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

Why should this bother anyone here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... lets see.. a technology that ONLY puts the pinch on people trading music they shouldn't be trading and does nothing to legit users. Why is anyone worried or complaining? YOU don't trade music illegaly do you? Why, that would be like car thiefs complaining that VINs are the sign of the beast and should never have been put in autos.