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Startup Tries Watermarking Instead of DRM

Posted by Zonk on from the commendable-actions-mean-profits dept.

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.'"

5 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing major by ssand · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This won't effect people putting up pirated movies at all. Those who are smart will edit out the first five seconds of the movie. Those who are stupid will just post it with their information.

  2. Digital Fingerprinting? by bstorer · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I didn't RTFA, but how is this any different than a digital fingerprint? As far as the info at the beginning goes, anybody who cares to do so could simply chop off the first few seconds in any decent movie editor.

  3. New Overlords by youthoftoday · · Score: 0, Redundant

    In Soviet Russia, movie watermarks you.

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    -1 not first post
  4. No way by drfuchs · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Yeah, right. First, just because "my" copy of a movie ends up all over the internet, doesn't mean that I did anything wrong; maybe it was stolen from me. Second, if an evil-doer buys (or steals) a few copies with different watermarks, it's a good bet that he can merge them in a way that obliterates any evidence of where they originals came from. Do your homework, guys.

  5. I applaud the idea. Watermark broken in 3... 2.. 1 by hoggoth · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I applaud the idea of giving people the freedom to do what they please with the media they have purchased. This idea has a great motivation. I wish it could work, however, as much as I like the idea, someone will do the following:
    Purchase two copies under different names.
    Compare the two bit-for bit. Anywhere the bits are different, set the bit to a random value.
    Watermark destroyed. Video intact.

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    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)