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Watermarking to Replace DRM?
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has an article on the announcement of Microsoft and Universal to introduce watermarking technology into audio files. The technology could serve several purposes including tracking file sharing statistics and inserting advertisements into audio tracks. The article goes on to suggest that watermarking could possibly replace DRM in the near future."
Watermarking to fail like DRM Can anyone imagine Steve Ballmer getting fully behind this proposal? "Watermarking watermarking, watermarking watermarking" while he does the Monkey Dance.
People will find ways to remove those watermarks. The only impact will be on the people who still buy the stuff; those who share it online won't have any problems.
This certainly sounds like a preferable solution to any kind of Draconian DRM scheme, but my bet is that it'll be circumvented so trivially that content providers will soon shun it and go back to the bad old days of DRM. I hope I'm just being cynical though.
This isn't the silver bullet you're looking for. Unless the watermark is intrusive into the content itself, in which case the idea won't sell, it can be removed by re-encoding.
Just what we need, even MORE advertisements! As if I'm not already bombarded with advertising via spam, TV, radio, theaters, etc.
So you'll be listening to a MP3 and halfway through the song you'll hear an advertisement for Vista?
He who laughs last is at 300 baud.
If I buy a cd, I can resell it, and that is legal (if not, then the RIAA should be going after all the cd stores). What if I sell the music that is watermarked? Or are they making that illegal now based on their terms of use?
This is the same problem that came up with Apple adding the user info to the files.
I love how the digital world has actually been effectively taking our rights away as they narrow the terms and conditions of using the things you buy (could only install Vista twice until there was an uproar about it, if you download the music instead of buying a cd, you can't sell it to a friend....).
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with Watermarking and steganography.
its just a way of hiding information.
reading up on it says nothing bad.
Situations may arise when it will be used incorrectly.
To be certain though we should filter out the bad stuff.
Perhaps a better way would be doing nothing.
or maybe we can filter them out
Suppose we find multiple files and merge them.
That would work wouldn't it?
liqbase
Which is precisely why it won't work. What one tool can detect, another can circumvent.
Oh, and it's detectable and not detectible. Don't know what moron at news.com.com hired Taco...
This message is brought to you by the Bureau of Massively Distributed Peer Review, Department of Free Culture.
The Banjo Players Must Die!
Maybe I'm the only one, but I've reached a saturation point regarding advertising. It now makes me react strongly negatively. I fully expect any day now companies will start tattooing adverts on the inside of babies' eyelids.
We live in a world of massive information-availability. A consumer who wishes to consume is equipped to find the "best" product for the job, and often will. Brand-recognition is a weakening force and it's high time we stop polluting our senses with invasive advertising.
"Oh no... he found the
It's just music... we have 2007 and everybody hates music since MTV started to suck in 1990 or so...
All we have here is an attempt by microsoft to shuffle quietly away from the failed strategy that was drm.
One teensy problem. Microsoft don't have the power to force other media file players to enact its scheme, and even if they could, no-one in their right mind is going to require that people re-encode their current collections to work with the new system. Hell mine is almost 150gb, most of that audiobooks, with individual files up to 30mb in size, I'm blowed if I'm going to redo it to use media player, which I don't use in any case, because its a bloated tool (not because its made by microsoft, just because its horrible to use). Audible and the apple store, where I shop, use their own protection systems, and both have 'rip th audio cd' in their options for anything I purchase.
This scheme is ultimately unenforceable except for new purchases, and that from people who agree with microsoft. All it will give them is a way to quietly wrap drm in a blanket and heave it off a bridge late one night.
the watermarks will replace 5% of the music and will *ruin* the quality of output!
The good news: Watermarking does not restrict the freedom of personal use and transferring from one device to another. If this could make online music shopping truly feasible I'd prefer it over DRM. I want to do whatever I like with the media I buy.
But the question is how the media companies will use this newfound power... I support the idea of companies having the option to trace leaks, but this could make it possible to determine exactly who shared the 500 000 copies present of Band X's single Y on P2P network Z. Ensue more lawsuits?
.: Max Romantschuk
DRM: Limited in who can run it. (see BBC iplayer for an example of an OS dependent implantation). Must have the right hardware, software, ect.
Watermarks: Anyone can run it.
Whether it can be hacked around or otherwise... time will tell, but from a accessibility standpoint, at least its looking like anybody can at least play it. That has to count for something. If I have to accept restrictions, this is better then what we had before.
1. Easily removed if passively embedded into the file.
2. People will complain if the "watermark" is placed into the audio stream and causes any sort of even momentary distortion in the playback, even at high frequencies.
With Universal's products, you can selectively scare the kids of your lawn, or attract them. For this, they use an ingenious system based on the age/frequency-dependent brain impulse generation in humans.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Congratulations, record companies, for coming up with yet another reason not to buy your products. To a consumer that is toying with the idea of buying a song rather than downloading it for free, watermarking could potentially be an even larger disincentive than DRM.
- DRM: If you buy this song, you run the risk that you won't be able to play it on the hardware that you have now or will have in the future. Total risk exposure: 99 cent
- Watermarking: If you buy this song, you run the risk that it somehow ends up on the filesharing networks with your name written all over it, and you get sued to smithereens by the RIAA. Total risk exposure: a gazillion dollars
Why would consumers find this so much more attractive?Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
Even if this doesn't prevent the piracy groups from doing their thing, at least it won't interfere with consumers fair use rights the way DRM does. There will be a few consumers who complain about damaged audio quality due to the watermark, but that really depends on how the file is marked. I'd rather see companies strive for the perfect watermark than the perfect DRM, that's for damn sure.
Just because the script kiddie in question exploited a loophole in the law does not mean he wasn't "ripping off". Ripping off is still ripping off whatever the law says.
Hitler obeyed the laws of Germany. Do you also say Hitler did nothing wrong? He also distributed artworks for free whilst sending their creators to the gas chambers. Is that your plan for Universal? Your master Eben "Stalin" Moglen is pleased with you.
to prevent piracy from being a problem. This has been said before, but since it's a decent idea it's worth repeating.
Instead of the current market where any whore can get on stage, prance around singing other peoples songs (if they are in fact signing at all), then market a CD and demand millions of sales, why not allow the market to decide.
1. Seed the market with your wares. Apply for a business loan from a studio, get a CD or two out there, do live performances, etc.
2. Promote new album under the premise that it'll be re-distributable (but still copyrighted) once $X dollars have been collected through whatever channels.
3. Release album on the web, and don't look back.
Not only does this cut out the CD producing middle man, but it also only floods the market with music that people apparently want.
The studios keep [incorrectly] assuming that sales that don't grow as much as they want (and let's not forget the problem isn't that sales aren't high, it's that they're not *growing* as fast as the want) is because people can pirate the media, as oppose to lower demand. Demand problems due to quality and price aren't unheard of. Why pay $30 for a movie when in a couple of years it'll be in the $6 bin [as new] at your local walmart/zellers/target/whatever. That's what I do. For the price of one new movie, I can usually pick up 4 older ones, usually ones that I actually like, and build my library. Like recently I got forest gump, constatine, the devils own, and another I can't quite remember, each were around $6 or so. Not B-rated movies, got some quality actors in them, etc.
Anyways, point is, the current "mass produce a million CDs and pray they sell" method of marketing audio is out dated and it's about time they realize that.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
If you use the watermark to trigger a banner ad on a player, it could convince the RIAA that there is an ad-revenue stream and cause them to drop the DRM and lawsuits.
Unfortunately it will be used to connect specific downloads to individuals allowing the RIAA to target their lawsuits more accurately. It will still be as impossible to prove in court but will drive an even deeper wedge between the RIAA and reality.
The only way the RIAA will stop suing is when someone wins a countersuit big enough to affect the bottom line of the corporations supporting them.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
The DMCA makes it illegal (or legally difficult) to remove DRM. But any watermarking and advertising is fair game...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Also, watermarking pretends that people have control over their files. Millions of people whose computers that are controlled remotely in botnets don't.
There are numerous other ways files are moved around. If you take your computer in for repair, it is possible the repair person will copy any files he or she wants.
This is a classic manipulation tactic. Your opponent wishes to impose an unpleasant restriction upon you. First, he imposes one that's excessive and offensive. You get upset. He, being the nice guy he is, offers a less-unpleasant restriction in "response" to your reaction. You fall all over yourself to choke down the restriction he originally wanted because it's "better than what we had before."
I'm sure there's a formal name for this method, but it escapes me at the moment. I haven't had my coffee yet.
Using watermarking for anything more than observing propagation will cause a severe backlash for the commercial parties involved. One of the reasons the industry claims you should not download music is because "it" could "contain" a virus. So what if industry provided music are infected with codes that initiate spam when you play it someplaces, or initiates litigation against you when someone else plays files you had bought some day in the past. I would guess all industry files would get avoided like a drooled on box of chocolates given to you by a seemingly plague infested homeless guy after donating some change. You will then more likely buy a 20 bucks bluray disk on the street which claims 100% cleansed all music of last year or all sexy music clips of last month.
This article shows how desperately we need to REVOKE THE LICENCE FEE from the BBC. I don't want my taxes and the bloody fee to go toward supporting Microsoft's crap schemes. It really is disgusting that this "public" body can be so swayed. Then again, half of the UK is under the thrall of MS. Idiots.
What tricks is the BBC up to with Microsoft?
...when audio engineers tried to make the most faithful recordings they could and produced masterful albums that stood the test of time?
What will we have left from today? A bunch of reduced bit rate and artificially manipulated files? Let's just do away with all pretense and have people dial a 1-900 number to listen to their favorite song. No files to illegally share, no DRM, no chocolate mess, all billed to your mobile account.
inaudible to human ears ? So, if i transcode the original file to an mp3, the mp3 encoder, as usual will remove the "useless" stuff that is inaudible to human ears.... err, sorry but i think this DRM technology was cracked ages ago... Just take the free open-source ogg codec, tweak it to make sure it does not keep the inaudible watermarks (which, are, after all just another waste of disc space), and here you go.
:P
There is one question though: Inaudible is not necessarily inaudible. We have seen that before on film as well as audio tracks. Insert a banana frame in an hour long Hollywood movie, and boost the banana market ! Reverse "kill yourself" audio track and insert it in a random emo-oriented music track and get them to kill themselves. Inserting some sort of subliminal message in an audio track and get your good old low-IQ customers to do whatever you want them to do. Like Buying Microsoft windows for example. Or not pirating movies. Or get in some sort of sect. Or whatever. I don't know much of psychology, and even the professionals only have limited knowledge, but when you have huge corporations backing it up, you can be sure the technology will be up and running legally in the US within 5 years. In Futurama, year 3000, you get "commercial breaks" in your dreams. Yeah well, it seems that all the crap "technology" - as long as it pollutes more, makes you more dependent on something, or transforms you in some sort of consuming slave- gets a higher development rate than anything else. On another hand, when its about "hey lets get rid of HIV" or "lets feed the people who don't get any food" or "lets stop inventing and selling new weapons to allow a better, more efficient killing", then, no one is there.
Universal is a French company. I hope the European union (yeah, because the European union, somehow, seems to be the only international organization that tries to protect its people from corporate dirty business) tells them to fuck off.
Lets just burn'em all down (universal, microsoft...) I'd become a terrorist, capturing Bill Gates and release him in exchange of the cancellation of this dirty trick. I could get his cheat-code list as well on how to become the richest man on earth, but thats another story
Great, it isn't audible and Joe Sixpack doesn't know that it is even there. What better way of distributing new rootkits. Maybe MS should contact Sony and get their source code. Honestly, the technically inclined will remove it and the other have another official way of getting security wholes for their system...well thought
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
The RIAA might also stop suing when people stop sharing. The goal isn't, in my opinion, to make sharing consequence-free. I happen to think it's unethical to share copyrighted work without the artist's permission (regardless of whether it's legal or not). It's not high on my list of moral crimes -- probably somewhat below speeding and stealing stationary from work -- but it's still something I try not to do, and would like to encourage others not to as well.
In my (completely non-expert) opinion, I can't see how watermarking can ever work as a way of tracing duplication of content because it can be very easily worked around
Watermarking is designed to embed something into the audio that does not get noticed by the listener, but contains various information.
At the same time, most audio codecs are designed to save space and one way they do this is to drop things from the stream that would not be heard by the listener anyway.
So one would imagine that re-encoding, whilst perhaps sometimes unadvisable for various unrelated reasons, would do a fairly good job at removing or at least severely damaging a watermark.
Any codec exports got a view on this?
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
In their media files they're making profit from that, so I see no need to pay for the files- I don't pay to be advertised at, same goes for video games and pay TV channels.
> the announcement of Microsoft and Universal
I don't understand Microsoft. Here's a company that wants to sell you an operating system, then spends the rest of its time collaborating with other companies that want to throw you into jail.
Are you really sure it will not help?
.ogg you are about to share with an internet friend does NOT have watermarking in it.
Please prove that a bought
I see this as a positive step. DRM limits the devices and/or software you can use to play back the media you've purchased. It affects our fair use rights as consumers and therefore it needs to go. I think watermarking is a better solution for those of us who want to purchase our media in an unencumbered format to use in accordance with our fair use rights.
The only potential problem I can see is what happens if a device that you've got your legally purchased media on is stolen and the person who steals it uploads some or all of that content? What happens if, say, you buy a new PC, copy all of your legally purchased media to the new PC, delete it from your old PC and either give the old PC away or sell it and the new owner runs an undelete program and recovers the media and then uploads it?
I can see a lot of ways that watermarking could bite someone in the ass if they aren't careful with their files.
I don't whether this has ever been tried with audio files, but the techniques used in CDMA radio communications might work here. Essentially, you would need to add a small amount of noise to the audio signal, however it's not true random noise and can be decoded to reveal a signature, or watermark. If you combine two files with different 'noise' signatures, then both signatures can still be extracted with a high probability of a correct result. Only as you combine a large number of similar files does the probability of correctly decoding the signatures of the components decrease. However by that time, you've added a large amount of noise to the audio file and it will probably sound bad anyway, so no-one will want to download it.
The downside is that by definition the noise you add has to be audible. Note that for a long time audio cassettes sold very well despite their awful noise characteristics, so this may be acceptable to all but the strictest of audiophiles.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
That you can track down the original owner who the files were stolen from?
not saying that DRM is the answer either, but you cant run around blaming the people that leased the file in question for it being 'released'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Give me decent music at a decent price in the formats I want, and don't try and make me suffer for doing the right thing, and I will buy it.
Watermarks replace DRM and waterboarding replaces lawsuits.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Sorry, but I had to say something here. It's not the artist's permission 99% of the time - it's the permission of the record company that coerced ownership away from the artist.
I don't approve of copyright violation as a general rule, but in this one case, why not? The record companies are basically evil incarnate these days. Want to predict how they'll handle a given situation? Ask yourself What Satan Would Do. Given that they're working to change the law to steal from me (by effectively revoking copyright expiration) and don't care whom they destroy or bankrupt in the process, I see no moral reason whatsoever why it's wrong to copy their stuff.
Frankly, I wouldn't care if someone flat-out stole CDs from their warehouse. I think they've reached the point where it's no longer possible to violate their rights. As far as I'm concerned, they no longer have any.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Watermarking *IS* DRM
It's just a passive form, not an active one.
Sorry, but I had to say something here. It's not the artist's permission 99% of the time - it's the permission of the record company that coerced ownership away from the artist. Disclaimer - I dislike the business practices of the record companies/RIAA/etc as much if not more than everyone else. That said, sorry, I call BS here. Who's name is it inked on the contract? It takes two to tango. There are plenty of artists eschewing traditional methods of distribution, promotion and sales. The only difference is they will likely get moderate amounts of money and fame, and not be on every top-40 radio station (due to bribes, etc). String Cheese Incident and Dispatch are two recent-memory examples of this, but even outside of the folk/jam rock catagory it's really not as hard as it sounds if you put the legwork in and have a fanbase. I can't tell you how tired I am of hearing people justify something unethical by saying "well... they're corproate vultures, so we can do whatever we want", and explain that away by implying "the poor artists are being raped, RAPED I tell you, by contracts that are nasty and evil and bad" when in reality they don't have to sign a damn thing.
I'm not buying that. The artist has given permission for their work to be distributed though certain channels, and not others. They are not coerced, they are sometimes bribed with (potential) fame.
If you really think record companies are evil incarnate, the way to stop them is not to share music, but to stop listening to it altogether. Don't buy, don't share, zip. Buy from indies and local bands at their gigs. Support someone else instead of no one.
Another point is that people don't share just RIAA stuff, they share everything (I bet you do too).
They don't even need to remove it.
Only one stolen copy or a scapegoat/idiot is needed so the whole world can mindlessly share a file which incriminates someone else.
1. Buy two copies of a song.
2. Find the bits that are different.
3. Randomize those bits.
4. Post to LimeMuleKazDonkeyTorrent.
5. Profit!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I assume the adverts would come into play with Windows Media Player. I think advertising is fair if it means you can freely distribute the songs. It may be 'sell out', but clearly people prefer sharing music than buying it.
I can't wait until they just add a $10 dollar tax to our broadband connections and let people share legally.
Both spellings are valid according to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/detect. I didn't know that but all it took was a quick check.
Don't know what moron at news.com.com hired Taco...If you enjoyed the previous fact I would highly recommend this one: /. was created by CmdrTaco. He wasn't hired as a summer intern at news.com.com.org.uk.co.com to add manpower to an already-failing project pioneered by that manager who's never given any serious projects by upper management because they know he'll really bungle them up like he did with that internal complaints database project two years ago and ended up editing /. articles. It's HIS website. Hear that everyone else? You're meaningless here! You hear me Bruce Perens? You got that Mr. NewYorkCountyLawyer? This is CMDRTACO'S WEBSITE! I LOVE YOU CMDRTACO!
Well, ahem. Ah...point being /. was created by CmdrTaco.
If you have a file and it has a watermark, you can go after the seller to obtain the details of the person. You no longer have to sue based on an IP address to obtain the details of the sharer.
Another plus for watermarking.
First, replacing DRM with watermarks is a very nice step. It changes those companies position from support a future like Right to Read to merely accusing people on baseless evidence. So, we can stop acting like they want to leat us to an Orwellian society, and just ask for a better judicial system.
Now, watermarking also doesn't work. If it is audible, people won't like it. If it is not audible, it is useless information, what works against compressors and will be removed on every possibility. With time, all watermarks will be removed.
Rethinking email
Maybe its just me... But I'm NEVER going to buy audio that auto-delivers advertising. I might accept it as a gift - otherwise, what's in it for me? If this watermarking process in anyway degrades the listening experience... well, P2P awaits with quality products, and an unbeatable price...
Quite correct. If you buy Hillary Duff's latest single today, and are sick of it in two weeks, and decide to sell that MP3 to someone who isn't yet sick to death of hearing about her crap, and then that buyer uploads it to all the P2P networks (I'm still trying to figure out who the hell is buying her crap in the first place but bear with me) the RIAA would go after you. They'd insist that in addition to not having Fair Use, you do not have the Right of First Sale. It SHOULD be simple to squelch their argument but unfortunately they have deep pockets with which to buy the courts.
But: that is where watermarking can be harmful. If you buy an MP3 and resell it legally (destroying all copies you have) you're LEGALLY in the clear, or if you purchase it as a gift (and again, destroying all copies you have) the "evidence" would point back at you, but the evidence really isn't proof of ANYTHING in this case. It's like a crime having happened in a subway with no witnesses, and you get charged because your fingerprints happen to be on one of the handrails. That fingerprint is simply evidence that you were there sometime in the past, not that you had anything to do with the incident.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Just like in the William Gibson novel...
Just listen to any rap song. How does it begin? By letting the listener know who's rapping, the year, and who they represent (label, city, neighborhood, etc). Audio ID3.
TODO - Insert Creative/Witty Signature
I posted a comment at news.com with basically the same idea.
If the bits and bytes can be adjusted in an undetectable manner to put a watermark on, say, an audio or video file, why can't someone just come along after and adjust the bits and bytes again in some random manner to effectively erase the watermark? I mean, if they can't read the bits and bytes that they put on the media because they've been altered, they wouldn't be able to track it, and the watermark would pretty effectively be broken.
It just seems to me that although having a bit-for-bit identical copy of the original would be nice, they've already altered it so that we can't get that. Altering it a bit more (no pun intended) wouldn't really be harmful, and it would still meet the end goal of distributing the media untraceably.
But you're right, another option would be to have two (three? four?) accounts get multiple copies of the same file and do a bit-by-bit comparison, either averaging the differences or picking from one of the two copies at random. If you have multiple copies, you might even be able to derive a highly probable copy of the original.
The latest "Computing Surveys" has an article on Image watermarking, and while most of the methods won't apply to audio or video, the technology is interesting and the article well worth a read.
Actually, I have a few hundred ripped CDs that I don't share, but strictly for legal reasons.
But really, I see copying an RIAA-member record company's files as akin to stealing from a drug dealer. It's fear of retribution holding people back, not any particular sense of impropriety.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I guess Universal's DRM-free open MP3 test really was a test.. now this watermarking business..
It would be cool if seach engines could read these watermarks. That kind of information could filter out low qualify versions of a song etc and aid the browser in finding the content they want.
I believe that the theft of intellectual property is only a part of the reason for this partnership. At some point, the lowered cost to purchase the content (respond to the ad, get the song free) will outweigh the time/hassle it takes to pirate it, at least for the majority of consumers. On a more interesting note, watermarking could be the beginning of buying any and all content ala carte, by the piece (buy a single show on Showtime)and trade it with a friend who is then billed by their ISP - kind of like the old phone bill where your calls were billed on a cents per minute basis. This model utilizes the web as a well, web - a personal distribution network. Cool -
So the RIAA shouldn't sue people, is that correct? Have they used up their lawsuit quota? Or was piracy never worth suing over?
Seriously though, anything that makes the RIAA more accurate in their lawsuit splatter tactics is good in my books. The problem is not the fact that RIAA is suing people, rather that they publicly crucify too many people who only may or may not be pirates.
The advertising idea wouldn't fly either. It relies on the player cooperating with the watermarking requirements, and the consumer choosing the right player. There are two ways of doing this: DRM and legislation. And without means to enforce it, no pirate is going to chose an ad-laden media player.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
More importantly, if they watermark audio, then the audio has changed from it's original form - is it no longer subject to copyright since no one 'owns' the changed materials?
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Pirates don't even have to go through the miniscule effort of removing the watermark, they can just LEAVE it there and continue on as if nothing was different. Because, in fact, nothing is.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
If the DRM identifies individuals, then there's certainly a big risk of loss of privacy. Putting your name, credit card number, and expiration date is kindof cutesy.... it certainly gives you an incentive to not give a copy to everyone else :-). But there are too many ways for the files to get "stolen" by others. Computers get broken into all the time. Heck, someone could just walk into a room where you're playing a song, record it, and send it to a million people... and it'd get identified as "yours". So while for a little while the courts might pretend that it's always the buyer's fault, that won't last... even if the courts really enforced it, the result would be that no one would buy music. After all, pirated songs would be WAY less dangerous, since they wouldn't implicate YOU.
But watermarks that only identifies "what song is this" is actually pretty reasonable. Some countries (like Canada) have imposed a repay scheme; the idea of monitoring "which songs are most copied" and then compensating that way has SOME merit, at least. Beats DRM.
Of course, throwing away all that stuff, and just selling basic songs at a reasonable price, in open formats that aren't patent-encumbered and EVERYONE can use, would be frankly the best. Why bother with a complicated technical system - why not just sell the customer what they wanted in the first place? If they made it easy for customers to buy what they actually wanted, they wouldn't have been training up a generation of pirates.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
It doesn't matter, because measures implemented to protect or otherwise control digital media will eventually be circumvented and eventually in a way that is convenient for those wanting to share it.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
The first way I can think to remove a digital watermark would be to re-encode the file. Because these formats are lossy, watermarks should be eliminated. Lossy formats are also the reason comparing two originals to find watermarks will not work; that is, unless they are all sourced from the same master with bits replaced, rather than re-encoded on the fly.
Perhaps I am naive and have an overly simplistic view of the situation, but why wouldn't this model work:
1. Purchase a song on the Internet
2. A digital transaction ID is assigned to your unique customer name. Pick your favorite transaction ID scheme and method of uniquely identifying the user. (purposely ambiguous, I'm going after the socio-economic problem, not the techincal one at the moment.)
3. Give the user a copy of this transaction record, so they can prove that they purchased the song legitimately. This is their receipt. If you must, put the song name or some identifier when the user's credit is charged, so that the user can also present the credit card reciept to match up the purchase. Not essential, but just another nice thing to have in the paper trail.
4. Keep a copy of the aforementioned purchase record on the vendor's server.
Case 1 - Music vendor goes out of business, no more database.
You still have a transaction record. (you do keep backups, right?) You present this evidence if audited and are left alone to enjoy your purchase.
Case 2 - You don't do your backups and lose your receipt
You login to the vendor's website and re-download your receipt, which is available to you for an indefinite amount of time. You're responsible for protecting your login. If you get hacked, you initiate fraud protection, they move your confirmed purchases to a new secured account, and you go on your merry way.
Case 3 - Vendor goes under, transaction database is gone, and you lose your receipts and your backups.
This may sound overly harsh, but at that point it's your word against theirs. I'm okay with being held to the task of keeping records for what I purchase, and being required to present them *infrequently* for inspection. If they take a random sample of 5% of those people who purchase digital music players and audit them every year, they'll probably catch enough idiots to make them happy. I don't like it, but it's preferable to the witch hunt they're doing now.
Again, I'm probably naive, so shoot me down. What have I missed? Maybe validity of the receipt vs. identity being questioned (no really, I'm John Smith #426, and here's my credit card receipts to prove that I purchased it on this date/time) , which I'm still trying to figure out.
Also, I hate the current model of music production and distribution. I would love to watch it all come crumbling down and go back to a simpler design, but I don't think that's going to happen soon. Hence, the solution mentioned above.
How exactly do you guarentee the fair use of the first-sale doctrine? How can you sell a piece of watermarkerd or DRM'ed content? Answer you can't, hence fair use is not possible.
Frankly kid, educate yourselve a bit and try to be less of a tool. The right to sell on something you buy is pretty basic and if that is removed what is next? No longer being able to sell your old car to fight car theft? You can no longer rent out your own house to fight illegal aliens?
This is not a positive step.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Based on the amount of money the music companies are spending on DRM, copy protection and watermarking research, if they just put the money into making the cost of music a little cheaper, they might end up encouraging more people to legally pay for it in the first place.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The idea seems to be to sue anybody who has their watermark distributed over the net. This will never work in the long run because:
...
a)The studios will be too damn stupid to encrypt the download, thus making it trivial for somebody else to get hold of a video with your watermark on it (just wait and see, you know it will happen ).
b)The studios will not be able to prove that it was the person they sued who uploaded the file. In particular, they won't be able to prove that it wasn't THEY who did it. They can create the watermarks, thus they can frame you if they find they are short on evidence. Sooner or latter a judge will realise this.
c)Viruses, trojans... etc can upload a copy of a video with somebody else's watermark.
d)First sale. You are legally allowed to sell a copy to somebody else, at which point it becomes impossible to tell who uploaded the file. Just blame one another and they can't do shit.
e)Even if American courts would accept watermarking it only takes one infringement, anywhere in the world, and then it hits the internet. Want to start trying to use watermarking as evidence in Norwegian, Canadian, Japanese, and Dutch courts ? Yea, good luck with that
f)This is just another incentive to get your media of P2P networks rather than from the studios.
Basically, it is doomed to fail. Won't stop them trying thou.
Are you that much of a fucking douche bag? A watermaked file that can be played on any device or by any piece of software beats the ever loving fuck out of a format with DRM each and every time. Don't be such an idiot. The right to resell digital media isn't inherient as perfect copies can be easily made and there is no way to prove you didn't keep a copy for yourself. If you want the right to resell then go ahead an overpay for a CD or DVD. I'll happily give up my right to resell the media to get the movies and music I want almost instantly and for a lot less than what I'd have to pay if I bought the media.
From their DRM free downloads. Microsoft is involved. I'm sure Universal love to strip some of the power iTunes/Apple has over the music download market. They're just leveraging their existing partner ($1 per Zune sale to Universal anyone?) to help them do it.
I don't know if this is technically possible, but it would seem to be possible to eliminate any watermark by simply "rewetting" -- or smoothing -- the music by combining it with a unwatermarked track.
In other words, you simply find the method of encoding, encode your own unwatermarked track, and then merge that track with the watermarked track -- and perhaps spit the differences into a file. These differences are the watermark and could be dissected. The watermarks, I assume (but again, I might be wrong here) would have similarities -- and a comparison of the watermarks over, say, hundreds of tracks -- would probably yield the ability to rewet *any* track without having to generate your own unwatermarked track.
Obviously, if you're going to generate your own track, you don't need the watermark in the first place. So the only reason to generate the tracks would be to build up a library of streaks -- or watermarks or whatever you want to call them -- and then use these for the rewetter application.
The riaa targets individual downloaders when the real piracy problem is large scale operations probably located in foreign countries. The fact that they are suing individuals shows an utter lack of appreciation for how the market works. Individuals downloading cannot and in my opinion should not be stopped. Downloading is like free advertising and in many cases the downloader would never actually purchase the content so revenue lost is minimal.
If they had any brains they would lower the cost of downloads since production cost is nil and distribution cost is virtually nothing compared to the cost of selling actual CD's in brick and mortar stores. $1 a song? I think twice about it. 10 cents? I binge.
The idea is to make it more attractive for everyone. Give the consumer more incentive to buy through price and other incentives such as additional free content. Figure out a way to toss in a few banner ads or something and the revenue stream fattens.
OTH, If they "watermark" a file (or even a set of files) with an ID (say an IP), then it is no longer a watermark. It is Steganography (hiding information in plain sight by embedding it in something). But that is detectable unless they allow have a salt embedded in the data. But to do that, they will need to rewrite the players. All in all, this will still be DRM, but it will accomplish several things. Steganography is impossible to detect in a big enough data space, unless you have far more processing power than is realized or unless you know what you are looking for.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is just another way to provide hooks to advertising, which Microsoft is exploring in order to compete against Google. The ultimate targeted marketing will reach its zenith when your toilet performs urinalysis in order to provide you with appropriate advertising, emergency services, and insurance quotes.
It does sound useless, but if it is compatible with existing stereo equipment / computer software, then this is a step in the right direction for the benefit of consumers.
Moving away from [useless] proprietary DRM schemes will be good for Linux, because right now, DRM represents a substantial threat against the acceptance of FOSS.
On the other hand, watermarking does very little to curb Joe Schmoe from copying his friend's media, so I don't see why the industry would embrace this. DRM, while proven very breakable, does - with some reasonable effectiveness - prevent 'casual' copying between Joe and Jane Schmoe.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
There would be no way that a digital watermark could survive an analog transfer unless the watermark was a series of ultra high frequency blips or pulses, say at around 50K HZ that a computer could read as data. Yet once again, all you would need to do is adapt a high pass filter at about 22K HZ (threshold of human hearing response) and DONE! No more watermarks.
With a watermarked signature or a portion of it or if the file has something which looks to be watermarked at some point in the past... it can be identified as such. This means that an ISP, Google/YouTube, and P2P applications can be held accountable for NOT filtering these files out of the network.
With DRM they would only be able to do so if they also knew the encryption key, which would put it in the hands of too many and defeat it's purpose.
With a watermark signature they (RIAA/artists/whoever) can publish their watermark which means that those who can filter it will have to or be held liable when files are found on their networks. This avoids placing blame on individuals for uploading to the network but protects the interests of the copyright holders as well.
Additionally ripping programs could be required to put in their own watermark including the serial number associated with the purchaser. These means that ALL publisher's (including individuals) using commercial encoding software would fingerprint their output files. This could also be a requirement for using various encoding algorithms as part of the license agreement.
Once this happens all files traded online will require a watermark whether from an individual or from a corporation, otherwise they will be filtered out as Spam/Virus/Contraband.
You can trade anonymous files anonymously, but not on a public network using the combined resources of public and private utilities. If you want to do so you'll need to do it on a private network or offline.
Well that's my prediction anyways. Let's see how it plays out.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
inserting advertisements into audio tracks
Now kidding, it's like they didn't do enough already to make people not to want to pay for legal music. People surely will only buy legal music for watermarked tracks with embedded advertising...
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I guess is maybe not that easy, video compression or encryption can make it harder, changing the bits necesary will change other parts of the video or music, the process will be: decompress the videos, compare videos, change bits, compress. It should take too much time and disk space for HD video.
I would argue that non-commercial piracy performed by natural persons is not worth suing over, and should not be illegal. Copyright is an amoral, utilitarian law; if most people seem to want to engage in piracy, then it's better to let them lawfully do so, provided that it's generally accepted that this may have side effects (e.g. less of an investment made in music by publishers, and so less commercially produced and released music) which will have to be accepted as part of the deal. In this, copyright is more like Prohibition, which many at the time thought was a good idea, but turned out to just not work, and to be more trouble than it was worth, than something which is worth having even if unpopular, e.g. civil rights for minorities that everyone hates.
On the whole, then, I wouldn't be bothered by the presence of watermarks, provided that there were no secrets connected with how they work, so that individuals could trivially strip them out to maintain their privacy, and that natural persons acting non-commercially could do as they please, and there was nothing mandatory about them (developers aren't required to waste resources implementing them if they don't want to; player software that doesn't support the watermarks can still play the files properly. etc.)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The only thing that does not ring true about this scheme is the false choice between watermarks and DRM. You are going to get both. What's to keep me from using a free player that won't bomb me with adverts? Digital restrictions, of course. They may call it something else, but it's the same game and it will use all the same tools. The DMCA, bogus patents and all the rest will keep MAFIAA content under wraps on non free systems. It will remain hard to use. The "great juke box in the sky" is further away than it was ten years ago. The MAFIAA goal is to impose all the restrictions of 1940 media onto digital content.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
The best definition of diplomacy I ever heard was:
"Diplomacy is the difference between rape and seduction, either way you get what you want"
"Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails." - Steve Jobs
That's an interesting position to take. Personally, I think that copyright is essentially an amoral field, and that we ought to only deal with it through a utilitarian lens.
However, if I had to look at it from a moral perspective, I would come to the opposite conclusion; it is moral to use, disseminate, preserve, and improve creative works and human knowledge, and immoral to let it gather dust, to fail to be spread to those who desire it or would be improved by it, to let it be lost, and to fail to create new works which happen to be based upon existing works. In some cases this wouldn't be true, e.g. if someone wants to keep private information about themselves private, then it wouldn't be right to violate that. But generally with copyright we're talking about non-private information such as published works, works due to be published, and works which cannot really be characterized as private but which were not really expected to be published due to external factors such as being felt unlikely to turn a profit.
I'm interested as to why you think that the whims of a single person, merely because he is the creator of a work, should be more important than the value to humanity of making sure that that work helps the greatest number of people for the remainder of time.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
back in the late '80's, Columbia/CBS experimented with watermarking to short-circuit our rights to make archival backups on early consumer digital recorders. Anybody remember the Philips digital cassette, or MiniDisc? The CD was to include a "watermark", which was basically a notched frequency in the output, that was supposedly inaudible. Problem was that it was 1) audible to anybody that wasn't tone deaf; and 2) detectable with the right equipment (e.g., scope). The idea was that when recording a "protected" CD, the device would detect the "notch" in the output and proceed to not comply with recording. And then there was the SCMS circuit (Serial Copy Management System) which wouldn't allow more than 2 or 3 (i don't remember) successive generation recordings . In those days, people that cared just bought professional DAT machines that didn't have this stuff (at first anyway).
I think the really interesting thing is the lack of full disclosure of these "use bombs". I don't think i'd buy a device if I knew it wouldn't work for its intended purpose, and I doubt the manufacturers would sell many of them. I just love the schizophrenia in this industry...
Couldn't watermarking be considered illegal according to the various anti-subliminal laws on the books around the world?
-Styopa
He is talking of the principle of first sale. Essentially, for watermarking to work that principle must be abandoned. I either can sell media I have bought to somebody else, or I can't. The labels will argue mp3s are not covered, that it only applies to CDs, but that doesn't mean it is true. As for copyright licenses and EULA's , they can only give you permission to do things copyright law does not allow. If copyright law allows first sale then you can use a EULA that says it doesn't as toilet paper. It is all down to weather the judge will consider the principle of first sale to apply to digital media as well as physical media. This will probably differ from country to country or even jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the same country, which is why watermarking won't work. It is enough for one country to uphold the principle of first sale for digital media, and BOOOM, watermarking breaks down when the media hits the internet.
I seem to recall Sonic Foundry (pre-Sony) announcing that Microsoft had used a pirated version of SoundForge for something..m l?tid=133&tid=201&tid=109&tid=1
Oh yes, google pointed me right back to here. http://slashdot.org/articles/04/11/13/0036243.sht
Not sure if this is considered a watermark but, I'm sure MS is a bunch of great thinkers.. having figured all of this out and all.
They perceive you as grumpy because they are brainwashed. They get angry when you say something that offends their favorite brand loyalty. You don't get the joke when they reference the latest cable broadcast advert. You have to walk on eggshells to avoid pissing them off and it's getting worse.
People immersed in corporate culture have a collection of dangerous inner tensions and repressed emotions. Digital editing has made advertising orders of magnitude more manipulative. Advertisers are toying with potent subliminal content like sex, death and other x rated horrors. You are better off spending your time looking at porn and crime scene photos because you can process that rationally and resolve issues you might have. The goal of advertising is to create irrational responses that fuel purchases. It also creates dangerous impatience and tempers as a byproduct. Those exposed are essentially are walking around with post traumatic stress disorders. Real stress pushes them over the edge.
There's nothing new in this watermarking schmeme, except to get people used to obligatory advertising on their computers and portable music players. It is a re-branding and extension of DRM.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The obvious reply is that I'm not a utilitarian, and don't believe utilitarianism is a valid moral strategy. I'm more of a do unto others sort. And if I am to do as I would be done by, I don't go violating the artist's wishes, because I wouldn't want that done with my work. Now, I'm pretty liberal-minded about this, modified work should be given more leeway than it is under most copyright schemes, and merely sharing (non-commercial uses) should be treated pretty leniently. But the point remains the same; I don't want it done to me, so I try not to do it to others.
On a more functional level, I know how hard it is to make money as an artist, and don't mind a bit of coercion to donate.
Some of the comments got me thinking about how these watermarks have to get decoded from the audio at some point, right? Someone mentioned advertising inside the audio - I suppose this would be some banner or whatever which shows up on your media player when you play the song back, for example. How long until someone creates and 'watermarks' your mp3s with viruses instead of some advertisement? This is the worry I have about such technology. One more way for malicious software to make it onto your system.
However, speaking of decoding, if there is a decoder within your (future) audio player to interpret these watermarks, then that is already step one to hacking the watermarks out of the media. As for the comment regarding that the watermark would persist if the audio stream was filtered through analog, I highly doubt this would happen as the watermark would then have to exist in the audio itself, and not just embedded in the file - resulting in a reduction of audio quality. The data would have to be encoded into tones outside the range of human hearing, but decipherable by the audio player - but these bits of information representing the watermark tones would take up part of your audio stream's bandwidth, resulting in less room for the actual audio (although most likely a minuscule amount).
More likely this would be a digital stamp, which means a knowledgeable person would be able to remove it if they desired (much like you can remove DRM from your audio, if you know how).
You bought the lie:
All we have here is an attempt by microsoft to shuffle quietly away from the failed strategy that was drm. One teensy problem. Microsoft don't have the power to force other media file players to enact its scheme ...
The new "scheme" is just another form of DRM. All digital restrictions schemes have the same problem - the present is more free than their proposed non free future and people prefer freedom. Vista may be a failure, but it proves that M$ is the world's biggest promoter of digital slavery. M$ knows this and promotes digital restrictions as "enablers" and givers of freedom. It's always a lie.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Again, I have noticed that it's a "collaboration" between Universal & Microsoft. I mean, the two companies that have been the most active at trying to break Apple's legs, knife the baby, etc., and not for your benefit.
If this works like he'd like, Bronfman (the pinhead leading Universal) is in for a real surprise when he realizes he will have gone from bad (less control for him & his ilk over the distribution of music) a to worse (being totally under billg's thumb).
I am surprised no one here has commented (yet) about the fact that this is an attack on Apple more than anything else.
I actually used this exact same idea for my master's project. It is based on this paper: http://www.ragomusic.com/publications/ragoAES1999. pdf
We got a pretty robust system working; the watermark in audio clips was able to withstand addition of noise and mp3 compression. I'm sure this has been taken much further to be resistant to many more kinds of attacks. Just google "digital watermarking of audio signals".
There's really nothing wrong with the idea, until..
So, yeah, this smells fishy. Leaving out that detail would have resulted in a much better press rele^W^W news story.
Oh, and for people who are talking about watermarks being removable: who cares?! That's not your problem; it's theirs. And if you think that the watermark is somehow going to degrade the quality of the encoding, I guarantee that anything you do to remove the mark, is going to be even worse. Sheesh, just don't worry about it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Glancing quickly through the comments makes it seems a lot of people don't really understand the idea behind watermakring, so I thought I'd try to help out.
Most people understand that watermarking is embedding data in a piece of media so its source can be proven at a later date. This means there has to be some way to take an existing file and add the data in such a way that it can't be removed without seriously compromising the original song/movie/whatever.
Some people have mentioned that just by recompressing or otherwise manipulating the bits at a low level you can remove the watermark. Of course you could remove any watermark by just replacing the file with random bits, but then you would have destroyed the music in the file. Typically watermarks are designed to be linked as closely as possible to the human-noticeable component of the media, so by changing that which someone listening to a watermarked song would not notice, you would not remove the watermark itself. For instance, with music, the watermark is tied into the frequencies produced by the song which would be copied along with the rest of the song when it's recompressed.
Others suggested comparing two versions of the song in order to remove the watermark. This is a common attack against watermarks, and most watermark systems are designed to prevent at least the simple version of this. The problem is, given two versions of a song, can you create a third version which does not have the watermarked keys of either the first or the second one, and is not itself significantly broken. While I do not know the details, know that any watermarking system will at very least make it difficult for such attacks to succeed.
In terms of my personal opinions on its use, it matches those of DRM; When mandated by the government, they are both repugnant ideas, and should be prevented. When required only by the music sellers I don't have a particular problem simply because I can choose not to buy from that particular seller. Ultimately DRM and watermarking are just technologies at that point.
Now, I do think DRM is fundamentally broken. You can't lock something in a safe, warn them that they're not supposed to unlock it without you around, then hang the keys on a hook and just assume everything will go well. Watermarking is different, since the embedded code doesn't need to be extracted by the listener, there is at least an argument that it can't easily be extracted. It may still be vulnerable, but it's not flawed at its base.
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
Watermarking is quite frankly fantastic. If these companies are moving to watermarking instead of DRM then more power to their balance books! I'm not interested in downloading music or movies. I want to buy them. DRM stops me doing that and from getting the product that I want. Watermarking doesn't stop me from doing anything I'm legitimately allowed to do so if it satisfies their requirements to go and catch people who do make illegitimate copies, then I would very much like them to use Watermarking. Hopefully it will lead to more products that I can buy online.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
So you have a car, someone steals or borrow it, robs a bank and the police trace the car to you. Is this enough reason to fight car registration?
The real problem lies with the MAFIAA mob tactics. These won't go away. In any case, they should have to prove you committed the offenses - just like someone should have to prove it was you driving the car. Just having a file with my ID on it is as much of a proof as a screenshot showing my IP address.
Since the RIAA will behave as it always has, I'd glady exchange DRM for watermarking. I wouldn't have to worry with interoperability then, and it won't make things worse (nor better) for people who share files.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Non argument. They aren't putting dedicated watermarks on CDs. What this is meant for is downloadable music. Say you buy a downloadable song or movie it encodes a number that references your purchase. Most services don't allow resale of a downloaded music files so you can't legally resell it in the first place. The idea would be to eventually drop traditional DVDs and CDs in favor of downloading since most people are asking for that anyway. It'll save a fortune in distribution costs and it is possible to watermark them. I researched doing this many years ago. It is possible to encode the watermark in such a way that it would degrade or make make the song unplayable if you stripped out the watermark. This may anger the ones that want to "share" but the system would work and it would make people hesitant to post the song they just downloaded if they were held accountable for their actions. Most people say they want afordable flexsible downloads. In theory this could solve the issue since the companies generally don't care how you personally access the music or movies they want to limit you from sharing the files to save your friends a buck or potentially costing sales by giving it to millions through downloads. A million of those people may not have bought the track but a 100,000 might and that's a lot of money. Most people don't download on torrents to demo music they do it to avoid buying it in the first place.
As I understood, one of the entertainment "industry" proposals was to watermark everything then convince or require by law that consumer electronic manufacturers put watermark detection into their hardware. Such hardware wouldn't copy or play "unauthorized" watermarks. In fact, wasn't this put into the SSSCA?
Actually such a system seems to be in place for banknotes and photoshop... I also heard some printer drivers do this. Seems to require lots more CPU time as one would expect. Here are some interesting articles: Adobe anti-counterfeiting code trips up kosher users. Currency Detector Easy to Defeat.
Just wanted to get this idea out there:
You know that technology that lets people with cell phones hold up the phone to a song that's playing and comes up with the song title and artist on the screen?
Combine that with watermarking and you have police cruising the streets with detectors up, homing in on non-watermarked music.
Alternately, it may prove too difficult to determine what is or is not music without the watermark, so they could alternately release streams of "blackmarked" music into filesharing networks with inaudible audio signatures laced into it. When the detectors catch strains of it, off to jail you go.
This won't happen now, of course, but I can easily see it in twenty years. They're already releasing bad album copies, watermarking music, and we have music identification technology. It's only a matter of time before they combine the three.
Free music is just not to be. Seriously.
The average people don't think about protecting their data, or wouldn't know how to do it.
If a user goes through the trouble of re-encoding the work, it may erase the watermark or make it unrecognizable. A "watermark" may work in various ways however. Let's say that 32 parts of a song are used as markers. It could be an extra 1/10th of a second of silence or a note held for an extra 1/10th of a second let's say. A unique 32-bit code could be embedded that would probably survive re-encoding. I seriously doubt this will happen though because it would in essence be altering the song. Re-encoding will affect sound quality however, and be a pain for a normal user to do.
Now if someone got their hands on two identical tracks with watermarks for different people embedded, I don't think it would be very difficult to come up with an algorithm to remove the watermarks or scramble the information.
I guess I'll setup a vanilla install of Windows 2000 (no service packs) on a computer and use it to store my media files. I think I'll put it outside my firewall in the DMZ so I can have easy access to my music from anywhere on the internet... I would give the administrator account a strong password, but I'd probably just forget it so I think I'll leave it blank instead. Of course I'll have to enable HTTP, FTP and Microsoft file sharing for easy access to my music...
Seriously though, I don't think this is so much to track down who initially shared the files as it would be to catch people who are actively sharing files, including files they didn't buy. Right now if the RIAA scans someone's computer or downloads a file over a P2P network, they don't know where it came from. Let's say Joe downloads a song and Alex copies it. Alex then makes it available on P2P. If the RIAA's investigators download it from Alex and it has Joe's watermark, they know that not only did Alex copy it from someone else, but he is making it available to others. They know there is no way that Alex ripped the song himself or bought it because they know Joe did. If Joe does happen to make it available himself, they have a stronger case if the IP that is sharing it also can be traced back to Joe.
Wait, wait, wait just one second!
I PAID FOR the music, and they're STILL inserting advertisements? The whole point of advertising, is to offset the cost of the property itself, in lieu of actual payment.
We see commercials on television, because it helps pay for the actual programming you watch for free.
We hear commercials on the radio because it helps pay for the airtime you listen to for free.
But when we BUY a product (such as music, a DVD, etc.) it should NOT contain those ads, because guess what... the purchase price I just paid, went to offset the cost of the property itself.
If you still need to insert advertising into a product I just purchased, your pricing model for the item is incorrect, and needs to be rethought.
If I hear one advertisement in the middle of a song on a CD I purchase from the store, you can bet I'll be bringing it back for a full refund price, no questions asked. If they decline to issue a refund, I'll just dispute the charge with my credit card company, forcing a refund + costly chargeback fee to the store itself.
If this trend continues, the independent artists will get my money, not the big, money-hungry conglomerates.
As I conjecture here, the chances of that are pretty low. They might have fooled us, if they hadn't brought up the part about ads. That gave 'em away.
There's going to be DRM, or a patented codec, or at least an undocumented file format -- something to prevent interoperability with other player applications.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Mr. Brown, we are the RIAA, we have found a copy of a CD you bought being fileshared. Hello Mr. RIAA, that CD was lost/stolen the day I purchased it, sorry. Or purchase with cash. As usual they will only catch the stupid ones. Besides the RIAA is now being sued under class action, their days are numbered. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/17/17 28225
Does this watermark carrying an advertisment tell you to buy v1arga when you listen Stairway to Heaven backwards?
With DRM, you know when you've successfully removed it, because you can play it with a player they didn't intend. Once it works in VLC, you're done.
With watermarking, you never know if you've been entirely successful removing everything (without making the sound too much worse), so it seems to me a lot less likely that people will want to release songs onto P2P networks in the first place. Of course, some idiots won't know this, and we'll have copies of their music all over the Intarwebs, and the RIAA will come down on them like a ton of bricks -- finally, a solid "example" case they can win.
In my case, I much prefer watermarking to DRM. If DRM is the primary means of copy protection, that means I will generally refuse to buy it if it's multimedia (as in, not a game) because it will limit what platforms I can play it on, and what mediums I can store it on. If Watermarking were to replace DRM, it would be at least as effective (which isn't saying much; DRM is easy to crack), and maybe even more effective. But as a customer, I'd much rather buy the watermarked file, because I know it'll work.
DRM is punishing legitimate customers because they might be customers, while pirates get a better experience.
Watermarking is punishing unskilled pirates. It might let the skilled pirates keep doing what they're doing, but at least it's no longer punishing the legitimate users and driving them to piracy.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Either it doesn't affect the audio, in which case whatever reads the audio can re-write it without the watermark, or it does affect audio, in which case, well, it affects audio.
;)
Yes, it does affect the audio, but modern watermarking algorithms affect the audio less than lossy compression techniques do. I wrote about this here back in March.
I guess I've got some self-evaluation to do if Microsoft is starting to raid my blog for ideas.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
There is no reason we need to lose the ability to sell watermarked products.
There are a couple ways to do it, one is with a bill of sale. Obviously maintaining a bill of sale for every MP3 you purchased isn't practical, although it would solve the immediate problem.
Second, rather then giving the actual file, you would give your rights to the file. The file would disappear from your list of purchased files and appear on the recipient's list, and the recipient could then download a version watermarked to themselves. The flaw with this plan is that the record companies wouldn't want to make this easy as it would cut into their revenue.
#2 when available, falling back to #1 would seem to be the easiest solution.
In either case, retaining the original file would be in violation of copyright law, although not prohibited by any technical means.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Let's imagine a simple watermarking scheme.
Take the original file, and introduce LSB errors in it.
To read the watermark, you need the original file, which you substract from the watermarked file, yielding the watermarked information, which could then be further encrypted or whatnot.
Now, how could you detect such watermarking?
You could scramble it by adding other LSB errors, though.
Seriously; just read a couple of them. People have already made good arguments illustrating how everyone has something to fear, regardless of what they intend to do, or in fact actually do.
"only people who are doing [bad things] might worry about the watermarking."
You have got to be joking, or trolling. You read Slashdot, and even post, and you've not encountered this fallacy, or you don't understand why it's a fallacy?!?
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From what I can see watermarking audio would have the same problems as watermarking pictures. The watermarks you don't see can be easily corrupted to the point of being useless simply by saving the image in a different format, let's say from jpg to png then resave it again from png to jpg. There's also the watermark you can see, like a small logo, those are really easy to deal with as well. But audio files can contain a ton more data then pictures and would make hidding stuff in it a bit easier, but again save it in another format and boom done and dead. That's just my simple 2 cent thought on the subject.
Wasn't it also Universal who was just trumpeting how they'd do a trial period of DRM-Free (or something?) files to test sales?
Now suppose they do some fancy version of ad-injection that people hate... so they tried to Astroturf how great their files were, hoping that someone missed this new development?
Then when the Tech sites get the story out, they whine to judges that they removed DRM and their sales went down?
The fallacies are so thick I need a shovel.
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Sure. But once you've removed the personally-identifying part of the watermark you've made it impossible for someone to trace the file back to you.
That's the major deterrent in watermarking -- the fear that if you share the copy of the file that you bought with the world, the FBI will show up knocking on your door to haul you away for a few decades of butt-loving in Federal prison.
Once the personal identifiability is gone, so is the incentive not to share it. Wipe out the differences between John Doe's and Sally Sue's copies of the file, and you can dump it on a P2P network with your plausible deniability intact.
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Do not take watermarking lightly. This has been a research topic for video for at least a decade, by the companies that store 50GB video data using invisible to the naked eye pits on 12cm discs using blue light - not the RIAA. This is *analogue* signal processing not bits and bytes and bar codes. One aim has been for the watermark to survive cinema screen->camcorder->avi... its not about hiding the information in bits and bytes in the stream, its about hiding the information in the image (or audio). Its a challenge, but its only a very small amount of information that needs to be hidden, 64bits would be more than enough, and over a 2 hour film, it can be hidden *many* times. Its not unimaginable that imperceptible low frequency variations could be inserted into the image and extracted several times overlayed with high frequency variations. Of course it would have to be adapatable to the type of film, it may only encode during dark scenes, it may only encode duting light scenes, in a dark corner... and then add a similar mechanism in the audio. This is done in the mastering. You might filter some of it out, but certainly not all. Diff it? You're having a laugh. The only way to guarantee removal would be to have access to the profile used for the master of that particular movie. You could get hold of a pre-master. But would you know it was 100% clean?
If there is a watermark embedded into a song I purchase, does that mean it is a new and unique work? Would it stand alone and separate from another purchased copy of the same song? Does this also mean that I paid the company to produce an original work for me, and now I own it and the copyright?
Ramen