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

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.