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."

Comments

Won't help

[saibot834]

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.

Re:Won't help

[digitig]

Exactly. They've been trying to watermark audio media for as long as I can remember. 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.

Re:Won't help

[nyctopterus]

... and the impact on those that buy the stuff? Pretty minimal I'd say, if they aren't planning to share it. Watermarking is so much better than DRM.

Re:Won't help

[baadger]

This is true, the only way to make a watermark that can't be removed easily from video for example is to imprint a visible watermark directly onto your video frames, anything subtle such as using Steganography probably isn't going to make it through a re-encode due to the lossy nature. The same I would imagine will apply to audio.

Re:Won't help

[daeg]

Actually, some forms of water marking can survive some reprocessing. However, I am not aware of any watermarking techniques that can survive multiple passes. Even more dangerous yet to watermarking is combining two or more files. For instance, if your friend bought the same track as you did, new software could digitally combine the two files, filtering out any differences. Some bits would probably remain from the watermark, for example, if time 0:01 through 0:02 had the recording artist's name embedded, it would be identical between both tracks. The software could even take a more aggressive approach and simply drop frames or drop partial seconds of audio to remove suspicious data altogether.

Watermarking isn't good in my view, even compared to DRM. There will still be legal restrictions on what you can do. You won't be legally allowed to do ANYTHING to the file except play it. You could even be legally responsible if a virus happened to alter the file.

This won't affect pirates. It won't affect file sharers. It only hurts the consumer and hurts everyone in the long run.

Re:Won't help

[Opportunist]

But doesn't that pretty much give everyone what he wants?

DRM has also never been a tool to eliminate filesharing. I guess in the meantime even the RIAA has understood that. It's a tool to reduce it. Just like copy protection on software is. If someone wants to crack it, he will. But Joe Average won't.

I think watermarks would give everyone what they want. You can actually buy content without fearing that it won't work in your application. The RIAA gets the limitation of sharing because the watermarked stuff could be traced. And well, if you can remove DRM you can remove watermarks.

It's actually win-win all over.

Re:Won't help

[larien]

I agree. The main reason I don't buy MP3s from iTunes or whatever is that I play them in more than just my iPod, sometimes xmms, winamp or my Squeezebox, none of which support DRM. I'd live with a watermark that basically says "if you share this, we know who you are and where you live", because I don't plan to share it.

Obviously, the information watermarked needs to be limited to an identifier rather than encoding the name in for privacy, but if they know that the MP3 with the watermark 19584202984512903 was sold to me, they can track it back if they find it on P2P without exposing my personal information.

Re:Won't help

[dc29A]

It will be difficult to remove watermarks without destroying the original content.. watermarks are very advanced these days...

Its VERY easy to remove watermarks, no matter how sophisticated. Don't believe me? Take two or more originals, uncompress the format, compare the difference, null the offending part, and re-encode.

This cat-mouse game will continue until the end of time. I don't think it's that easy. Mp3 is already lossy, once decompressed and re-encoded to compare with a watermarked version, it will lose quality and the binary information will be different so comparing won't be easy at all.

Even if you have the original CD, and you rip the track from it, encode it into the exact Mp3 format (same bitrate and all) as the watermarked one, what guarantees that iTunes used the same disc to encode it? What guarantees that iTunes rip the same exact way as you? Nothing, so the Mp3 file will be different even if encoded with same parameters.

Re:Won't help

[Firehed]

Absolutely. The people ripping and uploading are doing it with pre-release CDs, not with their latest iTunes that they burned and ripped. I'll buy music if I can play it wherever I like, and watermarking doesn't stop me from doing that. It conceptually deters piracy since your name is attached, but doesn't lock things down to prevent it and stop people from legitimately using their purchases. Everyone has a valid reason to worry about DRM; only people who are doing things that (theoretically) harm profits by uploading might worry about the watermarking.

Re:Won't help

[Zero_DgZ]

The MP3 is already different from the original CD track by definition. It's lossy compression. Those of us who aren't FLAC monkeys (dear god, I've been waiting to use that turn of phrase for about three years) tend not to be bothered so much if there's a slight change in the "true" audio data as long as it still sounds good - or at least tolerably so. Any tiny generational change imparted by removing the watermark is unlikely to faze most media pirates. These are people who rip out or recompress the music and movie files in games so they can fit them into Usenet posts, vise MP3's down to 92 kbps so they can share them en masse on Limewire, compress the hell out of dual layer DVD movies with DivX so they'll fit on a single CD-R, and so forth.

Re:Won't help

[ion]

there might be other reasons for why the files differs.

Suppose that you have multiple watermarks, some are identical from files to files, some specify the server they comes from, others the buyer, and some the music company?

And finally, not being a watermark expert... there might exist water mark technology that can survive such behaviour.

Still, if it was you who bought the file, i would very much dare you to prove that even after you did what you describe that after that, there are NO watermarks left.

Re:Won't help

[nine-times]

What if pirates get ahold of multiple MP3s? Why bother? Pirates can hijack the ships that carry CDs across the sea and rip the CDs themselves, making MP3s that don't contain watermarks.

Yeah, there's a joke in there, but I have a serious point. It's likely that someone with a lot of technical knowledge will be able to remove watermarks, it's also true that a person with a lot of technical knowledge will be able to bypass DRM. Someone who's serious about distributing copyrighted material will be able to find a loophole somewhere, and the only realistic purpose of a DRM scheme or watermarking scheme is to discourage casual sharing.

Even though people will find a way to remove this watermarking, most people won't bother to figure out how to do it. It might succeed at discouraging casual file sharing without impeding customers from using the content they've purchased.

Tired of advertising

[PsychoSlashDot]

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.

A double-edged sword...

[Max Romantschuk]

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?

Still a reason not to buy

[Christian Engstrom]

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?

Re:Still a reason not to buy

[revengebomber]

And how, exactly, can you prove to a judge that John Smith actually distributed that file which reads "John Smith"?

Re:A nice idea, but short-lived?

[Opportunist]

Actually it would be interesting what loses you more sales: Crippling your songs in a way that a good deal of your customers will cease to do business with you because they either simply cannot use your content at all because your DRMified version of the song does not play in their player, or the "weak" watermarks that allow easy transcoding to remove it.

Personally, I'd say the first. If someone's a "heavy P2P user", he doesn't care about either. Someone WILL have removed that DRM or watermark for him. No matter how tough, no matter how good, DRM has always been broken and will always be broken.

So what's left? The market for the Joe Average users who do not know how to circumvent DRM or watermarks, and who do not know about P2P. And those people will buy, as long as it works in their players.

Watermarking pretends people have control.

[Futurepower(R)]

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.

Re:Ideas!!

[Belacgod]

2: No they won't. If they don't complain about the quality of MP3 relative to uncompressed, and can't tell the difference between the different bitrates, they won't complain about something more subtle. I know some people on here can and do the above, but those are a small minority in the world at large.

Re:Great idea if properly implemented...it won't b

[kimvette]

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.

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.

Re:Ideas!!

[JimDaGeek]

2. I don't think any slight quality loss would be that big to most people since they put up with the very outdated and inferior MP3 format. What would bother me is how the article headed said about placing advertisement in the audio. The would be real bad IMO. You are listing to your favorite song and then in pops some annoying voice about buying the amazing mop as seen on TV, just $9.99 (+ $15.99 S/H+).

Re:Will Help

[h4rm0ny]

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.