Startup Tries Watermarking Instead of DRM

Loosehead Prop writes "A U.K. startup called Streamburst has a novel idea: selling downloadable video with watermarks instead of DRM. The system works by adding a 5-second intro to each download that shows the name of the person who bought the movie along with something like a watermark: 'it's not technically a watermark in the usual sense of that term, but the encoding process does strip out a unique series of bits from the file. The missing information is a minuscule portion of the overall file that does not affect video quality, according to Bjarnason, but does allow the company to discover who purchased a particular file.' The goal is to 'make people accountable for their actions without artificially restricting those actions.'"

Comments

I see this "cracked" in five seconds

[A beautiful mind]

it's not technically a watermark in the usual sense of that term, but the encoding process does strip out a unique series of bits from the file. The missing information is a minuscule portion of the overall file

The warez guys will do what every torrent user does, build the file they want from more sources. They will strip all conflicting bits from the file and substitute the missing ones. Yeah, this does make it so that they need two or more sources, but it's certainly doable.

Re:Nothing major

[Anonymous Coward]

ssand,

Did you read even the summary? Removing the beginning does not remove the unique signature formed by bit removal.

Of course bit removal or any sort of water mark can also be mucked with.

Still, this would be more user friendly than "hard" DRM.

They already do this in theaters

[PCM2]

In principle, I like this idea. I don't really see a problem with it.

However, they already do something similar in theaters. Every so often in theatrical movies you will notice a weird pattern of "cigarette burns" that appears for a brief moment. (Yes, to my eyes at least, they are visible and sort of distracting.) The pattern is different for each copy of the film shipped. The idea is that, if someone sneaks into a movie theater and makes a cam of a first-run movie, the producers of the movie can analyze the video and figure out which theater it came from. That helps them put more pressure on theater owners to enforce bans on video cameras, etc.

But does it seem like there are fewer cam bootlegs out there since they started doing this? They started it maybe five years ago.

Re:They already do this in theaters

[karmatic]

Not those. These. (Look in the upper middle of the screen).

Most people don't seem to see them, and they typically try to make it after a bright flash (which makes them a little less visibile). Personally, they drive me nuts, but so do single projector DLPs.

Re:Digital Fingerprinting?

[bilbravo]

The "watermark" is throughout the video. The first five seconds is just a "header" if you will, for the naked eye to see. The watermark however, could not be removed so easily.