Preteen who's ripping files that he bought off of Napster and putting them onto Kazaa.

A lot of similar systems are used with images; actually many of the techniques used for watermarking are used for steganography (it's arguable that watermarking is really a form of steganography), like Least Significant Bit padding for one. There are also systems that have a robust enough watermark that they will survive printing and scanning, although they tend to begin to mess up the image slightly.

Re:Human?

[pclminion]

Who says anything about using human senses to detect the watermark? If these watermarks are embedded by machine, I'm sure it won't be long until Watermark Bob creates a "cleanser" program to detect anything unusual, and maybe even remove it.

The purpose of making the watermark imperceptible isn't to trick the user. The user is fully aware that the music is watermarked. The reason it is done the way that it is, is because it is the only way to do it. There are really two requirements for the watermark. First, it must be intertwined with the actual data in order to make it non-trivial to remove. Simply sticking the watermark in a meta-information block would make removing it too simple. Second, because the watermark is intermixed with the audio data, it MUST be done in an imperceptible way in order to retain the quality of the recording.

So, making the watermark inaudible is not some attempt to pull one over on you. It's just the only realistic way it could be done.

Um, what?

[Jugalator]

The system lets content providers, such as music studios, embed a watermark in their downloadable MP3 files

For whom was this intended again?

I'd be happy if there actually was plenty of music studios providing downloadable mp3's though.

Nothing to see/hear

[Tackhead]

> The system lets content providers, such as music studios, embed a watermark in their downloadable MP3 files. [ ... ] Even the best-trained human eyes and ears, according to Kip, can't detect the change.

In other words, "Nothing to see/hear. Please move along?"

More seriously - although it could be stripped out (relatively) easily, you could embed watermarking data in the metadata segments of downloadable MP3s. I'd accept this as a tradeoff for music studios offering downloadable MP3 files: If some_hit_song_i_downloaded.mp3 shows up on a P2P network and contains metadata whose MD5 could only be generated by, say, hashing my credit card number with some_riaa_private_key, that'd be pretty reasonable grounds for RIAA to believe that I'm the schmuck who (a) paid for the right to download it from a RIAA-authorized source, and (b) uploaded it to a non-RIAA-authorized filesharing network.

Make it impractical for Joe Sixpack (who will be unaware of this type of watermarking, and who probably will be unaware of the existence of tools to strip it) to upload his files without risking fines/prosecution, and you can offer DRM-free MP3s to Joe Sixpack.

Re:Nothing to see/hear

[AviLazar]

Since your above example utilizes credit card information you CANNOT make Joe Sixpack unaware. He has to know, explicitly, that his credit card information is being encoded and sent up. Joe Sixpack needs to be given the absolute right to say "No I really do not trust your security system, and I will not give you my GC #"

That's the spirit

[RyoShin]

I'm hoping these kinds of anti-piracy actions work, and work well.

Things like the DRM and DMCA were put into place to fight piracy, and wound up just hurting regular consumers while the pirates just snickered as they continued along their merry way.

With these kinds of things, regular users will still be able to do what they like with their own copy, be it back it up or transfer it to another medium for personal use. At the same time, it will allow those tracking piracy to find the source and press charges only against that person, and not the random multitude.

I'm sure the pirates will figure out some way to work around this (be it to randomly change the volume slightly throughout an entire MP3, or brightening/dithering an entire picture), as they have everything else, but if this kind of technology can prevail and advance, it will allow those of us legally using our own purchased goods to do so without worry, while punishing those who deserve it.

Re:That's the spirit

[no_opinion]

If the majors sold inaudibly watermarked but non-DRMed MP3 files, would people buy them? My friends say no because they think people will find this too "big brotherish" but I think that the only ones at risk are the people violating copyright (i.e. sharing on p2ps). I'm willing to buy an INAUDIBLY watermarked mp3 file, because then I can do whatever I want with it, I don't have to worry about DRM, and I'm not at risk because I'm not infringing copyright.

What do others think?

Re:That's the spirit

[markdavis]

It scares me. You could then be held liable, if someone broke into your system and "stole" some of the watermarked works and then proceeded to "share" them with others. Even worse, someone could frame someone else by simply re-watermarking media to have it point to someone else.

Although it sounds like a very attractive alternative to DRM, there are some serious security issues that would have to be adequately addressed.

Key question

[overshoot]

However, the question is how this gets applied.

Are they planning to

• ship millions of identical watermarked files, then expect hardware to refuse to play any that files that aren't licensed (same old business model, someone else's problem.)
• Mark each file to identify the purchaser, then go after the source of widespread copyright violation?

The first is basically worse than DRM, the second is essentially an aid to enforcing existing copyright laws. I suspect that if the Content Cartel would finally accept that their business models need to change and go for the second approach, most of us could accept it.

This will not replace current "DRM" schemes

[massysett]

because it puts the enforcement burden on the record labels. There would be millions of watermarked files floating around out there, and they'd have to sue enough people to scare folks into not sharing their files. Only through scaring people could the labels have enough impact with this--there's no way they could close the spigot with the lawsuits.

Even so, the labels might adopt something like this. But it would be in addition to their current copy restriction schemes, rather than a replacement for them. Consumers still lose as they'll still have to wrangle with FairPlay, WMA, or whatever copy restriction scheme the labels want to use.

Sounds great (not).

[marcello_dl]

Also it requires every purchaser of a copy to be a registered one, it requires the purchaser to be very careful not to have the copy stolen or lose it, and it might also lead a hacked watermark to accuse an innocent purchaser.