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Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-it-just-needs-to-serve-you-papers-automatically dept.

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.'"

4 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Corporate IP infringements by kabocox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't aimmed at the home use or small time crowd. It's ideal role is aimed at finding big name corporate offenders that have unlicensed PR crap on brochers, websites, or ads and making sure that the guy whose's content it is gets his cut. It's not worth it to go against small time folks. Think of professional photographers making sure their photos aren't run in mags or on the web without them getting their cut.

  2. Web Spider? by Sneakernets · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a Web Newspaper rolled up, waiting on it.

    --
    "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
  3. I hope it works! by 5pp000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why does everyone here want this not to work? Seems to me this could be the alternative to DRM. It doesn't interfere with fair use at all; it only detects when copyrighted works are made widely available.

    If we want to dissuade the entertainment industry from using DRM, it seems incumbent upon us, as technologists, to propose alternatives that at least partially answer copyright owners' legitimate concerns. Seems to me this could be one of them.

    --
    Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
  4. Re:So what by McFadden · · Score: 5, Funny

    the pirate needs to search for any of 6000 possible spots for the watermark, and remove it.
    I'm trying to think of a nifty device that would be able to search 6,000 possible spots in a file to look for a watermark, but the name escapes me just at the moment...

    No wait... I think I've got it... Isn't it called a "computer"?