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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.'"
Sounds reasonable. But then how does the copyright holder distinguish between the purchaser engaging in illegal distribution vs being the victim of theft? The article never covers that. I think I can guess how the **AA will react to any watermarked file floating around the net with Joe User's name/account reference embedded in it. They'll call a SWAT team and have Joe's house raided. No proof. Sorry, Joe, for the mess. We're on to harassing the next person we vaguely suspect of illegal distribution.
Then hex diff it, find the missing bits add them, and then.... profit!
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This sounds perfect. As they say, it makes *me* responsible for the file; I can make millions of copies as backup. Of course I wont give it away, to do so is at my own risk.
The authentication will be a problem of course; it means I will not be able to make an anonymous purchase on the web - something that people are quite reasonably concerned about being able to do. What will it be signed with? My DNA? What about identity theft?
A heck, I give up. I was wrong. It's another stupid idea.
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Real pirates probably already have the originals anyway.
Besides, this appears aimed more to stop casual file swapping by scaring the non-tech-savvy than it is at real pirates.
You thought this was something intended to defeat deliberate large scale pirates? Why would you think that? I mean none of the DRM crap stops them either, so why should this? :)
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http://www.broadcastpapers.com/whitepapers/Content %20Technology-05-2006-046-048.pdf
r ticle.html
The Thompson system for watermarking video and there's also a Fraunhofer Institute system:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,124676-page,1/a
These are all good ideas IMHO. As long as
1. The watermark isn't easy to remove
2. There is uncertainty as to whether the mark is removed
3. It isn't used to apply DRM
1 is obvious, 2 is there because the pirate has to be uncertain if their copy still has the idea, and 3. because the advantages of the system over DRM are lost if they use it for DRM!
Imagine you can freely buy and use the media you use however you like, but if it shows up on p2p, the ID can be pulled and traced back to you.
Since the DRM doesn't work, (not a single piece of media has successfully been locked up by DRM yet, a 100% failure rate). And since the DRM is already so restrictive that it puts off genuine sales, and is causing competition problems as inter operation is non existent. Then watermarking scheme will take over.
This one, I'm not so keen on, since the watermark is too easy to remove compared to the more mathematical approaches. The key point of any watermark approach is the mark must be difficult to remove and there must be uncertainty that the mark has been successfully removed.
My 2 cents.
The truth is anybody can break into your house at anytime. They don't because there's some risk, however slight, that somebody will notice and they'll get caught. Same logic here. It's not going to prevent somebody from pirating but it will discourage the lesser crimes.
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It's a nice idea, but the content providers will never go for it. They want to use DRM to limit fair use so they can sell you the same content in different formats. They can make themselves sound very self-righteous banging on about preventing piracy, but they are at least as interested (if not much more so) in preventing our fair use.
I'd really like to believe this, but I just can't.
Whether or not people are "fundamentally" good or evil isn't an argument worth having, in a way, because it's impossible (or nearly so) to take a person completely out of their environment and away from the threat or fear of consequences. However, I suspect that if you gave the 'average Joe' a Ring of Gyges, that he wouldn't help himself to the contents of the local bank/liquor-store/etc. (at least until the novelty of being able to possess anything wore off).
While you, in fact, may be so constrained by morality -- and if that is the case, I salute you -- but to assume that most people are, seems a bit of a stretch. Most people don't commit crimes, because the perceived risk/reward doesn't work out in their favor. I could go out tonight and hold up the 7-11 on the corner, but I'm not going to; the few hundred bucks it might gain me (at best) wouldn't be worth the strong possibility of spending the next decade or so in prison. However, to someone who was poorer, or strung out on crack, that equation might come out differently; the possibility of a small amount of cash might be more than enough to make the risk worthwhile.
We can argue about the fundamental nature of humanity all day -- after all, if it was good enough a subject for Plato, it's good enough for me -- but in the end, what matters is whether your philosophy produces a model that predicts how people actually act, rather than how they wish they acted, or how they justify their own actions to themselves. The risk/reward model does this fairly well, at least with economic and property crimes, and therefore seems far more likely.
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