Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling

DippityDo writes "A new web tool is scanning the net for signs of copyright infringement. Digimarc's patented system searches video and audio files for special watermarks that would indicate they are not to be shared, then reports back to HQ with the results. It sounds kind of creepy, but has a long way to go before it makes a practical difference. 'For the system to work, players at multiple levels would need to get involved. Broadcasters would need to add identifying watermarks to their broadcast, in cooperation with copyright holders, and both parties would need to register their watermarks with the system. Then, in the event that a user capped a broadcast and uploaded it online, the scanner system would eventually find it and report its location online. Yet the system is not designed to hop on P2P networks or private file sharing hubs, but instead crawls public web sites in search of watermarked material.'"

Comments

Hack it useless

[ATestR]

All that would be needed to make this scheme less useful would be for some bright person to apply the audio watermark to a whole bunch of files that aren't copyrighted. Then, when the spider finds one of these bogus files, a real person has to determine that it isn't copyrighted material.

Of course, the way the **AA has acted in the past, it wouldn't surprise anyone that automated [threat] letters would be sent out. This would leave someone open to counterclaim.