Digital Watermarks to Replace DRM

palegray.net noted a wired story about an industry trend towards watermarking and away from DRM. It says "With all of the Big Four record labels now jettisoning digital rights management, music fans have every reason to rejoice. But consumer advocates are singing a note of caution, as the music industry experiments with digital-watermarking technology as a DRM substitute. Watermarking offers copyright protection by letting a company track music that finds its way to illegal peer-to-peer networks. At its most precise, a watermark could encode a unique serial number that a music company could match to the original purchaser. So far, though, labels say they won't do that: Warner and EMI have not embraced watermarking at all, while Sony's and Universal's DRM-free lineups contain "anonymous" watermarks that won't trace to an individual." Here is a Technical discussion on AudioBox and PSU.edu's Abstract Index

Comments

I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

DRM is a Bad Thing, IMO. It restricts your choice and prevents you from playing the media you bought in the way you want to.

But watermarking? Eh. I don't care. You're supposed to not be sharing music you bought, and unless someone actually breaks in and steals it, there's really no legitimate reason to find music that you bought out on the net somewhere.

That's a big "unless", though. Are we coming to the point where we're going to have to file police reports when you get hacked so that you won't be liable for the distribution of stolen music? What about liability insurance for watermarked music?

Something to think about.

Re:I don't really care.

[0123456]

"But watermarking? Eh. I don't care. You're supposed to not be sharing music you bought, and unless someone actually breaks in and steals it, there's really no legitimate reason to find music that you bought out on the net somewhere."

Watermarks provide very little security, since you can find them just by comparing a few copies of the same file. Watermarks tied to users offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone, since they can create a watermarked copy of any file with your details and release it on the Internet.

So they're both useless and harmful.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

If they haven't figured out a way to actually encrypt the watermarks, they're more stupid than I thought.

In that case, I still don't care, because if something is that easily duplicated it's worthless anyway.

Re:I don't really care.

[palegray.net]

That's a big "unless", though. Are we coming to the point where we're going to have to file police reports when you get hacked so that you won't be liable for the distribution of stolen music? What about liability insurance for watermarked music? That's exactly the sort of privacy concern I have concerning widespread use of watermarking. Any time a unique identifier could be used to track something after it's been sold (whether it's digital or physical), these concerns come up. I think of parallels to unique tracker chips (perhaps uniquely encoded RFID chips) being embedded in all sorts of stuff; what if a guy kills someone with a kitchen knife he stole from your house that happens to have such a chip in it? An extreme example, sure... but it would make defending yourself more complicated.

Re:I don't really care.

[0123456]

"If they haven't figured out a way to actually encrypt the watermarks, they're more stupid than I thought."

Like, duh. For watermarks to work they have to be different between different copies of the same file; that's the whole point of a watermark. And that design requirement guarantees they can be trivially found by a simple byte compare, whether or not they're encrypted.

It's no wonder you're not concerned when you don't even understand the issues.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

That's assuming you have an unwatermarked copy of the file, right?

Re:I don't really care.

[Asmor]

No...

Let's take a sentence as an example:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Now, let's watermark that sentence for a few different people.

j498fn894The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
j89g5m6-0The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
iebciemgtThe quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

By comparing each of those sentences, you see the first few characters are different in each, thus you can assume that's where the watermark is.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, there are much much more clever ways to watermark a file for which such a comparison would be useless. The method you describe is absurdly basic.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

I thought watermarking was more of a subtle change in the content itself.

The Quick Brown fpx jfmped ower the laay dpg

Which I guess is still vulnerable if the watermark is too small (they'd have to basically subtly alter pretty much every unit).

Sigh. Guess you're right, thanks for the education.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

Since I would like to salvage some semblance of "I was right" in this thread, can you outline one or two of them?

Re:I don't really care.

[spitzak]

In the real watermarking scheme, every single byte is changed. Basically the entire thing is covered with a huge watermark that is noise, with randomly and sparsely distributed blocks of the actual watermark. So finding identical bytes does not work.

Averaging would seem to work but supposedly the algorithims can survive quite a lot of coverage with random noise. If the watermarks are sparse enough, all that averaging will do is make a result that has *all* the watermarks of the originals. What they do need to do is avoid having huge numbers of different watermarks, as I doubt it will survive tens of thousands of different samples being averaged. This is probably a reason there will not be per-user watermarks.

Re:I don't really care.

[Adambomb]

Care of Jonathan Cummins, Patrick Diskin, Samuel Lau and Robert Parlett of the School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham.

unremovability being one of their key points.

(DISCLAIMER: I have no idea on any of these things, google just happens to exist)

Re:I don't really care.

[CrazedWalrus]

I would think it's possible to detect using two watermarked as well.

Think about this as a watermark:

1234JustShootMe567
1234CrazedWalrus567

1234567 doesn't identify anyone, and I've found and removed the portion of the code that differentiates you or me. If the watermark is tied to the user, then that part of it is necessarily different. This assumes that the file is not re-encoded for every user before adding the watermark. Doing so would be a major detriment to scalability, so I doubt that could be done.

Even if it is encrypted, it would have to be placed in an area of the music that isn't significant -- maybe a least-significant-bit of one channel or something -- or you'd hear it. If that's the case, then if you have two files from two different users, you can bitwise-or, zero-out, or otherwise destroy the information wherever the bits differ between the files. Since they're necessarily in an insignificant part of the signal, the music probably won't sound noticeably different.

I just think this sounds incredibly weak. If people can break encryption and decode entire streams, there are going to be ways to strip these watermarks -- probably the day the first song that contains it is released.

Re:I don't really care.

[ceoyoyo]

It doesn't matter WHAT you do, you can still FIND the watermark just by comparing a few copies of the song. Once you've found it, you can scramble it. You can't recover the original, unwatermarked version, but you can mess up the watermark.

Sophisticated watermarking techniques protect the watermark IF there is only one, ie all copies have the same watermark. Then you can't compare multiple, differently watermarked copies and so you can't find the watermark. It makes it much harder to mess up when you don't know where it is.

Re:I don't really care.

[xigxag]

The record companies already know that watermarking isn't going to deter a determined filesharer. Watermarks can be easily reverse-engineered and stripped, making the file safe for you to "save" without fear of it being stolen, and honestly, who's gonna bother to hack into a computer to "steal" mp3's when the stuff is available for free at every filesharing site in existence?

Not to mention, there's deniability at every stage. My credit card was stolen, my PC was hacked, my iPod was stolen, someone registered using my name, a friend reverse-transcribed my watermark onto an mp3 as a joke, etc. Nobody's going to prosecute on the strength of watermarks alone, although they may be used as proof in conjunction with other stuff. I.e., what if some "pirate" has a cache of stolen credit cards PLUS a hard drive full of mp3s with various people's watermarks? That can be used as evidence to show ID theft. Etc.

And of course, iTunes have already been using watermarks since forever. But, being Apple, somehow that's OK and superior to normal watermarking, I'm sure.

Re:I don't really care.

[0123456]

"In the real watermarking scheme, every single byte is changed. Basically the entire thing is covered with a huge watermark that is noise, with randomly and sparsely distributed blocks of the actual watermark. So finding identical bytes does not work."

Then you're screwing up the music with noise and the people buying it would be better off just to download a copy ripped from CD. You're also loading up your servers with a huge amount of processing required to produce a different version of the entire file for each customer.

In the very worst case, a pirate just has to decompress the audio from a few different copies of the same file and find the bits that differ. Zero or interpolate those bits and recompress... of course, again, you'd be better off just downloading a copy ripped direct from CD.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

"But watermarking? Eh. I don't care."

Same here. That's something that impressed me about Apple's non-DRM approach. The file is labelled in a standard way with information I already provided to them when I purchased the tracks. It's not much different from writing my name inside the CD cases to mitigate the risk if someone tries to steal and resell them. I can demonstrate the CDs are mine. And, like that analogy, if I really wanted to re-anonymize the media, I could do so (by blotting out the information on the CD case, or by stripping out the information from the digital track). I have no interest in distributing copyrighted media without permission, so having the watermark doesn't affect my interests in the least. As long as the party providing the media I'm buying clearly discloses how the material is watermarked and what information is included (i.e. I want to KNOW that my credit card number isn't secretly embedded in there, or something equally stupid), I'm fine with it.

Re:I don't really care.

[ceoyoyo]

Did you read that? They talk mostly about steganography and watermarks and note that the information can be robust to one transformation but is generally destroyed by several. They mention fingerprinting, which is really what this thread is about, where a different watermark is applied to every copy, but they certainly don't imply that it's not removable or undetectable. The chart at the beginning suggests that it would be desirable if the fingerprint was not removable.

Re:I don't really care.

[Workaphobia]

For that reason, it's probably critical to examine the terms you agree to when you sign up for a download service that uses this technology. I would not at all be surprised if they added in a clause that makes you responsible for any copyright infringement that occurs using your copy, regardless of whether it was you or someone else that did the actual sharing. Without an explicit agreement, the burden would be on them to prove that you were responsible, and not some third party. Not that that would stop them from suing you anyway.

Re:I don't really care.

[Firethorn]

I seriously doubt every single byte is changed, but I can see each block of music being changed.

Still, the changes have to be tiny - especially if you're going to be creating millions of watermarks.

I'd tend to think that if you have at least 3 copies with different watermarks you'd be able to effectively strip the watermarking.

Just keep the sections that any two have, drop the third.

More copies would make it more robust, of course.

Re:I don't really care.

[hedwards]

Then you're screwing up the music with noise and the people buying it would be better off just to download a copy ripped from CD. You're also loading up your servers with a huge amount of processing required to produce a different version of the entire file for each customer. Yes, but when they've been seriously worked on, the result isn't noticeable to anybody not comparing checksums.

The technique is based upon steganography, and it also works better in higher quality files than in the 126 bitrate junk. Nobody hears everything in a sound file once there is enough complexity, and the watermark parts go into the areas that people aren't able to really hear.

There's no reason why an end user, or anybody other than the person doing the watermarking needs to be able to find it. If you randomly intersperse the watermark through a large enough portion of the file, it becomes quite difficult to find and effectively remove without causing damage to the file.

The trick to it is to touch every single frame, but in random spots, and to do so with enough variety that you would need to compare a huge number of copies to have a shot at unwatermarking the file. Doing so will change the results of the checksums making it a pain to figure out where the signature actually belongs. Most of the changes don't even have to have anything to do with the watermark. The weakness then is comparing against a clean copy, and to be honest, anybody that has a clean copy and cares about the watermarking is just going to use the clean copy. And if there's enough variability, it's going to be a tough thing to strip out without causing other problems.

It's one of those things where unless you've allowed your copy to make it onto the net, nobody is going to be able to examin the file anyways. It is several steps above the current system in terms of convenience. One could probably screw it up by transcoding it, but that is similar to what ITMS allows presently, and it does lose quality as well.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

That won't work.
Good audio watermarks can survive 64Kb/s mp3 encoding with an added 50db of white noise.
They don't care about the huge error rates as the amount of embedded information is very small, in the order of 40 bytes or so, and you have on average three minutes of signal to get one single recovered tiny block of data.

You can screw with it as much as you like, but it's impossible to remove the watermark without destroying the audio.
Don't think of it as a succession of samples that can be compared. Think about it, how can you find a tone by looking at single samples? Pseudo random wandering frequency tones are one of the methods used.

Also, you need to be able to tell if you were successful in removing it, which is impossible without the decryption tools.

Re:I don't really care.

[Firethorn]

then if you have two files from two different users, you can bitwise-or, zero-out, or otherwise destroy the information wherever the bits differ between the files. Since they're necessarily in an insignificant part of the signal, the music probably won't sound noticeably different.

Better yet- go with 3 versions, and take the majority opinion on it.

As any such maneuver is going to have to leave the vast majority of the signal alone, you'd have relatively few intersecting bits that are part of the signal - and about as effective in court as a blood type match or extremely partial fingerprint as vs a DNA match or full fingerprint.

Re:I don't really care.

[Workaphobia]

Well, watermarks are harmful in that sense if they're accepted as evidence into court, which is tantamount to accepting the RIAA's word that they didn't just manufacture evidence out of nothing with the intent of framing random people. Third parties can be prevented from framing people in this manner with an encryption scheme, but that doesn't help us when the RIAA itself isn't to be trusted. On the other hand, all this assumes that watermarks are intended to make it to court - perhaps the intent is instead to tie a leaked copy to a user account and that user's IP address, which can then be monitored for other infringing activity.

Of course, even if watermarks weren't considered foolproof evidence by themselves, they could still be used to support the kinds of RIAA cases we see today. I doubt a jury would care whether they could technically be faked.

Re:I don't really care.

[Firethorn]

How about the kitchen knife you threw away six months ago because you bought a better set?

There are indeed issues, but it's still leagues above DRM that restricts your ability to use your stuff.

Just make sure that if somebody steals your MP3 player that you report it stolen so the music companies are forced to shrug when they show up on the file sharing systems.

Re:I don't really care.

[Reziac]

What happens to such a watermark if the file is significantly reprocessed?

Re:I don't really care.

[Adambomb]

Ah crap in a hat =)

Just saw the title page and thought it seemed apt, then the table shortly thereafter.

As disclaimed, was a random googlery.

Re:I don't really care.

[philicorda]

There is no problem with millions of water marks.

Embedding just 32 bits of data gives you enough individual codes for 4.3 billion people.

It's quite easy to hide 32bits in three minutes of audio, even with with massive redundancy to prevent circumvention.

Re:I don't really care.

[a_claudiu]

they can be trivially found by a simple byte compare Not necessarily. All the DVD's, CD's can be filled with redundant data so the difference between them will be hard to interpret. You can see the difference but not being able to read it.. It will be easier to delete the watermark, or at least to make it unreadable. But maybe the studios will say that possessing a not watermarked copy is illegal.
Another idea: just sign the watermark.

Re:I don't really care.

[Duncan Blackthorne]

..offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone..

But, the RIAA will likely be going away soon, so no worries there ;)

Re:I don't really care.

[xigxag]

First, click-thru contract be damned, they still have to convince a judge in court that you should be held responsible.

Second, even if you're deemed in breach of contract and have to compensate them for their actual losses or some agreed upon penalty, I don't see how you could be liable for the statutory infringment if they can't establish that you engaged in tortious behavior or didn't contribute through negligence.

Re:I don't really care.

[HalAtWork]

"But watermarking? Eh. I don't care. You're supposed to not be sharing music you bought, and unless someone actually breaks in and steals it, there's really no legitimate reason to find music that you bought out on the net somewhere."

Sure, but you can share your songs under fair use, etc. Say someone you made a mix for decides to start distributing one of the songs. Would you get in trouble or your friend?

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

I think both of you would. You and your friend.

While in most cases you will never get caught, lending music to a friend is still illegal.

So is distributing music.

Re:I don't really care.

[Firethorn]

Even after you've averaged three copies together?

Only what at least two copies have in common would remain intact.

We're talking bit comparisons here - massive redundancy gains you nothing.

Re:I don't really care.

[Speare]

In the real watermarking scheme, every single byte is changed. Basically the entire thing is covered with a huge watermark that is noise, with randomly and sparsely distributed blocks of the actual watermark. So finding identical bytes does not work.

You don't need to erase the watermark. You need to break it, or produce plausible deniability. If you take ten copies of a 3min song, and concatenate chunks from each in 18sec blocks, then either the watermark will be unparsable, or it will implicate ten different people for small portions instead of one person for the whole song.

Re:I don't really care.

[someone1234]

Well, if they are different between 2 copies, then washing the differences off is pretty simple.

Re:I don't really care.

[Duncan Blackthorne]

What about going from digital to analog and then back to digital?

Re:I don't really care.

[cryptoluddite]

So many uncreative people here so sure of themselves. A watermark can be anything, and it does not need to change with every copy. For instance, a watermark can change by day or week, allowing the correlation of purchase records over a set of files to uniquely identify the person. They can change in batches, for instance ever 10k sold get a different watermark. They can change by purchase IP or geo-located IP.

Or they can change by all of the above and more, making it pretty much impossible to know if you have removed all the watermarks. Many methods can survive recoding. Thankfully, it should only take a few court cases and a few sacrificial lambs to find out what most of the watermarks are.

Re:I don't really care.

[Instine]

To remove almost any watermark simply convert to a different format... You will lose some quality in most cases, but the watermark will be gone. So about as secure as a doorless prison with no guards.

Re:I don't really care.

[gnuASM]

Watermarks can be easily reverse-engineered

Not to mention, there's deniability at every stage....Nobody's going to prosecute on the strength of watermarks alone

All it will take is for the Judge to order the jury to consider the watermark to be positive identification of the file owner. Since the file owner is responsible for the distribution of said file, case closed...you lose!

Yet, the most frightening aspect of it all is when such a landmark is made, imagine the "power" anybody will now have over you. You remark that watermarks can be easily reverse-engineered. Well, if that were true, then not only would you be able to remove said watermark, but, you would be able to determine exactly how the watermark identifies an individual. You would then be able to forge a watermark into a file, distribute it on the internet, and effectively frame anybody you desire for criminal "infringement". And if you are one of the content creators to begin with, this power becomes inherent and available for your use unhindered.

Why would somebody even do something like this? Because they can. What is there to gain from forged watermarks? Get the Congresscritters to further infringe on the privacy and rights of the sheeple to better "protect" them. We already know what the industries desire. It's not a facist State, it's a corporate State, and criminalizing a breech of contract is more than just a giant step in that direction. And we are already there.

DRM, watermarking, callback verification, it's all the same and they're all simply different parts and stages in their ultimate goal, which is absolute and unchallenged power over everything you think and do.

Re:I don't really care.

[ameoba]

I think a better example might be like...

1. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
2. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
3. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
4. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
5. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
6. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

(view source if you don't see it)

Re:I don't really care.

[Jerry Beasters]

It absolutely is noticeable. You might not realize what you are hearing, but you will know something is wrong.

Re:I don't really care.

[DrEldarion]

Watermarks tied to users offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone, since they can create a watermarked copy of any file with your details and release it on the Internet. How is this insightful? Doesn't this seem incredibly paranoid to anyone else? Is it only modded up because it's anti-RIAA? It's completely ridiculous to think that they have it out for certain people and would "frame" them.

The RIAA, as much as they're (rightfully) demonized here, is acting defensively, not offensively. People are sharing the RIAA's copyrighted material, and they are taking legal action against those people. They'd use watermarks to track the sources of the released files. This allows for them to more accurately identify who are the people actually illegally distributing the files, so they don't end up going after everyone from four-year-old children to grandmothers who don't own computers. Isn't more accuracy a good thing?

Re:I don't really care.

[MikeFM]

I don't mind watermarks - I'll easily admit that I'll share just about any kind of data I gt my hands on. I'm the kind of guy that scanned my text books so I could share them online. DRM on the other hand kept me from buying.

I wonder what it'd do to their watermarks if I did my own steganography to hide my own data in the music. I have over 100GB (and growing) of music files so it'd seem an easy place to hide pretty big chunks of data.

Re:I don't really care.

[gnuASM]

DRM is a Bad Thing, IMO. It restricts your choice and prevents you from playing the media you bought in the way you want to. But watermarking? Eh. I don't care.

I personally cannot understand how a comment that starts off like this could ever obtain a "+5, Insightful" when such a statement only shows ignorance of how DRM truly works. That statement would be akin to: "Taxes are a Bad thing, IMO. It restricts your choice and prevents you from spending the money your earned in the way you want to. But pecuniary rewards for the government? Eh. I don't care."

Wake up and start thinking on both sides of the argument a bit more. Taxes and "pecuniary rewards for the government" are the same thing! Just termed differently. More specifically, taxes are a specific form of "pecuniary reward" for their "services". In the same way, the implementations of DRM we have seen thus far are only specific "forms" of DRM. Watermarking is no different. Watermarking, especially if personally identifying the "purchaser", is simply another form of DRM.

In any implementation of DRM, you have the client-side and the server-side. The server-side may reside in the hardware, on a network (such as the internet), or inside the program application used to play the DRM'd content. Implementation of DRM is solely dependent upon the server-side. It is the server-side that implements the restrictions. The client-side is the part that identifies the content. When the server queries the client to identify it, the server will either deny or allow the content to be accessed.

The server may very well be programmed to deny any content that cannot properly identify or validate itself. The server could also have the capability of identifying the hardware used by querying if the hardware is DRM aware and request its identity. As the information is obtained by the server, the server (whether hardware, network, or program-based) very well would have the capability of recording the content identification in relation to the server/hardware/program identification. this combination would very easily leaves footprints as to who, what, where, how, and when that content had been accessed!

Watermarking as a unique identifier IS DRM! Your watermarked content will be tracked, recorded, and used against you anyway the industry can do so to extort as much of your money from you as possible. Which brings us to another issue that the industries have been trying to do away with: secondary market sales. Copyright gives the content creators the right to restrict distribution of their content by rights of first sale. However, historically, the copyright holder has not had a right (outside of enforceable, signed contracts) to restrict secondary market sales (used items sales).

Watermarking will most definitely restrict your right to secondary sales. As secondary sales of watermarked content occur, and the DRM implementation shows "evidence" that someone who was not the original purchaser of, say a CD with it's CD-specific watermark, will be used as "evidence" of piracy, and the lobbying will begin to restrict your rights even further legislatively.

Anytime the industries want to make any form of restrictions, identifications, or complications in your using and/or accessing the content that you bought from them, they have already overstepped the intended powers vested from copyright. Their power and rights with regards to any individual end the moment they receive any form of compensation for their content from that individual. At that point, their control ends. That is not to say that they do not have rights with regards to that content if it is copied AND distributed. However, copying for personal use OR distributing on the second market are outside their rights and powers vested under copyright.

DRM and the watermarking implementation seen proposed here are an attempt to change the AND to OR, and it's sickening to see people slump down in apathy because "at least it's not DRM."

Re:I don't really care.

[russotto]

All it will take is for the Judge to order the jury to consider the watermark to be positive identification of the file owner. Since the file owner is responsible for the distribution of said file, case closed...you lose!

Actually that's two unreasonable jury instructions, not one. The file owner is not responsible for the distribution of said file; there's certainly no statute which says so. What matters is who is distributing the file, not who bought it in the first place.

The idea that a property owner is responsible for what other people do with his property is popular with the public. It's also popular with politicians, which means it will probably get entered more and more into law. But it isn't in copyright law yet. If I loan a friend a DVD (legal), and without my knowledge or consent he rips it, makes a torrent, and puts it up on Pirate Bay (decidedly illegal), I have not committed copyright infringement.

Besides, isn't the RIAA and MPAA's line that we don't actually own these files, but merely license them? If the file owner is responsible, I guess that lets the purchaser off the hook!

Re:I don't really care.

[Beorytis]

Watermarks tied to users offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone

Forget being framed by the RIAA... How about the case where the owner/licensee of a legitimate copy has their computer infected with malicious software that allows access of the media to unauthorized users. Those unauthorized users get busted for the cybercrime, and the victim of their crime gets busted for illegal sharing.

Re:I don't really care.

[lakeland]

Perhaps.

It would be easy enough to test, grab a whole lot of students and get them to rate the music they're listening to. Use a standard double blind test with the clean music and the watermarked music, and look for a significant increase in rank for the clean version.

Re:I don't really care.

[Mark J Tilford]

Poor neglectd letter "s".

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Averaging won't work. You just end up with more watermarks.

You have to stop thinking about bit comparisons too, the embedding is 'sound' and therefore happens over time.
Otherwise it would be trivial to defeat simply by randomising the lsb of the data.

Imagine mixing three audible tones at different frequencies. The first does not vanish when you add the others.

Most stuff on audio watermarking contains a statement like the following:
"A signature, which can be divulged by averaging, correlation, spectral analysis etc., may be
removed or distorted, and therefore is unsafe."
Averaging is a well understood attack. Correlation stands more chance of working, but is also understood.

Re:I don't really care.

[HiThere]

I pretty much agree with you. I'll probably generally avoid them anyway, as I don't like being tracked, but my objection to DRM was that it stands a great chance of destroying our cultural heritage. Copyrights last a totally insane length of time, and by the time a copyright expires there's likely to be no feasible way to reconstruct the contents of the original disk. Watermarks don't have this problem. I may find them distasteful, and avoid watermarked merchandise, but I don't feel that they are inherently evil. (There may well be evil implementations of watermarking...such as using slightly encrypted credit card numbers as the watermark, but that's both separate, and of much diminished degree.)

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you pay for music downloaded from a legitimate source, and it has a watermark that can be traced to you. Granted the RIAA is draconian in their enforcement of rules widely held to be questionable at best. But why would the RIAA want to frame someone who was actually paying for the music?

Re:I don't really care.

[Elyas]

Then the police have a way to tie the burglary and murder together, increasing the chances the criminal will be caught. Or you can run around with a tin foil hat thinking they are all out to get you, your choice :)

Re:I don't really care.

[jotok]

I can't think of a scheme that would allow watermarking to work without pushing things like encrypted music and video files, proprietary players, things like that.

For instance, if you had a header that explained to the player where in the file the watermark bits were, then bit compare wouldn't help--the file would be unplayable without those bits not only cut out but reassembled into something "good." But unless the standard was open, you're back to just iTunes or something.

So, two things occur to me.

One, as you have pointed out, this is just meaningless bullshit based on the technical aspect.
Two, the industry bigwigs behind this decision still plan on foisting the same restrictive, obnoxious controls on the media we purchase. They just rebranded it.

Re:I don't really care.

[swilver]

There is just one problem.

All lossy compressed music formats are designed in such a way to remove everything that you CAN'T hear.. that's where they get their efficiency from. You're claiming they will put it in portions you can't hear, which is the very thing these compressed formats do their best to filter out. Sure it might work currently for MP3's, as they're not as advanced, but what about AC3, Vorbis, etc.. re-encode in those and you may find your watermarks have been stripped as nobody could hear them anyway.

Re:I don't really care.

[petermgreen]

But watermarking? Eh. I don't care. You're supposed to not be sharing music you bought, and unless someone actually breaks in and steals it, there's really no legitimate reason to find music that you bought out on the net somewhere.
For many years even if technically illegal it was quite normal to share music with friends.

Also PC repair places are well known for taking copies of media (yes, this is definately wrong but very very common).

And hacking is another possibility it doesn't have to be a physical breakin.

What worries me is if a copy sold to joe blogs ends up on a major torrent site joe blogs will be blamed for all those copies even though all he really did was send his PC in for repair or give one track to a friend or got hacked.

Re:I don't really care.

[Oligonicella]

"Watermarks tied to users offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone.."

Yeah, 'cause there's such a dearth of people uploading stuff that's not theirs.

Re:I don't really care.

[Khaed]

I don't have iTunes (or an iPod), but I think I remember hearing that their "watermark" is simply the equivalent of an ID3 tag.

Not exactly the complex type of watermark being discussed in comments here, nor particularly difficult to remove.

Re:I don't really care.

[PopeRatzo]

Watermarks provide very little security

As a musician that distributes digital copies of my work, I don't care so much about using watermarks to track down people who get the file through sharing.

It's much more important to me to use a watermark to identify the work as being mine. Much of my music is "to order" and is created specifically for one person, organization or producer. It can be copied and distributed as often as the sponsor wants, but it would be great if each iteration had a mark to identify it as being my product.

In this way, it's more of a "signature" than a method of controlling distribution.

I looked into technology that would allow me to put something into those digital files that would identify them. I learned that it was prohibitively expensive. The companies that are involved in making these watermarks are targeting very large record labels, not individual artists or indie producers.

Oh yeah, I'd also like the watermark or signature to be somehow visible. I've seen "sonic signatures" put into mp3 files that show up on a 'scope, and I know Boards of Canada and others have put highly processed clips of their name into the sound file. Those ways both create audible artifacts, though. ID3 tags are easily torn out and modified so that's not a good solution.

I'm still looking for an acceptable approach. If any of you know of some way, pass it along to me, please.

Re:I don't really care.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Watermarks provide very little security, since you can find them just by comparing a few copies of the same file.

Provided you can get another few watermarked copies of the same file, which may be a problem if it actually starts working. Even if you do manage to organise it, and you found the watermark, would you be able to strip it? Would you be able to tell what parts are watermark-affected or not? And even if you can, this doesn't make watermarks useless. It helps slow piracy by attacking file-sharer's anonymity. Even if there are people who can organise to strip the watermark, it'll still hopefully decrease availability of pirated media.

Watermarks tied to users offer the RIAA an easy way to frame anyone, since they can create a watermarked copy of any file with your details and release it on the Internet.

OK, that's the stupidest thing I've heard all day. Firstly, I'm not convinced that the RIAA would want to frame you. Framing is illegal, risky, and takes too much time (y'know, for the material to circulate the P2P networks). I don't know why they would do that over choosing from one of the many IP addresses that could be plucked from a network. It's not much better of course, but it's easier, cheaper, and less risky.

Secondly, in theory, these measures are only as good in a court of law as their reliability. With a good lawyer, that could be a valid defence against the watermarking, but since you're suggesting the completely implausible, I doubt you could back up your defence with much substance.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

0123456 is right.
Even the most clever watermark can be both detected and defeated by getting a few copies of the same material, decoding and averaging the content with randomized weights, then re-encoding it.
The law of entropy should make it impossible to recover all of the original watermarks from the single final copy.

Watermarks are just another restriction that will only harm law-abiding people and do nothing to stop the bad guys (just like "stadium TFRs").

For example, laptops, iPods etc. can be stolen and the crooks can upload / sell the content on them without worrying about watermarks (since it identifies the original owner, not them).

Re:I don't really care.

[Smauler]

lending music to a friend is still illegal.

Where on earth do you live? Lending someone a CD is _not_ illegal where I am. Lending someone a book is _not_ illegal where I am. I truly would hate to live where you do, in a state in which you cannot let any of your friends touch your "possessions" in case you break the law by letting them do so.

Completely OT - the radio just said of an accident that "Drivers are advised not to approach that with caution". Well, I found it funny...

Re:I don't really care.

[init100]

Sophisticated watermarking techniques protect the watermark IF there is only one, ie all copies have the same watermark. Then you can't compare multiple, differently watermarked copies and so you can't find the watermark. It makes it much harder to mess up when you don't know where it is.

On the other hand, how could watermarks be used to track unauthorized distribution of the content if all watermarks are the same?

Re:I don't really care.

[earthbound kid]

It's a shame you weren't modded up. Does it make any sense at all to suppose the RIAA would go after random people in fraudulent lawsuits? That would be such a dumb idea it's hard to really contemplate it seriously. You can't milk an individual for more money than they have, so the most you can get out of a lawsuit of an individual is around $100k or so paid out over a long period of time. On the other hand, getting caught doing a fraudulent lawsuit would risk multiple millions of dollars in a counter-suit. It doesn't make any financial sense.

Re:I don't really care.

[init100]

If you take ten copies of a 3min song, and concatenate chunks from each in 18sec blocks, then either the watermark will be unparsable, or it will implicate ten different people for small portions instead of one person for the whole song.

It will also damage the mp3 file, if my understanding of the mp3 format is correct. This is because the data is encoded in overlapping blocks to eliminate noise at the block boundaries. Cutting and splicing such a stream might not be as simple as it appears to be.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

It is if you still keep a copy.

Re:I don't really care.

[ceoyoyo]

Exactly, watermarks are really designed to demonstrate that a particular image (or audio file) is in fact the copyrighted work. For example, you'd put a watermark on your picture before uploading it to the Internet so that you could detect any copies that were made (not track where exactly they came from).

An individual watermark is usually called a fingerprint, and is a whole other kettle of fish. It's incredibly difficult to make work in practice without just encrypting the whole file in some kind of DRM scheme that defeats the purpose of the fingerprint anyway.

So if you want to mark your file as proof that it's yours, then watermarks work (though if your file is unique enough to worry about you shouldn't need the watermark as proof anyway). Fingerprint watermarks for tracking? They rely entirely on obscurity. As soon as someone notices that they exist you're done.

Re:I don't really care.

[xigxag]

True. Watermarking, whether through an ID3 fingerprint or something involving PhD level cryptography, is only going to deter the casual pirate in any case. Anyone else can use a stolen credit card and a zombie or hijacked wifi connection to eliminate IP tracing.

Re:I don't really care.

[flappinbooger]

Analog Hole?

Re:I don't really care.

[Ravon Rodriguez]

I don't believe that even the RIAA would outright forge evidence. Not because I believe they have morals, but because if they were caught the consequences would be dire to both them as a company and to their anti-piracy campaign.

Re:I don't really care.

[cheater512]

You download a watermarked song, your friend downloads the song under his account.

Both are watermarked with different water marks.
Simple bit analysis will make the differences stand out like a sore thumb.
What you'd get is a merge of the two watermarks.

If you get a whole pile of watermarked copies of the same song then you can fairly easily determine how the watermarking works.
It may be encrypted but it doesnt matter too much.
You know how to destroy the watermark and it gives you a head start at reverse engineering it.

Re:I don't really care.

[IamTheRealMike]

A lot of audio watermarking algorithms are designed to survive psycho-acoustic compression algorithms like MP3 because they're intended to be used on DVD Audio, eg, in this presentation. Note the date on that - it's from 5 years ago. Watermarking technology has advanced significantly since. I think it's fair to say that us armchair researchers on Slashdot are probably a bit behind the times ;)

Re:I don't really care.

[ASBands]

Theoretically, the watermark should still be there, as the watermark is inaudible noise on the track. The goal of a good watermarking algorithm is to survive longer than the audio. You're not safe from detection by transcoding, as these guys have an algorithm (I'm sure many more do, as well) for the original audio track (off a CD) that can be "retrieved" at various bit rates. At the bottom, you can see a graph on the error rate of recovery, which doesn't really fall off until you get down to 64 kbps. Basically, to remove this watermark without knowing the key (which can be as large as needed), you would do more damage to the sound of the track than the background noise.

As long as a strong watermarking scheme is used, it will still be there, unless you screw up the sound. I don't think it will do anything for the RIAA, but it beats the hell out of DRM and root kits.

Re:I don't really care.

[Ravon Rodriguez]

Along this line of thinking: I wonder what would happen if you converted it to an analog recording, and then back to digital. You would need specialized equipment, but I would think that it would destroy the watermark. Am I wrong?

Re:I don't really care.

[ceoyoyo]

It would likely destroy a simple watermark, but there are lots of techniques, many that work in the frequency domain, that are designed to be resistant to things like that. Apparently they have trouble with MULTIPLE manipulations though, but that also tends to degrade the quality enough to be unacceptable.

Re:I don't really care.

[Ravon Rodriguez]

You're also loading up your servers with a huge amount of processing required to produce a different version of the entire file for each customer.

Which is probably one of the reasons they claim they won't put individually identifying watermarks in the songs. Unless its all done ahead of time, a stock of songs so to speak. Once one is downloaded, delete it and mark the next one for download. That puts a strain on hard drive space, so that's not likely to happen either. No, I think personally identifying watermarks won't happen.

Re:I don't really care.

[PMBjornerud]

Since I would like to salvage some semblance of "I was right" in this thread As an unbiased observer, I think it's too late. Next time, read up on digital watermarking and encryption before mocking any implementation.

Re:I don't really care.

[Ravon Rodriguez]

Not to mention the distribution nightmares it would cause. Every supplier would have to run watermarking software. I think more likely the files that are given to each distributer will be watermarked.

Re:I don't really care.

[Ossifer]

If the RIAA were to attempt to utilize watermarking in court, then the watermarking algorithms would become fair game for the defense, which would yield to publicly available methods to strip the watermarking...

Re:I don't really care.

[Omestes]

Didn't RTFA, but I have a hard time seeing how this would actually lead to finding who is distributing illegal copies if it isn't on a per individual watermark/fingerprint per unit. If it is on a per-batch basis all the RIAA could do is narrow it down to which area/time/batch is being most distributed, but all individuals purchasing that batch would have deniability. The only real utility I could see if gather statistics "the watermark representing batch x, and East Asia is most distributed", or such.

The only way this would be useful is if it was on a per-unit basis. Then they could tag ANY duplicate watermark as representative of hinkey behavior.

Re:I don't really care.

[Workaphobia]

Nor do I, but that is insufficient to support reasoning about the validity of evidence in court (I hope; IANAL), which is what I think we're talking about.

Re:I don't really care.

[xystren]

I knew there had to be a way to make profit on this......

see my previous post.....

1: Post tinfoil had wearing comment against RIAA w/ paranoid conspiracy theories embedded.

2: Wait for RIAA to read and make use of said conspiracy theories.

3: Wait for RIAA members to distribute your conspiracy threoy in music (Of course I'm a tinfoil hat wearing parinoid bastard, they didn't think I'd watermark my conspiricy theory)

5: Extract your embeded water mark from RIAA's embedded watermark

5: ....

6: PROFIT!

Who's the tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist now? I'm the tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist!

Cheers,
Xyst

Re:I don't really care.

[Kjella]

Well, I hear what you're saying but I aay let them try. With a combination of averaging, corrolation, some random noise and maybe a few more twists I doubt they'll withstand much of anything. For exameple, if you detect a timing offset, pick a random offset using those as upper and lower bound - now it won't match either and it's not reversible to figure out which samples you started with either.

Funniest thing would be if they overdo this and start bordering on the audible domain. Then the pirates can average it away and deliver superior quality. Given their ability to shot themselves in the foot, it's not entirely unlikely...

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, how could watermarks be used to track unauthorized distribution of the content if all watermarks are the same?

Simple.

* The RIAA gives your ISP a system that scans everything you upload or download looking for these watermarks. If they find any watermarked content, they block the transfer and notify the RIAA so they can sue you.

* Microsoft works with the RIAA to integrate code into Windows that scans your hard disk looking for these watermarks. If you have watermarked media and no digital receipt showing you bought that media, then Windows blocks playback of that media and notifies the RIAA so they can sue you.

Re:I don't really care.

[rucs_hack]

Could digital watermarking survive conversion to *.wav format and back to mp3?

I suspect not. You can bet someone will come up with a way of doing it, if DbPoweramp can't already.

Re:I don't really care.

[h4rm0ny]

However, watermarking may well be sufficient to deter a lot of piracy. The major sharer types may not be deterred by watermarking, but they wouldn't be deterred by DRM either, but watermarking does make the product vastly more appealing to legitimate customers so it's a win there. And maybe I'm wrong about the deterrance to more serious piraters. After all, break the DRM and you're done. How do you ever know for certain that you actually caught all of the watermarking?

Personally, I really want watermarking to take off (especially in movies) because I don't buy DRM but there's a lot of good content out there I'm very keen to buy wants it's available.

Re:I don't really care.

[Xesdeeni]

I've always assumed that the watermark was a low frequency thing, so that it wouldn't be filtered out by format conversion. For example, if it were done to video, it could be a slight brightening and darkening of the video over a few seconds at a very, very low frequency (say 1 Hz). That way ripping a DVD, throwing out every other field and scaling it, and converting it to DivX wouldn't destroy the data. Such a system would require a large number of frames to encode enough bits to give a unique identifier, but it seems like it would survive.

But it just occurred to me that simply combining two different watermarked copies, perhaps switching every GOP (to use MPEG as an example) would create a third set of data that didn't make sense when decoded.

But I my just be (probably am) oversimplifying.

Xesdeeni

Re:I don't really care.

[ceoyoyo]

DRM is definitely a win for the media companies. They irritate their customers less and don't lose anything since the DRM is ineffective anyway. I don't think watermarking will deter even a moderately competent pirate. They'll just buy whatever it is on physical media and pay in cash, if they're worried that they can't remove the watermarking.

Where the media companies might get themselves into trouble is if they start suing people over watermarked files. If that happens you know they'll screw up at least a few times (probably way more than that). There's no way I want the liability of having my name attached to something like that. There are all sorts of legitimate, though somewhat rare ways that file with my name on it could get stolen and distributed.

DRM is irritating, but personalized watermarks in the hands of the sue happy RIAA and MPAA are just too much liability. Just watch piracy take off if that happens.

Re:I don't really care.

[marcello_dl]

But how a fuzzy superposition of watermarks is going to work in a trial? There is an increasing room for doubt with each superposition, especially if you mix in noise or reencode in different formats.

The other problem: the owner of the watermark must be tracked => music can't be purchased by cash.
The other problem: the moment RIAA goes after the original purchaser, music files sales will drop. I am not going to purchase something that if stolen is going to earn me lots of trouble.

Re:I don't really care.

[JustShootMe]

Actually, I still stick with most of my assertions. particularly the one about someone getting hacked and being responsible for the download, even though they had nothing to do with it.

I'm not so sure I think it's no big deal anymore, but I still think it's better than DRM, and what I learned here really doesn't have a whole lot to do with that.

And unbiased or not, you sure are coming across as condescending.

Re:I don't really care.

[CODiNE]

I figured it out! It's the NUMBER!! Really had me going there. :)

Re:I don't really care.

[jc42]

I'd think that watermarks would be "broken" far before any case comes up in court. I'd expect a few curious programmers to collect several downloaded versions of the same recording, and compare them. They'd be mostly identical, and the fields that are different would be the data that identifies the specific files. It shouldn't take too much testing to figure out which of those fields can be safely randomized without damaging the music.

Of course, opening the file format via court records would be even more useful, and make programmers' jobs a lot easier.

Re:I don't really care.

[cbreaker]

It's possible it could. A watermark doesn't have to be a series of 1's and 0's. It could be spread out over the file, it could be integrated into the music itself (undetectable to the ear, of course) and could potentially survive such a conversion.

I don't like the idea of Watermarking, though, but in the end every system will be broken and it would really suck if someone spoofed your watermark and spread a bunch of music that was supposed to be assigned to you. But, it's at least a step in the right direction (which is no protection at all) and at least it allows one to put your own music on any device you own, regardless of whether it supports MegaCorp's version of protection.

Re:I don't really care.

[CodeBuster]

So they're both useless and harmful. They are indeed useless and potentially harmful to the uninformed, but really it would be easy to maintain anonymity by paying either cash or using a pre-pay debit card (again bought with cash) with fake signup information. They can spend as much money and time as they like finding out where Berta A. Sapp lives.

Berta A. Sapp
3392 University Hill Road
Bloomington, IL 61701

Website: Jabberva.com
Email Address: BertaASapp@fontdrift.com

Phone: 217-570-0093
Mother's maiden name: Salinas
Birthday: March 4, 1961

MasterCard: 5401 7559 8792 4613
Expires: 1/2011

SSN: 326-48-5038

Re:I don't really care.

[iamacat]

So about as secure as a doorless prison with no guards.

Good choice of a metaphor, and I would love to see this implemented for least serious offenders. Hardened criminals would of course run, but many people would server a short (say, 3 year) term knowing that their acceptance in the society afterwards would be dramatically improved by knowledge that they did the time willingly.

Similarly, if RIAA had any sense, they would use watermarks to communicate with casual offenders and outside court system. The first time a watermark from a P2P site matches someone, send them a letter telling them that they are either breaking the law or their system is hacked, putting them at serious risk for identity theft. Offer to replace their music with a different watermark free of charge. The next time, contact their school, their employee and a local newspaper to put their reputation in question with credible evidence which may be short of legal proof.

Re:I don't really care.

[wilec]

And if you decide you are in dire need of cash, tired of this genre or whatever and wish to sell your collection? Or as you mentioned, how about if someone steals your computer or just the storage media and subsequently releases this watermarked content into the wild? Even worse what if you get hacked and only the music is simply stolen and made public before your hd is erased? The whole copyright holders rights versus purchasers personal property rights issue is a quagmire. It was bad enough before the digital age, and it is gonna get even harder to manage. It is a shame that greedy corp types, irresponsible yahoos and a few odd perverts may very destroy P2P. Emerging P2P technology could evolve into one of the best tools we have to ensure the accuracy of information like news and the free discussion between individuals. And so it goes...

wabi-sabi
matthew

Re:I don't really care.

[Erpo]

I just think this sounds incredibly weak. If people can break encryption and decode entire streams, there are going to be ways to strip these watermarks -- probably the day the first song that contains it is released.

Ok, first of all, breaking DRM is not the same thing as breaking encryption. The Achilles heal of all DRM systems is not that they use weak encryption algorithms; it's that in order for the intended recipient to be able to play the DRM'd music, the content producer has to hand over the decryption key. Anything that can be read can be copied.

Second, erasing a watermark is fundamentally different from removing DRM. It's easy to tell when a DRM scheme has been defeated because one can then freely make copies of an audio file. It's not as easy to tell when a watermark has been removed.

Re:I don't really care.

[Prof.Phreak]

Depends. Usually, the watermark will disappear.

The trick about watermarks: the more robust you make them, the more they alter the content. The less detectable watermark you make, the easier it is to remove.

Re:I don't really care.

[josephdrivein]

One of the requirements of a well designed watermark is that if you remove it, you lose content quality.

I'm not sure if this is actually possible or just wishful thinking.

Anyway, to properly remove it you may need to reverse engineer the algorithm used to watermark the file. This may be tricky.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Watermarks are indeed useless if I don't give out personal information when purchasing music.

Re:I don't really care.

[Sancho]

Generally, copyright mechanisms exist to defeast casual copying. Everyone knows that the big pirate distributors will get access to your media, and will release it. It's a given, and there's little that the media cartels can do about it.

Of course, people defeat DRM themselves so that they can have interoperability. People rip DVDs (with their awful, ineffective encryption) so that they can watch them on their media centers or iPods. People draw circles around the edges of their CDs so that they can rip them and play them on their computers. DRM still prevents some amount of copying, but it also infuriates people when they buy CD A, which can't be ripped just like all of the rest of their CDs, or when they get a new computer and can't transfer all of their old, downloaded, DRM media.

Watermarks solve that problem. People aren't going to want to defeat watermarks just to play their own media--they don't have to, because there is no DRM. The same impetus doesn't exist.

The people who try to defeat watermarks are the ones who want to be big sharers. They're the ones with no respect for copyright at all. Of course they're just going to download it, instead, unless they're the first one to get it, in which case they don't have the option.

As for the sound quality, that could be an issue. It's certainly possible to have unobtrusive watermarks, where the sound output can't be distingiushed from the original. This is particularly true of people who have any amount of hearing loss--even extremely slight (and almost every adult has extremely slight hearing loss--the people who constantly use their iPods tend to have more than that.)

But meh. Whatever floats your boat. Personally, I don't download DRM media, but I'd download watermarked media. I take issue with not being able to play purchased movies in the player of my choice, not with the concept of copyright, iteself.

Re:I don't really care.

[Sancho]

So what?

DRM only stops the casual copier. Watermarking will only identify the casual copier.

They're in the same boat, only they piss off fewer customers--customers who, under DRM, couldn't play their music files in the player of their choice. With watermarking, they get to.

In fact, they'll gain a few customers who, like myself, won't buy DRM downloadables because of that very reason.

Re:I don't really care.

[KudyardRipling]

I can see that sort of thing coming. Laws will come compelling the production of REAL ID compliant identification when purchasing any copyrighted work. The doctrine of first sale will inevitably be overturned which means no more selling old books or recordings at garage sales and flea markets.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does my browser ignore the extra spacing, ie. How did you do that?

Re:I don't really care.

[JesseMcDonald]

it could be integrated into the music itself (undetectable to the ear, of course)

If it's undetectable to the ear it ought to be removed during compression. Acoustic compression codecs like MP3 or Vorbis are designed to remove anything that can't be heard; an ideal compression pass would strip out such watermarks without even trying, just to save space.

Re:I don't really care.

[mgblst]

What you say is true.

But it is best to consider worst case scenarios when dealing with an organisation that has no qualms about suing Grandmothers, Unemployed Single mothers and Children.

Re:I don't really care.

[cbreaker]

Hey I know a Jessica McDonald in real life =)

I guess what I meant was, even though it's undetectable to the ear doesn't mean it's not audible. Yea, it's a stretch, but there's some pretty clever people out there.

Re:I don't really care.

[Reziac]

[goes off, reads link]

This is interesting:

"The results demonstrate that the watermarking introduces less distortion than the compression algorithm."

That's probably the basis of its survivability right there.

And I agree, I'd much rather have a watermark, even with some risk of counterfeits (tho I expect the makers of the algorithm could tell them from the real thing, sufficient to convince a court), than the current craze of DRM and rootkits. And at least with a watermark, the content CAN survive the death/dissolution of the copyright holder. With DRM, it might not.

Re:I don't really care.

[Anonymous Coward]

All whitespace gets collapsed into a single space, according to the HTML standard.

Re:I don't really care.

[zenkonami]

It absolutely is noticeable. You might not realize what you are hearing, but you will know something is wrong. That's what I think everytime I listen to a compressed file. Seems to me most people wouldn't know the difference, however. I'm not sure most listeners care about the quality of the recording...just the content of the music.

On the other hand, if the framerates on their games are anything less than 60fps they think they've been completely cheated.

Okay...so I work in audio, and might be a little bitter.

Re:I don't really care.

[carnalforge]

Man. Now as much as i hate fundamentalists and paranoids the point we've reached in technology and what it let's us as people reach, thinking of all this reminds me of some interview of Stallman, where the guy admits to never even browse with a browser, or telnet FWIW. Using a smtp deamon that returns back web pages .... Somehow is like reading 1984. Damnit, it's nearly that reality now. Oh well, fuck it. Never let paranoia be your lead.

Re:I don't really care.

[janzen]

I don't see it. But what is this "fnord" thing?

Re:I don't really care.

[oliverthered]

yes they could,
but could they survive,

Getting more than one copy of the file
Then converting to wav
then adveraging out between the multiple coppies
and then converting back into mp3

Re:I don't really care.

[Instine]

While I like your reply, and I'm in favour of watermarking for similar reasons to the reasons you state, one of us is missing a point (it may be me, but here goes..). It would be trivial for say, a p2p client, to remove watermarks systematically. The argument could be made that it is a legitermate and valid service/feature to provide, to homogenise the media of a user automatically - say to Ogg or a medium bitrate mp3. Now your RIAA now have no flag to trigger their friendly letter...

Re:I don't really care.

[jdjbuffalo]

As dumb as suing your own customers instead of coming up with a new business plan to meet the needs of a changing society...

If the RIAA member companies were smart they wouldn't be losing money at a rate of 10 - 30% per year. They would have adapted years ago (around the time of the original Napster) and they would likely be seeing record profits (assuming they handled the transition properly), as they did during the Napster's rise to popularity.

Don't mistake normal "business sense" with a dying industry trashing around trying to find a footing while sinking quicksand.

Re:I don't really care.

[rtechie]

Doesn't this seem incredibly paranoid to anyone else? Is it only modded up because it's anti-RIAA? It's completely ridiculous to think that they have it out for certain people and would "frame" them. Since they've done this in the past (frame people), it's not paranoid. However, it's difficult to see why the RIAA would want to spend that amount of time and effort to nail some kid or grandma sharing music. OTOH, they've spent thousands of dollars on lawyers to sue kids, so it's not as implausible as it sounds.

It's important to understand that the RIAA desperately wants to move into a "guilty until proven innocent" paradigm in regards to file sharing, because their lawsuits against sharers have been expensive, difficult, and unsuccessful. They also want to make it criminal, so the government will take over some of their enforcement burden.

Isn't more accuracy a good thing It would be, if they cared about that. Let's have a hypothetical. We've got 4 kinds of tracks:

1) Joe downloads a track from P2P ripped from a CD someone purchased. No watermark.
2) Joe legally purchases a track from iTunes WITH the watermark.
3) Joe rips a track from CD he bought himself. No watermark.
4) Joe downloads a DRM-free track from P2P that someone bought through iTunes WITH the watermark.

Do you really think that after the RIAA has gotten a subpoena and carefully examined all the tracks on his hard drive that they'll let Joe slide on #1, #2, and #3? I don't think so. They'll argue that he has to show sales receipts for every scrap of music in his collection AND that he can't rip his personal CDs.

The RIAA, as much as they're (rightfully) demonized here, is acting defensively, not offensively. You also don't seem to grasp that "anti-RIAA" means "anti-big record labels". I very much want people to steal music from the big labels with the intention of damaging their profits and driving them out of business. Hell, I very much want people to visit the board meetings of the big labels and gun down the boardmembers. They deserve it.

And don't whine about the artists. They are FUCKED HARD by the major labels and virtually every recording artist would be better off without them. The handful that aren't (Metallica) are greedy whining bitches that don't give a fuck about music, the music industry, or much of anything except themselves.

Watermarks

[saibot834]

Watermarks are still DefectiveByDesign

Re:Watermarks

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a typically reactionary response- how does a watermark make a produce defective? it's not interfering with my playback or use of the digital file. it doesn't prevent me from making a million copies of the file for my computers, ipod, thumbdrive, etc. it's information that's only useful if i do something illegal. this is like putting your name on your luggage.

Re:Watermarks

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, how did *that* get moderated as informative? Maybe if you said why, or at least linked to a page that directly treated why watermarks are a problem, I could buy that, but all you're doing is spreading around a link almost everyone here knows about.

Re:Watermarks

[Firethorn]

On the other hand it's like how useful gun registration ideas are - when most of the guns used in crimes are stolen.

Sure, they can track it back to Joe homeowner... Who reported it stolen in a burglary six months ago.

How would you like to be sued for copyright infringement when somebody steals your iPod and uploads all your files.

Just the scenario is enough to make gaining convictions on that detail alone almost impossible.

Re:Watermarks

[Workaphobia]

If I hadn't posted to this conversation, I'd mod you down as overrated. Back that up with a definition of DBD that supports your claim, or retract it.

Re:Watermarks

[Reziac]

"Just the scenario is enough to make gaining convictions on that detail alone almost impossible."

Well, that might be a good thing too -- given that most of the small-scale/P2P piracy really doesn't hurt them, and probably *helps* sales in the long run (by being free samples just like radio). Make it tough to prosecute, so they eventually give up and let people do what they're GOING to do regardless, and make it easy for potential customers to buy the real thing -- include a "where to buy" link in every ID3 tag, and use the watermark ID to reward the original filesharer for every sale made thanks to that particular file.

The only people left unhappy there are the promotions and advertising agencies, since P2P would be doing all the same work for free.

Re:Watermarks

[Jesus_666]

Se, now that's a nice idea. It also beats the usual "XYZ sucks so don't do anything" comments. I'm sure that the actual implementation would still suck as it'd be tied to some badly-implemented platform, but I'd have no problems at all with a system like that.

It'd probably be uneconomical, but it is a nice concept.

Re:Watermarks

[Anonymous Coward]

that's a typically reactionary response- how does a watermark make a produce defective?

Yeah, it's like they've never seen any vegetables or fruits before.

Re:Watermarks

[Reziac]

Yep... my thought process was "What gets rid of the legal threats, while still letting the content holders make money? What would *encourage* them by being essentially free money that falls from the sky, at no cost or effort from themselves?" And it just seemed obvious. And watermarks are an obvious way to track individual file propagation, for future payment purposes.

Yeah, you could have special clients to handle downloads, that automagically report what goes where using the watermark, but I think that's probably not necessary, since the same people are going to be inclined to spend the same money no matter what.

The real benefit of a download-client-app system using a watermark-tracking system would be to the people serving as P2P seeds, since they could conceivably get paid on a per-distribution basis (the more you "advertise" for us, the more we pay you) or on a straight commission for each sale made secondary to a download. Consider that even 1/1000th of a CENT per download would add up to enough pocket money to entice most kids, and if even 1 in a thousand of those dowloaders then paid $5 for the whole album, the content holder is still ahead, having spent one cent to make 5 bucks. (Tho as Radiohead recently demonstrated, the actual ratio of deadbeat-downloader to paying-customer is quite a LOT more profitable than 1000:1; I vaguely recall it was somewhere around 10:1.)

So... I think even a badly-implemented platform would be effort in the right direction. But personally I don't see how it *has* to be tied to anything but a link to a shopping cart. Beyond that, let files propagate on P2P or usenet or any digital distribution chain; makes no difference how it gets there. You can encourage it with pay-to-seed and commission-per-sale schemes, or you can ignore it and just collect a small but steady percentage of sales that you wouldn't get otherwise. Either way, the content holders can only wind up ahead.

And same for consumers. More choice that's easier to get to and easier to buy, and an end to hostile litigation.

Re:Watermarks

[sco08y]

that's a typically reactionary response- how does a watermark make a produce defective?

It adds defects to the audio stream. A watermarked version does not look or sound the same as the original.

Subject to a Huge Failure

[mfh]

When p2p groups apply simple scramble audio sequences that can't be heard. Better yet, when you burn a song onto a CD as an audio file, and then re-rip the song (as recently disclosed by Sony), then you get a clean copy.

But go ahead and spend billions on that idea of yours. I'm sure that people who want to thwart the tyranny will simply come up with a way to get this stuff for free.

What they really need to do is make some music that's worth paying for.

Re:Subject to a Huge Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not worth paying for why would you download it? You still end up paying in the bandwidth it takes to get the file. The only real answer is don't download it if it's not worth paying for.

Re:Subject to a Huge Failure

[Workaphobia]

Why does burning to and ripping from a CD remove watermarks? Does reencoding destroy the mark? If not, I can't see why creating perfect digital copies would remove information.

Re:Subject to a Huge Failure

[bcat24]

Better yet, when you burn a song onto a CD as an audio file, and then re-rip the song (as recently disclosed by Sony), then you get a clean copy.

How does that work? Burning and ripping are (generally speaking) lossless operations, aren't they? Why doesn't the burnt copy of the audio also have the watermark?

Re:Subject to a Huge Failure

[Joe Jay Bee]

That's not thwarting tyranny, that's being cheap. Stop pretending otherwise.

Give and Take

[Joker1980]

Most people are calling for some reasonable give and take, in that regard i cant really argue against watermarks.

Re:Give and Take

[ColdWetDog]

Most people are calling for some reasonable give and take, in that regard i cant really argue against watermarks.

You might want to argue against watermarking technology if you'd had RTFA.

Digital audio watermarking involves the concealment of data within a discrete audio file. Applications for this technology are numerous. Intellectual property protection is currently the main driving force behind research in this area. To combat online music piracy, a digital watermark could be added to all recording prior to release, signifying not only the author of the work, but the user who has purchased a legitimate copy. Newer operating systems equipped with digital rights management software (DRM) will extract the watermark from audio files prior to playing them on the system. The DRM software will ensure that the user has paid for the song by comparing the watermark to the existing purchased licences on the system.

(emphasis mine)

TFA goes on to describe how this is a bit difficult in practice with current technology, but "they're working on it". Given the hit that classic DRM is taking in the PR space now, and given that the media company execs haven't all dropped acid and wandered back into the sixties, I think it's a safe bet that they're going to work on DRM II (New and improved, patent pending). You may return to wearing your tin foil hats now.

Re:Give and Take

[Belial6]

"Most people are calling for some reasonable give and take"

That sounds reasonable. The problem is that reasonable give and take was established a very long time ago. The record labels are not asking for unreasonable give and take. Meeting me half way isn't reasonable if I've already traveled half way, and you are saying half way from where we are now.

Re:Give and Take

[Workaphobia]

Yeah, certainly compared to DRM, watermarks aren't that odious. It really comes down to a question of what it means for you to purchase this media. Do you want a copy of some master recording, is it ok that your version is marked in some way so as to be different from everyone else's? A part of me prefers the former instinctively.

More importantly, how will this affect the transition from buying media content to buying mere licenses to play them? Or is that pretty much orthogonal?

Re:Give and Take

[msporny]

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I am the President/CEO of Digital Bazaar, we created Bitmunk - a legal P2P music trading network that uses watermarking to protect both artists and customers].

This isn't a new concept, Bitmunk has been doing it for three years. We have over 1 million songs on our network - it's something that works for both the artists and the music fans. We're one of the only companies on the net that have empirical evidence that artists are willing to sign up to this setup. We believe it's a fair balance between the two approaches... there is a very long debate that I and Bill Rosenblatt had on this issue over 2 years ago:

http://wiki.digitalbazaar.com/en/Manu_Sporny_vs._Bill_Rosenblatt_DRM_Debate

It is a shame that we have been pushing this concept ever since our company was founded and it is just now reaching the mainstream...

Re:Give and Take

[Anonymous Coward]

Give & take are one thing, but if I don't want a yummy chocolate cupcake with a dog turd on it, half a dog turd on it isn't going to be much better for me.

Re:Give and Take

[spitzak]

Newer operating systems equipped with digital rights management software (DRM) will extract the watermark from audio files prior to playing them on the system. The DRM software will ensure that the user has paid for the song by comparing the watermark to the existing purchased licences on the system.

Either the article writer or somebody who talked to him is an idiot. I'm not saying this won't happen, but that is NOT "watermarking" in any useful way. That is DRM.

If you make a device that refuses to play a song with the wrong watermark, you have provided everybody with a cheap and foolproof method of figuring out if their software has successfully removed the watermark. Watermarks will be stripped and their purpose is defeated.

The problem is that it is almost impossible to explain this to some of the clueless people who are managing these organizations. So I would not be suprised if such a watermark-stripping-detector showed up on the market. The watermark detecting program should be kept in top secrecy with very little access down in a vault in the RIAA or whoever is doing this. But they are idiots and won't do that and the managers there will dictate that the thing that should be top-secret be instead available for $30 at Best Buy.

Re:Give and Take

[ColdWetDog]

Either the article writer or somebody who talked to him is an idiot.

Possibly, but this is Slashdot and these things happen.

I'm not saying this won't happen, but that is NOT "watermarking" in any useful way. That is DRM.

Sure it is - DRM using an obfuscated key. Same shit, different day. The point being is that the interest in watermarking by the media companies may be more involved and more annoying and more controlling than "simply" wanting to make a digital mark concerning the provenance of the particular file.

Nothing to see (or hear) - move along.

Re:Give and Take

[swilver]

will extract the watermark from audio files prior to playing them on the system

Oh good, that will make it easier to make a copy without watermarks then and distribute it on the internet.

Re:Give and Take

[philicorda]

The difference is that if a verified watermark is *required* to access the information, then the software to find and compare that watermark, and the customers identity key, has to be on their computer. Therefore there is a way to analyse and reverse engineer that software. It's obvious if you have not cracked it as you cannot access the information.

With music watermarking for tracking users, a valid watermark is not required to access, and the watermark analysis software and private keys are secret and only used by the investigators. The customer cannot check they have broken the watermark as they have no way of verifying whether their attack has been successful.

Re:Give and Take

[Jesus_666]

Wait a second... That means that if one uses an OS that doesn't implement this DRM scheme (Linux certainly qualifies), one of the following applies:

1. The file plays normally, as it is standard audio, just with a watermark added
In this case, all Linux users can rejoice. All users of Windows and probably OS X can look below.

2. The file doesn't play because it's in some kind of proprietary format
In this case, Linux users will need to use a reverse-engineered codec that will be written to ignore the watermark. Or they use audio that was already re-encoded and that avoids the scheme by not being in the right format. Unlikely.

So, using Linux will probably be a good way around the DRM part as the open source nature of the whole software stack ensures that there's a DRM-less implementation. Hiding everything inside a proprietary format doesn't help because it's vulnerable to simple re-encoding - you need to scan plain MP3s anyway.


We still have one open question, though: How do the DRM-ful OSes scan for the watermark?

1. The audio player/codec looks for it during playback
In this case all that is needed to defeat the scheme is DRM-less playback software. VLC should suffice to completely break it; regular software can be used, too, if the user can get it to use an open source audio codec.

2. The audio framework (DirectX/Core Audio) continuously scans all played audio for watermarks
In this case the codec will have to actively mask the watermark. That might be accomplished - for example - by either detecting and stripping it, mixing another watermark into the audio stream to confuse the audio framework or splitting up the audio stream and playing it back using multiple processes.
Of course that last method only works if the OS checks every process individually. If it just scans whatever is sent to the sound card and turs off sound playback altogether in case of a bad watermark, stripping is the way to go.



Come to think of it - real-time checking should be useless; the OS can't possibly query a server on the internet about the licensing status of a watermark without severely delaying playback. People would notice all sounds coming several hundred milliseconds later, not to mention delays of multiple seconds if the net/server/local pipe is severely congested. Of course the OS could play the sound and only stop it once the server has given a clear "NO", but then all that is needed to defy the scheme is a router that blocks all outbound traffic to the licensing server.

I don't want to fall in with the "this will be broken in five minutes"-crowd, but I do think that the DRM aspect of this scheme does pose some quite significant challenges.

Re:Give and Take

[init100]

Newer operating systems equipped with digital rights management software (DRM) will extract the watermark from audio files prior to playing them on the system. The DRM software will ensure that the user has paid for the song by comparing the watermark to the existing purchased licences on the system.

If the file is not protected in any other way, it is not protected at all. A player that refuses to play watermarked files that have the wrong watermark will just be discarded by users in favor of players that simply ignores the watermark.

If the file is protected in some other way, such as with encryption, then that is what most DRM systems already do today. Nothing new here.

Re:Give and Take

[IamTheRealMike]

Yeah, so any such purchase-checking system wouldn't work with Linux. But that doesn't matter, does it?

The grandparent post called such a scheme "DRM" but it's actually not DRM, it's about asynchronously checking that you're honest. Honesty checks don't have to have 100% coverage to be effective.

It's time for a bad analogy. Consider ticket checks on public transport. Typically not every trip you take will be checked. If you are determined to never pay your train tickets, you can hide in the toilets on a train for the whole trip and avoid being checked by the conductors (I've seen this happen, it's pathetic). But, hiding in the toilet for an entire trip is a ridiculous pain in the ass, the sort of thing only the chronically broke would stoop to.

Much though I love Linux, it isn't a hole in this scheme. If you are determined to violate copyrights and get away with it, then yes using Linux would be a good way around it. But what is the market share of desktop Linux again? It's very low. Nobody is going to worry if Linux users get away without being checked because they are such a minority. Mac and Windows is enough to get your average consumer covered.

If Linux ever becomes seriously mainstream then such an honesty check would have implementation issues. But that's a really big if. It's been 15 years already, right? I hate to say it, but for your average Joe using Linux to avoid having their music checked would be like hiding in the toilets to avoid a ticket inspection.

Re:Give and Take

[symbolic]

To combat online music piracy, a digital watermark could be added to all recording prior to release, signifying not only the author of the work, but the user who has purchased a legitimate copy.

This is very interesting because it suggests that you will not be able to anonymously purchase music. Right now I can walk into Barnes and Noble, lay down the cash for a CD, and nobody will be the wiser as to who I am (which is just how it should be). This new scheme seems to suggest a direct tie between revealing your identity, and your ability to enjoy your newly-purchased music. Count me out.

Re:Give and Take

[Jesus_666]

And this is relevant.. how? I mentioned Linux as one way of sidestepping the playback restrictions. Another way would be open source codecs that don't implement them (most likely ones that are also available/initially developed for Linux). As I also wrote.

Re:Give and Take

[IamTheRealMike]

I think you missed my point. It doesn't matter if you have to putz around with weird alternative operating systems. Not many people will bother to do it, so the goal of getting most people to pay for their music is still met. BTW just replacing the codec wouldn't work, why would such a check be done in the codec when better ones are developed all the time? The right place to do that is in the kernel, between userspace and the audio driver.

Re:Give and Take

[Jesus_666]

And that also has its weaknesses. Please actually read my original post.

Re:Give and Take

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

Given the hit that classic DRM is taking in the PR space now, and given that the media company execs haven't all dropped acid and wandered back into the sixties, I think it's a safe bet that they're going to work on DRM II (New and improved, patent pending).

As long as I can copy my files from one device I own to another I own with little to no extra power overhead. They can have their DRM II.

I'm kinda lucky in Australia. We get to make copies of copyrighted works as much as we like, provided they don't leave the household.

Re:Give and Take

[IamTheRealMike]

You say the weakness of doing it in the kernel is that if you can strip or eliminate the watermark, you "win" in the sense that your illegally copied music won't be reported. Well yes, obviously if you can strip the watermark, the scheme doesn't work. So what?

Re:Give and Take

[Jesus_666]

I didn't talk about the watermark being reported, I talked about the OS's DRM being kept from interfering with playback - and about that fact that getting right said DRM would be a challenge in itself, as internet response times are orders of magnitudes above adequate audio response times. If you have no idea where the DRM suddenly comes from, consider the fact that my OP might be a reply to asomeone else's post.

By the way, seeing how incredibly robust copy-protection schemes tend to be, I'd expect even legitimate users to flock to a DRM circumvention method, as without a doubt the system is going to horribly fail for some.

Re:Give and Take

[Joker1980]

yeah, of course ur right i didnt read the article, i was taking about watermarks in the literall sense a passive form of copy protection. Although it might not be what the article suggests, i think a watermark (in the true sense of the word) cant be argued against. if its doesent stop me then im cool with it, your not supposed to be redistributing after all/.

There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[spikenerd]

Download it under two accounts, then average the waves together. The watermark will be ruined, and the sound quality will stay at least as good as before. Problem solved. Of course you'll have to pay twice, but if you're paying the right price, 2x0=0.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[cliffski]

This is a solution to what problem exactly?
The proposed solution is DRM-free high quality tracks, where *if* you leak it onto a file-sharing site, then you can be traced. How is this a bad thing?
You seem to think this is a problem, but I can only see this being a problem from the POV of pirates, and people determined to leech music for free.

You would have a reasonable argument to suggest that the law needs some safeguards, and that the record companies should not throw the book at someone who stupidly emailed a song to a friend, who then must have leaked it, but assuming the record companies only target the hardcore who upload entire albums, or are traced to p2p music on multiple occasions, what exactly is bad and wrong about this?
DRM-free music was supposedly what slashdot readers want? Or was it just 'free' music all along, and the DRM thing was just a way to claim justification for piracy while it lasted?

People complained that they pirated because the music had DRM, and the DRM is going. People complained the music was too expensive, and itunes led to way lower prices. Now what is the excuse?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or worse, that averaging of the two waves might make the watermark equal some 3rd watermark that belongs to John Doe in another state who then has to take the blame if the modified mp3 ends up on p2p networks. I'll still rip my own from CDs ktkzbye.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[timothyf]

This is a potential solution for people who are concerned about privacy and liability. Sure, it would be nice if the world worked in a sane way, but the potential for someone to get the book thrown at them for doing something that wasn't a really big deal is still there.

Or consider the possibility (mentioned elsewhere on this thread) that someone got malware on their system that leaked their entire watermarked collection to the net? They've done nothing wrong, of course, but the watermark doesn't capture what actually happened, it just says these songs are owned by person X and they're now being freely distributed over the net. Even if it's shown that malware was involved in the leak, could you then be sued for negligence? I agree that carefully crafted laws could mitigate the problem, but it'd take lawmakers with a clue to do it.

In either case, if someone wants to avoid that particular hassle, circumventing the watermark in this way might be desirable to them. It's recognizing imperfections and potential flaws in the system, not complaining, IMHO.

I do think it's a step in the right direction, but I don't think that means that the consequences of that step shouldn't be weighed by everyone involved, consumer, industry and government alike.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[ceoyoyo]

"assuming the record companies only target the hardcore"

Um, yes, the music industry has so far proven themselves very reasonable in this regard. We should trust that they will continue to do so in the future.

Where's the link to that story where the RIAA completely ignores hardcore commercial pirating right under their noses while suing sick people and single mothers?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[thisissilly]

where *if* you leak it onto a file-sharing site, then you can be traced. How is this a bad thing?

Correction: if *someone* leaks files bought *with your account info*, the files trace back to you.

• What happens if someone swipes your mp3 player and then uploads all your tracks to p2p?
• Or your computer gets pwned, and the files are copied off your disk without your approval or knowledge?
• Or someone steals your Credit Card #, uses it to buy a bunch of watermarked mp3s, and then uploads them to p2p?

In all three cases, you are liable to be sued for actions you had nothing to do with.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they do abandon DRM but real pirates won't care buying two copies and XORing them. Just doing that will fuck up the watermarking and leave the movie intact.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Firethorn]

he proposed solution is DRM-free high quality tracks, where *if* you leak it onto a file-sharing site, then you can be traced. How is this a bad thing?

Aside from the paranoids worrying about the RIAA framing people by faking watermarks or having stolen tracks posted up with watermarks intact, I think many think this is a very good thing.

I think that this is a very good thing.

Personally, I'm a bit interested in ways to crack/disable watermarks the same way that I'm interested in picking locks or breaking encryption. It's because it's a neat challenge.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[jelle]

And.... you have just destroyed your proof of purchase for that music file...

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Hatta]

People complained that they pirated because the music had DRM, and the DRM is going. People complained the music was too expensive, and itunes led to way lower prices. Now what is the excuse?

It's still too expensive. The marginal cost of distributing albums is essentially 0, so the price should be essentially 0 too. Pay people for composing or performing, there is no value in distribution. Might as well be selling ice cubes to eskimos.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

more likely you'll retain artifacts of BOTH watermarks and be doubly guilty. furthermore, depending on the watermarking scheme, you could wind up with a significantly degraded file.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[swilver]

The proposed solution is DRM-free high quality tracks, where *if* you leak it onto a file-sharing site, then you can be traced. How is this a bad thing?

It's great actually!

Until of course someone that doesn't like you maliciously places a copy watermarked with your details on a P2P site, or some RIAA executive decides you are worth bringing down and spreads their own copies with your watermark. They will have to prove the copy originated from you same as always.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[xigxag]

I think RL watermarking is considerably more complicated than you're considering. Think of watermark as an alteration embedded in a number.

162341369871938126341.

Someone else gets a similar but not-identical number:

762441365871928129341.

Just based on those two numbers, can you reconstruct the "original" number? Can you even identify which digits have been altered by the watermark? You can do a diff, but so what. Take the leading digit. Which was altered? The 1, the 7, or both? It could be that any non-2 digit in that location serves as a partial identifier. Multiply partial identifiers by the full length of an mp3 file, and you'll see it could become intractibly difficult to locate and eradicate the full watermark without knowing the protocol. In any event you're overthinking this. If you have access to two accounts, presumably one real and one fake/fraudulent, then why not just download it once under the fake one? Then you can give a rat's ass if it gets out into the wild.

Better yet, why not just p2p the damn thing from the outset?

And to remind everybody yet again, APPLE IS ALREADY DOING THIS and has sold billionz of watermarked files. Nobody's gotten prosecuted yet to my knowledge.

The only danger I see coming out of this is when, down the road, after CDs have bitten the dust, all digital media will be available by digitally fingerprinted downloads only. Which could mean, if you're carrying around an media player with any songs released after 2010, and they DON'T have your personal digital fingerprint on them, the presumption will be that you stole them. By that time of course, stripping your fingerprint off the files will be as illegal as filing off your car's VIN (vehicle identification number). The same will go for any commercial software we buy, which in addition to fingerprinting, will be constantly communicating its/our authenticity to some central server and upgraded and downgraded outside of our control. Welcome to Steam, punk!

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear.
You need to google fixed costs. You have no understanding of the concept, clearly.
You think because the marginal cost of production is free, that the product should be free? Who pays the rent and food of the guy who designed the product then?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[pablodiazgutierrez]

I think it'd be easy for the content producer to detect the individual watermark sources. If a song has N bytes, all of them (in theory) slightly affected by the watermark, and you average two such songs, the result would lie on the line segment between the two sources, embedded in the N-dimensional space defined by the song. If more than two different sources are added (say M sources), the result would lie inside the M-dimensional simplex defined by the sources, embedded in the same space. A naive algorithm could find the sources in O(N^M) time, and probably much faster with a little extra thinking.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[pablodiazgutierrez]

0 XOR 0 = 0
1 XOR 0 = 1
0 XOR 1 = 1
1 XOR 1 = 0

I think you meant to say averaging the sources. That can be detected too, though.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should really have some idea what you're talking about before you denigrate others for not understanding concepts.

Fixed costs are part of the marginal cost.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but assuming the record companies only target the hardcore who upload entire albums, or are traced to p2p music on multiple occasions, what exactly is bad and wrong about this?

Maybe the fact that you're "assuming" that's how they'll use it?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[toddestan]

Of course you'll have to pay twice, but if you're paying the right price, 2x0=0.

If you're going to pirate the music, what do you care if it has someone else's watermark on it? Of course, if you do it just to stick it to "the man", that's alright by me.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to log in, but screw it. I've posted this screed before.
I worked for a textbook publisher.
The PP&B (price to print & bind) for a Chemistry textbook was between 3&4 dollars. That is technically the "fixed cost". We sold it to booksellers for about $40, which was then sold to students for $70. The fixed cost (PP&B) fails to take into effect a bunch of stuff....

*royalties for the author
*payments to reviewers to help typeset
*payments of the salespeople who convinced the professors to choose it
*my paycheck
*profits for our shareholders

And yes, while the marginal cost _does_ lower, this "0" price you talk about is B.S. - there aren't that many copies being bought. That being said, yes, paying $17 is insane... except that most of my music costs that, being that I listen to niche music that sells less than 3000 copies worldwide. Try getting your fixed costs to 0 when _that's_ the number sold. And try dealing with tiny royalties when it's that small. (And then there's the Japanese stuff, which costs upwards of $30 because it has to be exported, it's pricey to being with in Japan, the value of the dollar...)

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "problem" is the same ever. People like to share music.

We misunderstand by ignoring the human element. Econimic arguments, technical arguments and legal arguments are all irrelevant. They only serve to mask the real issues.

Music is part of our common culture, the concept of ownership is absurd. For thousands of years people have heard and shared music. Intellectual property is a modern concept that does not fit in with general human nature or motivations. It is an invention of a select group of people to protect their economic interests, and as production technology becomes ubiquitous that group is diminishing in relevance.

You can make appeals about "artists need to be paid" but those are irrelevant. I would argue that artists don't need to be paid, the good ones work for other motives, but that is by the by, such an argument just ignores the real issue with an economic distraction.

People like to share music. That's all there is to it. Listening to it alone is not the total experience. Music only obtains value by its social potential.

For what it's worth I love the idea of watermarking, RIAA lawsuits and DRM. The more the old guard fences itself off and makes people afraid to handle its products the sooner a worthwhile common culture will emerge again.

We are not machines, we are humans. Some people need to find out what that means.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Prof.Phreak]

Well, if this scheme is to work, the record corps will actually be going after their own paying -customers- (those who were too stupid to pay for the music in a way that can be traced back to them).

Have they completely given up on CDs that I can buy in a store with cash?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Joe Jay Bee]

some RIAA executive decides you are worth bringing down and spreads their own copies with your watermark

OK, I am so goddamn sick of hearing about this tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that I'm going to ask right now:

WHY THE FUCK WOULD THEY DO THAT?

Please give me a logical and cogent reason (which is not "The RIAA is bad/has done bad stuff" because that's just lame) for why the RIAA would intentionally frame its paying customers, of whom they had no suspicion of committing any illegal activity. Please. Given that piracy is a widespread enough problem, why would they need to frame legitimate customers as part of some fucked up crusade? What benefit would it bring them?

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Joe Jay Bee]

Well, if this scheme is to work, the record corps will actually be going after their own paying -customers-

Who then committed a crime by distributing it to possibly hundreds of non-paying customers. Just because you bought a copyrighted work doesn't mean you get absolutely every right to do everything you like with it, including fucking over the person who sold it to you.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Prof.Phreak]

Who then committed a crime by distributing it...

Technically, that's not a ``crime''. It's only copyright violation.

Now, if they sell you some music, and then for whatever technical glitch (you re-encode it) prevent you from playing it, that -is- a crime.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[Joe Jay Bee]

That's not even a crime in the loosest sense. They sold you an MP3 with a watermark, and you reencoded it to MP4 or whatever; not their problem, they sold you a working MP3 file, which you fucked up by reencoding it. If I rejig my microwave into a particle accelerator, the manufacturer won't reimburse me if it doesn't cook me a ready meal when I want it to.

Meanwhile copyright violation is a tort, and therefore technically a crime.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[soliptic]

DRM-free music was supposedly what slashdot readers want? Or was it just 'free' music all along, and the DRM thing was just a way to claim justification for piracy while it lasted?

People complained that they pirated because the music had DRM, and the DRM is going. People complained the music was too expensive, and itunes led to way lower prices. Now what is the excuse?

To be honest, I get the impression that slashdot readers (by and large, they are not homogenous, etc, etc) don't want music at all. Every music related story is filled with comments like "all modern music is shit, talentless mannequins miming to overcompressed noise..."

Which obviously suggests they haven't bothered to seek out the likes of Seth Lakeman or Ojos de Brujo, churning out albums packed with instrumental ability, superb songwriting, and endless joie de vivre; and furthermore, either could not possibly contemplate buying any non-modern music, as if albums like this instantly stopped being masterpieces the moment they became over 30 years old.

Re:There's an easy tecnhical solution...

[IdeaMan]

Don't just average the two files.
That would mean that you have both watermarks at 1/2 volume.

Grab three of them, and as you copy randomly choose between a, b, a+b, b+c, a+c, a+b+c.
You have to do this both in the time and frequency domains.

can't track with watermarking...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you pay with cash at the music store. So who cares.

Re:can't track with watermarking...

[glitch23]

[can't track with watermarking]...If you pay with cash at the music store. So who cares.

What stops them from putting watermarks in music stamped onto CDs? Answer: Nothing. It may be harder because when the music is ripped it is changed but I'm sure they can come up with something.

analog hole

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

still there? ok then, non-issue.

Re:analog hole

[Yetihehe]

Good watermarking will cross analog hole. Yet this watermarking is still small issue, it's way better than DRM. But remember, first they tried to impose very bad thing. When they now try to impose just not very good thing, everyone thinks "at last they are doing what we want".

Re:analog hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Analog hole's been closed.

This encodes the data in *the music itself*. As long as the sound stays accurate enough to keep something like a watermark in the music, it'll remain. Heck, it could survive being *played*, recorded and encoded.

Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[NetSettler]

Are we talking per-customer watermarks? (The article didn't seem to say.) Aside from the usual privacy implications, that would have its own problems, since it would allow for unbounded downstream prosecution of anyone who ever let even one copy go free, including through malware. It would make it quite a liability to even buy such stuff.

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[CastrTroy]

Exactly. I think it would be very difficult to prove intent in any of these cases.

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[palegray.net]

In the absence of intent, expect people to try to produce negligence. This has happened in cases in unsecured network access by people perpetrating crimes online.

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[ceoyoyo]

An excellent reason to wait for someone to buy the CD with cash (or shoplift it), then download the copy. Once again, DRM makes piracy the only reasonable course of action!

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[schmiddy]

I doubt per-user watermarks will ever catch on for mainstream media, such as mass produced CDs or DVDs, because when you're pressing hundreds of thousands of discs it makes things a hell of a lot easier to have them all be identical. Maybe they'd catch on for downloads.. but if you could just buy and rip a CD of the same song anyway, it's kind of pointless (though the music industry is pretty dumb..)

However, one place they're finally catching on, that I'm amazed has taken them so long, is in pre-release DVD screeners. I hear that if you check out a DVD screener of "I am Legend" floating around, you'll see messages at the bottom saying "This movie is intended only for pre-screening and is digitally watermarked". Perhaps they're also sneaking it into pre-release CDs intended for DJs or production artists as well, I don't know.

Also, to the people claiming you could just download the MP3 from two accounts.. that's a good idea, provided they don't have a simple parity scheme in place. You also can't easily download from two accounts, or get two DVDs, in the case of special pre-releases intended for a very limited audience.

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[commodoresloat]

I just don't get it. Why does a file need to be tied to a purchaser? What if I buy the CD at a record store and pay in cash? Are they going to take my information now just to encode a stupid watermark on the songs so I can't share the music with my friends? Also it seems current law would allow for a digital file to be sold just the same as a used CD. So if I purchase an MP3 album online, decide I don't like it, sell it to a friend and delete my copy of it, am I going to be held liable since his or her copy is watermarked with my credit card info?

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[Workaphobia]

To use it in court would require a disclosure of the technology and procedures the seller uses (I hope). Perhaps they don't want to give that information away, and will only use the technology to focus their investigation through more traditional means.

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[Reziac]

True -- whether through malware or counterfeit watermarks, it creates a risk of bogus prosecution.

So as I say above, don't use watermarking as a stick to prevent filesharing. Use it as a carrot to encourage *purposeful* filesharing (ie. as "free-sample" advertising aimed directly at your target market, and best of all at zero expense). Have each file include an ID3-link to a shopping cart, and whenever a sale is made, give a small reward to the *original* filesharer, whom we ID by a hash in the link to the shopping cart.

Yeah, there'll be some ID-link fraud, but so long as the money comes in from sales, what do you-the-vendor care?

Re:Tracking Flow of Watermarks

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously only been watching after-release rips then. They've been doing that on screeners for years.

Only A Short Time

[LightningJim2]

...before ways around this "digital watermark" are found. It always happens. Anyone remember how long it took for HD-DVD to be cracked? Also, I have already seen a couple of good examples of possible ways already in this discussion.

Re:Only A Short Time

[Anonymous Coward]

...before ways around this "digital watermark" are found. It always happens....

no kidding. You're one of the first 10 posters, and two technical solutions to watermarking have already been made prior to your post!

Re:Only A Short Time

[NothingMore]

Removing the watermark should not be that hard to do (since warez groups already do this with DVD-Screeners). The real question would be why would anyone want to do this? Warez groups can obtain higher quality rips directly from the CD and the watermark will most likely not hinder playback on music devices. As long as they dont include my SSN or Credit Card Number in the watermark itself there will not be any real need to remove the watermark.

Re:Only A Short Time

[spitzak]

You are assumming the watermark can be seen.

If they have any intelligence, the program that detects the watermark will be kept secret. Without a way to tell whether you have removed the watermark, it is impossible to tell if you have done so.

Of course the problem is that there are clueless people in power who will think they can use the watermark to make a device refuse to play "pirated" content. As soon as they do this, the watermark will become useless, because there is now a trivial method to detect if you have successfully removed the watermark. This I think is the most likely downfall of this scheme.

Re:Only A Short Time

[Cheesey]

What would a "way around" the watermark do? Presumably it would allow you to share the music you bought without the possibility of it being traced back to you. However, unlike DRM, there is no way to be sure if you have removed every watermark. If today's watermarking techniques are successfully reverse engineered, the industry can introduce new techniques without breaking compatibility with CD players etc. And in any case, removing watermarks might degrade the quality of the recording. There might be more than one watermark in each file, and some watermarks might be present in multiple copies of the same recording in order to defeat a simple differencing attack.

Watermarking is a good idea, I say. In the end I want people to be able to make money from intellectual property, whether it is music, software, video, books, whatever. But information is easily copied, so there is a need to discourage piracy without inconveniencing paying customers. DRM doesn't meet that need, but maybe watermarking does.

Re:Only A Short Time

[Lobachevsky]

It's _Extremely_ easy to remove watermarking. Buy 2 mp3 files, decompress them to WAV, keep them sync'd, then average them, then compress them back to .MP3 (all these steps can be pipelined because they're all streaming operations). There, you've just completely obliterated whatever steganography was in it while having perfectly good audio. In fact, the audio will have BETTER quality because the manipulation done by the steganography was, on average, reversed.

And yes, I am a cryptography expert with experience in steganography.

Re:Only A Short Time

[shmlco]

"And yes, I am a cryptography expert with experience in steganography."

And if your new iPod or Zune rejects corrupted watermarks?

Re:Only A Short Time

[spitzak]

And if your new iPod or Zune rejects corrupted watermarks?

No, that would make it easy to detect if you successfully removed the watermark (assumming the iPod/Zune will play a song without any watermark in it).

If the players only play correctly-watermarked data, that is equivalent to them only playing "signed" data. Well that is the RIAA wetdream, not only do you have working DRM, but you have also made it basically impossible for anybody other than "professionals" to produce content (since they will not have the license to sign their songs).

Re:Only A Short Time

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's _Extremely_ easy to remove watermarking. Buy 2 mp3 files, decompress them to WAV, keep them sync'd, then average them, then compress them back to .MP3 (all these steps can be pipelined because they're all streaming operations). There, you've just completely obliterated whatever steganography was in it while having perfectly good audio. In fact, the audio will have BETTER quality because the manipulation done by the steganography was, on average, reversed.
>
>And yes, I am a cryptography expert with experience in steganography.

Yes, you'll probably lose the watermarks. No, you probably won't want to listen to what comes out the other end. The merged .wav file might sound better than either of the original MP3s (I'd bet it would be indistinguishable from either of the MP3s), but the MP3 of the merged .wav file will still sound like ass.

CD -> MP3original = lossy.
MP3original -> MP3watermark1 = extremely small loss.
MP3original -> MP3watermark2 = extremely small loss.
MP3watermark1 -> WAVwatermark1 = exactly the same as MP3watermark1
MP3watermark2 -> WAVwatermark2 = exactly the same as MP3watermark2
Average of WAVwatermarked = indistinguishable from MP3original.
But since:
MP3original -> MP3re-encoded = ass.
And
MP3original == WAVaverage
It follows that
WAVaverage -> MP3averagere-encoded will also == ass.

You win at crypto, but you fail at audio :)

Re:Only A Short Time

[Anonymous Coward]

What if that averaging suddenly implicates two people instead of one? I suppose though, that even if that works it would be prohibitive to combine all of your company's watermarks to see how they compare to a mutant song in the wild.

Re:Only A Short Time

[Anonymous Coward]

It wont work anyway. For two reasons.

First, averaging attacks just leave you with a file with both watermarks!
Perhaps combining five or six would work, but that is starting to get expensive.

Second, the watermarking process make MP3 encoding go even more batty.
Try this some time, take a WAV, convert to MP3 and back to WAV, and then try a null sum the original unconverted WAV. Very nasty! The MP3 file may not even be the same length!
Add some random noise from the watermarking process, and you will get some really weird shit happening when you combine two watermarked MP3s! They may entirely cancel at points at certain frequencies as the phase wanders all over the place.

Trust

[Nerdfest]

I'm not necessarily against watermarking, but:

... while Sony's and Universal's DRM-free lineups contain "anonymous" watermarks that won't trace to an individual

So we trust Sony now, do we? Why does that not seem like a good idea? Not that Universal is likely to be more trustworthy, but they're more of an unknown than Sony.

Re:Trust

[CastrTroy]

What's the point of individual watermarking if it can't be traced to an individual? I guess they could just use it for statistics. Out of 1,000,000 who downloaded the song, 100,000 of them shared it on P2P networks. I see how they could use stuff like this for ammo to make the government extend copyright even longer then it already is.

Re:Trust

[vtcodger]

***What's the point of individual watermarking if it can't be traced to an individual?***

Non-individualized watermarks won't tell anyone if you are deliberately using illegal copies in your music or movie collection. In all probability, everyone's collection will include some illegal copies. Even the collections of people who actually TRY to stay legal. But watermarks should help in identifying people who are systematically selling or renting illegal copies. If Sleazy Sammy's Junkmart has 200 copies of the same CD with the same watermark in the warehouse, it's a pretty safe bet that Sammy or his supplier is making illegal copies. Judges and juries will likely see it that way also.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll end up with something everyone can live with. The AAs ignore low level personal file sharing, and the serious pirates do jail time. I wouldn't bet on it though.

I'm in favor of ANYTHING that might stop wasting my time with copy protection/prevention schemes that don't work well and/or right and/or prevent me from backing up their fragile distribution media. That would seem to be all of them.

Ho hum

[maroberts]

Take two official copies, work out where differences are, remove said differences. Goodbye watermark

I don't care either.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not supposed to share music I bought? Says who? If I buy an album I can lend it to my friend, I can even make him a copy, why shouldn't I be able to do the same with this? Actually I don't care about drm or watermarking either, I stopped buying music and films a long time ago.

Why should anyone give these rotten corporations more money when they're trying to screw us over every chance they get?

Something to think about.

Re:I don't care either.

[JustShootMe]

Says who?

Pretty much the entire federal government.

Re:I don't care either.

[palegray.net]

I was with right up to the point you said "I can even make him a copy". No, you cannot legally make him a copy, unless you obtain permission from the publisher of the album (i.e., record label, artist, etc). I could make a CD of nothing but my wife snoring, and I own the copyright to it; you'd run a risk of getting sued for copyright infringement if you distributed copies to your friends (God only knows why you'd want to, but then again, some modern music isn't much better than my wife snoring).

Re:I don't care either.

[JustShootMe]

Your wife snoring could indeed be music, depending on how you tired her out.

That gives me an idea of safe for work pr0n. :)

"We won't give you any details on why, but she's sleeping now, and here's proof..zzzzzzzz"

Re:I don't care either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much the entire federal government. Fortunately your federal government isn't mine so I don't have to care about what they say.

Re:I don't care either.

[thisissilly]

I was with right up to the point you said "I can even make him a copy". No, you cannot legally make him a copy,

Actually, I believe he can make a non-commercial copy, under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, section 1008 which legalized "home taping"

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

Re:I don't care either.

[shmlco]

You can make a copy... for your own personal use. Making copies and giving them away to "friends" is infringement.

Re:I don't care either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not where I live.

Re:I don't care either.

[Smauler]

This is what is wrong with the law. I was listening to Radio 1 (the largest UK radio station, run by the BBC) the other day, and one presenter had made a compilation CD for other presenters. A mention was made of the legality of it and dismissed, because the legality of it is dumb. They were breaking the law, on the largest radio station in the UK. No one cares, save idiotic music lawyers. If you care about people making copies for friends, you are dumb too.

Re:I don't care either.

[palegray.net]

I care about the law, which makes me smart. By the way, instead of blaming copyright law for all these problems, how about blaming the way people license their products? Everyone has a choice to make when it comes to licensing any kind of content; all the articles and other content I produce for my educational resources web site is licensed under share-alike creative commons licenses. Some of it is licensed "not for commercial use", and some is licensed for any use you like as long as you don't modify the work.

Support artists who license their content more in a manner which you find acceptable. I do.

Re:I don't care either.

[syousef]

I could make a CD of nothing but my wife snoring, and I own the copyright to it

I think if you made a CD of your wife snoring, you'd probably be too much in fear of your life (or having your testicles removed) to worry about copyright.

Re:I don't care either.

[pimpimpim]

Dear Sir,

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:I don't care either.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Germany, you insensitive clod.

I pay a fee every time I buy an audio CD, a blank CD-ROM, or even a CD writer; at the same time, I have a legal RIGHT to make copies of my CDs for my friends (which is why the government allows those agencies to collect the fee in the first place).

No, arguing that everyone I'm sharing files with on the Internet is my friend won't work; people have tried that. But making unauthorised (!) copies of CDs for my actual friends is absolutely and explicitely legal, and, given that I'm paying for it, not immoral in the slightest bit, either.

Re:I don't care either.

[shmlco]

Doesn't matter where you live, as the parent was quoting the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. US law.

Re:I don't care either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I can make my friend a copy legally as long I do not make money from it.

I'm Canadian

CD

[in2mind]

Watermarking codes are digitally woven into the fabric of a download and do not restrict listeners from making backup copies or sharing music with friends, as does DRM coding. So no watermarks on CD? or No CD at all?

Re:CD

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of a watermark is for each one to be different. Making a new master disc for every CD produced is not exactly cost effective.

Price Issue

[guy5000]

Wouldn't the price and complexity of uniquely creating watermarks for each copy of a file be a obstacle. Tags composed of text (iTunes) are one thing but audio watermarks are very different.

Re:Price Issue

[CastrTroy]

Probably not. There would only be a few (possibly many, but not more that 1000) servers that would be serving content. Include in each one, a special chip that can watermark a stream, at very high speed. TV Tuners have chips that encode in MPEG, which means you can use your computer as a PVR without even affecting the CPU. I don't see why a similar chip couldn't be made to process the outgoing streams an attach watermarks to them.

Botnet

[Arthur B.]

The music will just be bought by unsuspecting members of a botnet and put on the internet. Then what?

Re:Botnet

[JustShootMe]

You mean:

1) Have music be bought by unsuspecting members of a botnet and put on the internet.
2) ???
3) Profit!

Re:Botnet

[mmmiiikkkeee]

Then when other people download it we have proof that they(the other people) were doing something 'wrong'(if there actions are out side of fair use). This means we have have our fair use rights back!!! Well as long as we keep the responsibility with the person that has the file and _not_ the person who may of shared the file. Its a big step forward from DRM at least in my view.

Re:Botnet

[Arthur B.]

Hum no. You can already prove that someone is not doing something "wrong", just let a trusted third party keep track of the online purchases and there you have it.

The watermark is not intended here to prove it's yours but to discourage people from releasing their bought copy on the internet... the principle it that most copies of a song originate from the same person generally, so if you crack down on one user, you can get back to the original diffuser. This is the all point of watermarking, threatening the supply rather than the demand. Of course it breaks because one can copy a paid version from an unsuspecting victim and release it at no risk.

Re:Botnet

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the unsuspecting botnet member may/may not be held liable.
If they are not held liable, good for them.
If they are held liable, they are the stupid shits who didn't make the effort to keep their machines protected, and got what they most likely deserved.

If a proper media circus is made of the event, maybe other unsuspecting lusers will take steps to clean their machines and learn enough about computer security to avoid becoming a botnet member in the future, thus reducing the numbers on the botnets, and their chances of being swatted at by the *AA.

This hurts anyone that is not operating a botnet how?

I don't have a problem with that.

[blind biker]

As long as I can burn my music onto CDs or listen to them any way I want on any device I like, who cares that they are watermarked? In fact, why would anyone (who purchased the music) care? Of course, if watermarking would degrede the music quality, then I would be worried - I don't know that it does, yet.

Re:I don't have a problem with that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you can sue anyone for any reason in the US, and being sued alone is a problem.

This gives the RIAA a lot of evidence against you if your watermarked music ever gets stolen - or heck, they can fake a watermark and then sue you.

Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Paranoia

[Franklin Brauner]

I'm an Academy member (AMPAS), and I can tell you that the only benefit of membership is that at year end they send you every movie made that year on DVD. It's quite nice. There's a mad December-January rush to cram in every possible film. I'd hate to lose my membership because the DVD I loaned to my friends were ripped and torrented all over Christendom. The Academy is now in the habit of unceremoniously kicking out members when it's found that they've contributed to the piracy of a film (many are pre-release). So I'm usually fairly cautious.

A couple of years ago, Cinea (a Technicolor company) sent out a free DVD player with a powerful DRM/encryption, and many of the movies that came out were suddenly playable only on that machine. This was a hassle, as I was on a job and traveling frequently, and consequently missed a number of smaller films before the January 12 nominating deadline (coincidentally, today). I also hated the ergonomics of that damned player -- the remote was impossible to use in darkened conditions. Anyhow, it was a hassle. And well over half of the movies sent to us were specially encoded to only play on my specific registered player. The other percentage of discs usually favored watermarking.

Cut to this year, suddenly everything is watermarking and there's not a Cinea encrypted disc to be seen. Cinea doesn't support their machine and I'm stuck with this crap player that I had my son beat it to death with a sledgehammer the other day, as I videotaped the ceremony. I'm throwing away all of the past Award seasons discs, which are useless to me now. From my perspective, I'm totally cool with watermarking. However, I frequently lend movies to my elderly mother -- and I'm always living in fear that one of her tennis friends is going to talk my mother into loaning the movie to her, thusly exposing the DVD to possibilities of piracy (who knows what goes on in the houses of my mother's tennis friends) -- risking the one benefit I have of being an Academy member.

So is this what we're reduced to? Living in fear and paranoia as if in a police state? Will Big Brother find my name/number attached to a rip online and bust my ass down to the basement? I don't, as an Academy member, believe that trading movies with your friends is piracy. As a kid we used to do it with VHS all the time. But, it's not lost on me that I lose residuals every time a movie doesn't get legitimately purchased. This is America however, I'll take the paranoia that comes with watermarking any day over the inconvenience of encryption tied to specific proprietary players.

!new

[igorthefiend]

When I was at university writing for the music section of the newspaper, we used to fairly regularly receive CDs from the likes of BMG (Tom McRae's "Just Like Blood" arrived like this in Jan of 2003, the earliest example I remember, but it may predate that) these had individual serial numbers and names, and claimed to be watermarked to us as individuals, lest we dare leak the music. I always assumed it could be defeated by a bit by bit comparison against the retail copy - presumably the difference would be the watermark, and I don't see why that wouldn't also be true here?

Re:!new

[toddestan]

A bit by bit comparison would work if they just tagged the files somehow, remove the tag and the watermark is gone. However if they did it right, they probably just overlayed a bit of random noise over the entire CD (which you presumably wouldn't hear), and the watermark is somewhere in that noise. Thay way, even though the CDs would sound the same, a bit-by-bit comparison would show that they are completely different.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[JustShootMe]

The fear and paranoia in this case is entirely self inflicted.

The solution is simple - don't lend the DVDs to your mother.

free open source watermark removing software

[circletimessquare]

in two months time

dear big media companies: you just can't control the internet. sorry, not yours. if it is out there, it's out there

the only valid intellectual property is that which you keep secret and private. but if it can be digitized, and it is made public, no one owns it anymore

go ahead and pass lots of laws contradicting this observation. go ahead and hire legions of lawyers

as if any of those laws and lawyers mean anything or make a difference, or have any moral validity or economic viability

just adapt to the new reality, or die off

What it'll actually be

[Anonymous Coward]

Some fat guy in the background of the recording saying "This recording is property of Sony."

No limit in fair use rights

[Per Abrahamsen]

Watermarks do not limit the right a user have under copyright law, unless DRM which use technical means to circumvent the law.

Watermarks works *with* the law, not against it.

DRM is an affront to anyone who believe in copyright law. Watermarks is only an affront to those who don't believe in copyright law.

Oh yes I can.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I CAN legally make copies for my friends. Most of the worlds population doesn't live in USA and I just happen to be one of those who don't. I live in Sweden. The only thing stopping me from making those legal copies is that I don't have any originals, why would I when I can get it all for free :)

Re:Oh yes I can.

[JustShootMe]

We'll see how long that lasts once the WIPO gets its hooks into you.

Re:Oh yes I can.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's interesting. Since Sweden is a signatory to the relevant WIPO treaties (notably TRIPS), if what you describe really is legal there then Sweden is almost certainly violating its international agreements. I don't imagine that will last long if the deviation starts to cause perceived damage to other signatory states.

Re:Oh yes I can.

[init100]

On the contrary Swedish practice is actually allowed by the relevant treaties. First, you cannot distribute a copy that you have not legally purchased. Second, you can distribute only to a very small group. And third, the rights holders are compensated by the levy on recordable media. This third part is what makes it all legal.

Re:Oh yes I can.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Thanks for the information. It's a shame the post I replied to didn't mention any of that, and sounded as though it was fine to share content pretty much arbitrarily in Sweden.

Logical disconnect.

[palegray.net]

I think the first part of your post is fine, but when you get to the part about the government extending copyright I think your reasoning got all mixed up. Why would the act of breaking a law provoke the government to extend the lifetime of coverage under the law? I think it more likely that the government might be coerced to enforce harsher penalties for infringement instead.

Re:Logical disconnect.

[CastrTroy]

The logic could go something like this. We have copyright for 75 years. However, we've found that 10% of people pirate our music. Therefore, We think that copyright should be extended for 7.5 years, to account for the profit we are missing out on from the 10% of people who pirate. Repeat same argument every 5 years.

Where is the middle ground?

[edwardpickman]

Watermarking would seem to end the fair use argument so what's left? I don't want to pay? In truth is that the real issue? Being able to freely distribute to friends was never a part of copyright law. You do benefit from the act, you give friend a couple of copied albums you bought so they feel warmer towards you but the artist doesn't benefit other than getting their work out there which doesn't pay his/her bills. Is there a middle ground with DRM paid music on one hand and free as beer on the other that would satisfy most users? Some will never be happy paying so they aren't a factor. Forget end cost for now what system would make people happy and still give the company and/or artist some control over the distribution of their work?

Re:Where is the middle ground?

[FlyingGuy]

Sorry to inform you of this but there is no middle ground.

The basic problem is that there are 3 camps:

1. Those that think that they don't have to pay for anything.
2. Those that think they created something of value, to someone, and think they deserve to be compensated./li>
3. Those that recognize the value of something and don't mind compensating those that created the item.

Those in the first group have many many rationals for their belief, all of which are spurious. They range from "I am helping the artist, why are you harshing me!?" to "Those record companies are all thieves, so what I am doing cannot possibly be wrong!" and the always popular, "Copyright means I can copy it as often as I want to and give to whomever I want.".

The second group are the ones who create something and then hope to sell it to pay their bills, buy a better "________________" (fill in the blank), so their lives will be better. Contrary to popular belief MANY musicians see it as nothing but a means to and end. A job they are capable of doing to raise their family, pay bills, party on or whatever. The much vilified "Record company / movie studio" are the ones who facilitate this process more often then not. Keeping this in a music / movie context, these companies bet lots and lots of money on what they perceive to be a great music act, a great screen play or whatever and pay the bills that other people send them for the services required to complete a CD or movie and bring it to the people who might want to hear/view it. If LOTS of people want to see / hear it then everyones involved makes a buck, if they don't then everyone loses a buck, but not usually the band/movie star or whatever because in the vast majority of the cases those people have been paid up front and sometimes have a promise of more if things go well.

The last group are pretty much your average folks who just want to listen to music, watch a movie at home and get on with their lives. They don't mind paying a reasonable price for their entertainment, recognize the value of what they are getting and enjoy it.

The first group of people will always be in conflict with the second group, its just they way it is. The second group perceives, and rightly so in my opinion, that the first group is stealing from them by offering the same thing that the second group produced, often at great expense, and they are selling for a price the market will bare, for free. The method of this offering is beside the point, bit torrent, ripping to MP3 whatever, it is irrelevant to the base argument.

Re:Where is the middle ground?

[Locklin]

I think your first and third group are only quantitatively different. Their idea of "reasonable price" just differs. Some of group 1 may be unwilling to pay anything more than an internet connection fee, but others are probably looking for (for example) music at much less than iTune's ~$20 an hour.

As long as these media cartels set the prices and suppress the free market, this problem will be common. Although, netlabels and company are probably going to open up the markets considerably in the next decade.

Re:Where is the middle ground?

[FlyingGuy]

I think your first and third group are only quantitatively different. Their idea of "reasonable price" just differs. Some of group 1 may be unwilling to pay anything more than an internet connection fee, but others are probably looking for (for example) music at much less than iTune's ~$20 an hour.

I would disagree with this statement to the extent that group 3 in the vast majority obtain music/movies/whatever from recognized vending outlets, be it iTunes, BlockBuster, Wall-Mart, Target or whatever. In doing so the proceeds of said distribution eventually get to the legitimate sellers of the content. Group 1, I assert, does not see the price of their internet connection as the fee for obtaining these items since it is not an exclusive method of delivery. Even though they pay their hosting bill, revenue from that stream does not make its way back to the legitimate sellers of the content.

As long as these media cartels set the prices and suppress the free market, this problem will be common. Although, netlabels and company are probably going to open up the markets considerably in the next decade.

I must take umbrage with this notion in the strongest terms possible. You or anyone else for that matter are free to go into the music/movie/play producing business at you desire. All you have to do is have lots of money to do the following:

• Hire people to scout talent
• Hire people to shepherd that talen
• Rent time in or construct a recording studio
• Hire recording engineers
• Hire publicists to promote the product
• Hire secretaries
• Legal fees
• Pay the talent a reasonable amount so they can eat/pay bills/send kids to school or whatnot while they are busy in the studio creating the music/movie/play or whatever
• ...and the list goes on and on and pretty soon it adds up to serious money

The investments required to bring a CD or a movie to a national distributor are eye popping to be sure, and even then its a huge gamble, but if you can raise the cash you or anyone else are free to go into the business. Sony can't stop you, EMI, Virgin, none of them. If you stumble across the next Police or Dave Mathews Band or John Mayer or whatever, the distributors will some to you, its that simple. Yes everyone along the chain wants a cut, but thats business, irregardless of the product be it Beer, Music, Video, Walnuts or tires.

Re:Where is the middle ground?

[Anonymous Coward]

4 People who pay for some of the music/movies they listen to/watch
2.1 Artists who look at the overall picture when it comes to compensation for their work

The people in group 4 recognize that artists should be paid for their (sometimes expensive) work, but don't feel obligated to pay for 100% of the content they 'consume'.
They give more support to the artists that they care about and less (or none) to the artists that they don't care as much about.
The whole compensation scheme will average itself out. It's hardly a bulletproof position.

The artists in group 2.1 accept that not all 'unauthorised' copies represent lost income. They can look at the total compensation coming in related to their work.
True, this approach is a lot easier to take for a mid-level, touring, musical act than someone who wants to sell CDs of, say, nature recordings... but making sweeping generalizations and saying there is no middle ground seems a bit much to me.

Re:Where is the middle ground?

[Locklin]

And get that music out through what medium? Radio is owned and managed by the cartel. Internet radio is being killed by the cartel. TV? nope. Free market how?

Not Enough Credit

[raftpeople]

While I agree that people are going to break this, I don't think you are giving enough credit to the engineers and acedemics working on this problem. Read this linked article and you will see that it's far more complex than just bit twiddling (although clearly there will be differences in the bits ultimately).
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:kNuSjbUY1iYJ:www.fxpal.com/publications/FXPAL-PR-03-212.pdf+watermarking+audio&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Re:Not Enough Credit

[CrazedWalrus]

novel method is presented for inaudibly hiding information in
an audio signal by subtly applying time-scale modification to seg-
ments of the signal. The sequence, duration, and degree of the
time-scale modifications are the parameters which encode infor-
mation in the altered signal. By comparing the altered signal with
a reference copy, compressed and expanded regions can be identi-
fied and the hidden data recovered. This approach is novel and has
several advantages over other methods: it is theoretically noise-
less, it introduces no spectral distortion, and it is robust to all
known methods of reproduction, compression, and transmission.

You mean the ones like were involved with the ongoing DRM Fiasco, CSS, and the Sony rootkit? You might want to reserve your praise a bit.

Ok, so the encoding mechanism is timescale data instead of bit twiddling on the left channel. The decoding of this still assumes that the file hasn't been compared and averaged with another copy or three.

What happens if I take my timescale encoding method and mix it up, average the values, or arbitrarily re-set the timescale information in areas that the timescale data doesn't match with other files? Maybe I even throw in a few random new ones just for fun. Consider this:

1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 5
2 + 1 + 2 = 5
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5

If I just tell you "5", how do you know the original contributing addends? Worse, what if you know that the answer should have been "3", not "5", and you don't even know how many numbers were used? Same if I give you a file that contains or is modified by the timescale modifications from multiple files. You know there are differences and can find them, but there are more than there should be, or they're not the values you're expecting.

The point is that, if you can find the information, you can destroy it or make it completely useless. This destruction of data that is necessarily impossible to hear will be inconsequential to the subjective quality of the data.

I'm no cryptographer or mathematician, but even I can see where this is possibly flawed. The weakness is that they considered each file in isolation, not based on functionality that can be implemented in peer-to-peer networks.

Re:Not Enough Credit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a really interesting paper - thanks for the link.

Re:Not Enough Credit

[raftpeople]

What happens if I take my timescale encoding method and mix it up, average the values, or arbitrarily re-set the timescale information in areas that the timescale data doesn't match with other files? Maybe I even throw in a few random new ones just for fun. Consider this: 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 5 2 + 1 + 2 = 5 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5

The unmodified data has been transformed such that arbitrarily small portions of the data have been either expanded, compressed or left unaltered. How are you going to determine where the boundaries are for each of these small sections of data, and how specifically it was modified without the original to compare to? They didn't just change some numbers, the entire encoding incorporates the algorithm, possibly every bit has been affected.

Read the section on how that particular system will extract the watermark, even with an original it's not trivial.

Re:Not Enough Credit

[Prof.Phreak]

I did a bit of research in watermarks, and it is my firm belief it's all bullshit science.

I'm not alone in this opinion. Many folks (especially from Microsoft research, of all places) say about the same thing.

Re:Not Enough Credit

[delt0r]

The good news is that so far the media companies have demonstrated there ineptitude for picking at peer reviewed algorithms. So far everything they have tried has been trivially broken or almost trivially broken. Its the difference between using cryptography folk over engineers.

Re:Not Enough Credit

[rtechie]

Whoever is selling this to the RIAA is selling snake oil.

It's basically impossible to design a watermarking system that survives compression because watermarks are "inaudible" effects applied to a track to uniquely identify that track and audio compression is designed to remove "inaudible" parts of a track, EXACTLY where the watermarks would be stored.

The only way to solve this is to have the compression algorithm and watermark work in tandem to not conflict with each other. So you could certainly sell, for example, AAC-encoded watermarked tracks on iTunes that were encoded with a special AAC encoder that would not damage the watermark. Of course, this watermark WILL NOT survive recompression to MP3 because the non-tuned MP3 encoder will mangle it. You're much better off inserting a binary tag with the buyer's information into the track so if that track is shared UNCHANGED on P2P you can identify the buyer. It's cheaper, easier, and more accurate.

spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[dangil]

I developed a very basic spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking that can resist to reencoding and be very transparent spreading the bits of information across different frequencies. if you analyze the encoding, you can use the frequencies that the encoder gives more importance and store bits there for increased reenconding strength. or you can use less important frequencies to really hide the watermarking, and also assure that the audio wasn't reencoded or touched. the spread spectrum technology can assure that you distort the minimum amount possible each frequency. and by choosing random frequencies for each audio frame, based on a pseudo-random number generator, you can really hide the watermarking... using CDMA techniques , if you don't know what you are looking for, when comparing the watermarked audio with a clean sample, you will only recover some noise.

Re:spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[ceoyoyo]

That "noise" is the watermark. Sure, you can't read it unless you know the details of how it was encoded, but you can certainly mess it up. The easiest way would be to take two differently watermarked copies and average them. Bye bye watermark. If you're paranoid then write some of your own bit modifications into the regions where you detected the original watermarks to make sure.

Re:spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[Anonymous Coward]

And this will be completely inaudible right? Just like those orange smudges that appear in movies that have been watermarked in theaters are invisible?
Sorry, I prefer my data to be uncorrupted.

Re:spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[Jesus_666]

The problem is that tFA talks about a DRM system that checks for the presence of a watermark and refuses to play if you don't have a license for the watermark. So if you only change the watermark without completely destroying it, you'll just end up with a file that nobody can play.

The trick here is to find out how to counter those spread-spectrum/time-shifting/phase-shifting etc. techniques and any combination thereof without severely butchering the file. I think that simply averaging several copies or adding random noise won't defeat all of the schemes.

Re:spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[ceoyoyo]

That's not watermarking, that's DRM, just like we have now. The way you get around it is not removing or changing the watermark but defeating the DRM scheme so the file (with or without watermark) can be played in any player or format of your choosing. Watermarks are fairly easy to obscure, and obscuring them is all that could ever be necessary. DRM schemes, which usually involve encrypting the data so it is no longer recognizable without the key, are more difficult, and require that you break the encryption. The two are different, but not mutually exclusive.

Re:spread spectrum frequency domain watermarking

[Prof.Phreak]

Just about every spread spectrum watermark will be wiped by a successive spread spectrum (even via a different scheme) re-watermarking. Or as many folks have mentioned, by averaging a bunch of watermarked files together (though that might not always work).

With compressed audio, you're forcing the watermark to be in the audible chunk, so putting in a strong watermark will not an option---and weak ones will disappear pretty quickly after a few tweaks.

ie: Watermark technology is mostly bullshit.

I agree...

[mr_zorg]

I'm with you. As long as said watermarks don't interfere with my enjoyment of the content, I'm 100% ok with it.

Transcoding

[flyingfsck]

I'd love to see an inaudible/invisible water mark that can survive transcoding from MP3 to ogg, or from MPEG4 to MJPEG for example.

Re:Transcoding

[xaxa]

Has anyone considered temporal watermarking?

Everyone is suggesting multiple transcodings to remove unheard information i.e. the watermark. Tiny differences in not what, but when, would be harder to remove.

Re:Transcoding

[Anonymous Coward]

OK.

Google search. Video appears to be especially popular.

Or a patent for such technology.

Re:Transcoding

[philicorda]

All the proposed schemes will survive this easily.
Testing for resistance to transcoding is the first thing they try, as lossy compression really does screw up audio.

The tests I've seen survived multiple generations too. A bit error rate of 0.022 percent corruption of the retrieved watermark at 64Kbps is typical. Using simple error correction as well makes it rather reliable, and the watermark is embedded by repeating it many times, so you have ample opportunity to recover it.

Anyway, the hardest part, that no one seems to mention, is telling when you have successfully removed the watermark.
You can screw with the audio all day, but without the analysis tools you cannot be sure you have removed it.

Re:Transcoding

[w3bgeek]

Such encoding schemes have existed for years - in fact the startup I was at in 2001 could do it. The watermarking in use is not v1, in reality it's roughly v5 and the product of millions (if not hundreds of millions) in research over at least a decade. When my old company was in talks with a few labels at that time, they were loooking at both downloadable and CD schemes. In neither case were they seriously considering a per-user watermark, because the watermark application was computationally intensive enough that it was roughly realtime to the playtime of the track in question. This made application at download time problematic, and introducing into manufacturing a no-go. Of course the increase in computation power in the last ~7 years may have changed this, and I was only involved with one possible watermarking method...

Re:Transcoding

[Anonymous Coward]

That too is simple to get around. You just need inverse the frequency and bombard the file with tachyons. The 'clean' file will then appear on your computer last Wednesday.

Re:Transcoding

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever considered removing slowly changing signals by simple overembedding, e.g. by adding your very own small low-frequency change? The recoding will adress the high-frequency stuff, and combing both you'd sucessfully destory any watermarking.

Re:Transcoding

[bcrowell]

The audiobox article discusses phase encoding, which is what you're talking about.

Re:Transcoding

[swilver]

Since the purpose of most lossy audio compression algorithms is to make the audio as small as possible by removing as many stuff you can't hear (ie, unheard information) then the inevitable outcome is that at some point watermarks must be audible or the latest codec will strip it.

Re:Transcoding

[vux984]

The best solution is to take tracks from multiple sources, and 'average them together' to dilute the watermarks at worst making it impossible to reliably identify the mark, and at best possible to outright detect and completely remove them.

Not that I think watermarked files are really a problem for a law abiding person. ipods get stolen hourly, and its well known that botnets infect thousands upon thousands of PCs. Even if the seller could identify who originally bought a track, the odds of being able to successfully prosecute that person is virtually nil, unless there was considerable OTHER evidence that that individual was systematically sharing tracks.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[commodoresloat]

Cinea doesn't support their machine and I'm stuck with this crap player that I had my son beat it to death with a sledgehammer the other day, as I videotaped the ceremony. Coolest .... Dad .... Ever!

Better watermarking

[tjstork]

j498fn894The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

In this example, you make the assumption that you only have enough information encoded in the original content to encode the watermarking. You can always add more filler information to the system to make it much more difficult to detect the watermark. To rephrase your example, I combine the small mark with additional noise. It's difficult to do this with plaintext, but there's all sorts of room you could stick things in a waveform, which, when you think about it, is incredibly vast. I could probably throw off the sound of the music by an incredibly tiny amount, on every quadword, with really what is almost random noise. And, then, I could bury the watermark in that.

So, if the watermark was an encrypted name and credit card number (which I would do if I were them, as a deterrent), then, we're really talking less than 100 bytes, assuming a western character set. Against the several megabytes of an entire song, this is really chump change. Encoding personal information into purchased digital content is an excellent way to deter piracy.

Re:Better watermarking

[Duncan Blackthorne]

*shrug* I'll bet you that it'll take a whole day for someone to come out with a piece of software that filters out any watermarking scheme they use.

Re:Better watermarking

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if the watermark was an encrypted name and credit card number (which I would do if I were them, as a deterrent)
Oh that's a good idea! Kind of like the Microsoft GUIDs-in-office-document privacy fiasco. So if somebody steals your laptop or iPod, they get your credit card info if they also know the decryption algorithm. No risk of liability on the part of the music companies for that one!

I guess that's one way to try to drive people back to buying CDs. I think it's more likely to get them to share illegal ripped downloads, or get music from independent music makers that don't do this crap once the security risk gets known.

Re:Better watermarking

[rtb61]

That's right, provide the identity thieves with even more reason to hack peoples computers, steal a copy of their MP3s along with their credit card details. You logic makes as much sence as M$'s warranty on the operating system. Have you not been paying attention, to all the security issues of the windows operating system or lost and stolen mobile phones.

Watermarking still is still stuck with the final point, no one can be held legally responsible for how far a copyrighted work has spread when it is watermarked in their name, unless of course some one is willing to warrant computer operating systems, media playing software as secure, stable, reliable and at a minimum delivered to the owner virus free.

Consider the software warranty like a car warranty, how can anybody hold you responsible for what your car does when the manufacturer explicitly excludes from the warranty the ability to steer the vehicle, use the breaks, look out of the windows, that the wheels wont randomly fall off, that you can turn off the motor, or that the vehicle can be taken over and operated by remote control by some passing stranger whether you are in the vehicle or not (consider a government that would accept that warranty as legal).

Re:Better watermarking

[jp10558]

It seems to me this would just deter purchasing music as a download. This may, in fact, be their goal. However, it still takes one purchaser somewhere who buys a CD via cash, or a anonymous credit card shipped to a drop box from Amazon or whoever. They rip the CD as has been normal and bam.

Actually, I have to ask - are they doing this to CDs, or just to iTunes et al? I can't see how they could do what you suggest with CDs. Are they going to require you purchase CDs with a credit card? Or provide your drivers license number + address? What about used CD sales? Or someone could risk lots less jail time or fines, and just *steal* one and avoid giving any info to the store.

Every time I can come up with several ways to "beat" a "system", I figure we either 1) Have no idea what it's actually supposed to do, or 2) the developers are milking some large company for lots of money for a system that doesn't work.

"Disclosed"?

[hax0r_this]

Sony wasn't exactly telling anyone anything new. It has always been the case that any DRMed format that can be burned to an audio CD can be overcome by ripping it from the CD. But you do get a major decrease in the audio quality when you do that.

What I would be curious to know is whether this even works with watermarking. If the watermark is actually in the audio stream, I would think that if you did a lossless rip of the CD the watermark would still be there. Probably not nearly as easily detected if their detection software is looking for audio in a certain format, but still there nonetheless. Basically I would think that the watermark would only go away if you rip the CD (or just transcode the music) to such a low quality file that something as subtle as a watermark can't survive.

Already Been Done

[Gunfighter]

Not only has this already been done, but it's also been worked into a P2P infrastructure (including payment methods, I believe).

http://bitmunk.com/

Share just about any digital media you want, make money for sharing it, and the artist(s) and copyright holder(s) get paid as well. Bitmunk is a great system that's been around for a while, so it's good to finally see the big guys catch on and get on board.

Bodymarks

[Anonymous Coward]

And the fact that illegal copyright violations have brought us to this state of affairs proves that humans are "defectivebydesign". I say we do away with humans and start over.

Hmmm . . . what about this?

[reboot246]

Just wondering. What about CDs and DVDs given as gifts? Certainly not the original purchaser sharing in that case. What about the rental market? What about the used CD and DVD market? Music and movies could be shared by lots of people who were not the original purchasers.

Re:Hmmm . . . what about this?

[excelblue]

Think of the watermarks as serial numbers.

They might not be tied to anyone specific in general, but they are traceable. For example, rental media might have the rental company watermarked.

If properly done, it should not be too different from tracking illegal online activity via IP addresses.

Either reduce quality, ineffective, or both.

[oren]

A watermark on an audio track is supposed to be inaudible to the human ear.
Compression algorithms are supposed to preserve only what is audible to the human ear.
Therefore, either re-encoding an audio track with a different codec will remove the watermark,
or the watermark is audible after all and reduces the quality of the track.
There may be a gray area where the effect is "just barely audible",
so codecs preserve it but typical users can't hear it.
In that case it should be possible to erase the mark by encoding it with a lower bitrate,
such that the typical users will not hear a difference.
This is someone any grandmother can do (decode/encode with existing nice GUI programs),
and of course some bored 15 year old will write a watermark removal program...
Either way, watermarks just don't work.

Re:Either reduce quality, ineffective, or both.

[gnasher719]

A watermark on an audio track is supposed to be inaudible to the human ear. Compression algorithms are supposed to preserve only what is audible to the human ear. Therefore, either re-encoding an audio track with a different codec will remove the watermark, or the watermark is audible after all and reduces the quality of the track. Not so quick. Lossy compression usually removes phase information (50 percent of the information, and completely inaudible), and then it goes and removes frequencies and quantises frequencies. All these things are inaudible. There are other things that are inaudible and that don't get removed. One is the exact timing of music. Listen to a piano player. You can't hear the exact time when each string on the piano is hit, but lossy compression doesn't affect that timing. You can add as much noise as you like, you can remove frequencies, it will sound awful but the timing is still there. And that is one thing that can be used for watermarking: Slowing down and accelerating music very gently. That doesn't get removed by watermarking at all.

So what?

[Vadim Makarov]

The music industry finds a file originally sold to me roaming on peer-to-peer networks. How do they prove I'm the one who let it out there?

If I am aware of the consequences, I would be careful to put it on peer-to-peer anonymously (the tools will be available, that's one thing for sure). Or, it can indeed be not me who took my file and put it in the wild. In either case, it should be impossible to charge me. The worst they can do is stop selling me files (yeah, that would be a big deterrent).

There's an easy social solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

"In all three cases, you are liable to be sued for actions you had nothing to do with."

And this is different from the present situation how? Personally I'd wish all music production would cease, then there would no longer be a debate about what should and shouldn't be done. Unfortunately there's just one little side effect but I guess everyone can live with that since they couldn't live with anything else.

compression removes watermarks Re:I don't really c

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The thing is, if the watermark is imperceptible, then they are typically severely damaged by compression, since compression algorithms go out of their way to remove imperceptible features of media files. And other techniques like averaging multiple files degrade the watermark as well.

With sufficient care, all watermarks are removable in practice.

How does that work?

[ratboy666]

Assume a perfect watermarking system.

First transfer -- music is sold to someone else. Is the watermark ownership transferred?

A bit more complicated -- music is purchased in the US. Buyer travels to Canada. A Canadian copies the music (legally). Now, there are two (legal) copies; one in the US and one in Canada. The Canadian now travels to the US, and has her laptop (with the copy on it) checked. She is detained. What law was broken?

So of what use IS the watermark?

Re:How does that work?

[russotto]

A bit more complicated -- music is purchased in the US. Buyer travels to Canada. A Canadian copies the music (legally). Now, there are two (legal) copies; one in the US and one in Canada. The Canadian now travels to the US, and has her laptop (with the copy on it) checked. She is detained. What law was broken?

Attempted import of an unauthorized copy.

Re:How does that work?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Attempted import of an unauthorized copy. There is no such law. Go on, I dare you to find it.

In the US, the way it works is that if the copy was acquired legally, then it is legal to import for personal use, but not for resale. That is the primary defense that the armchair lawyers bring up with respect to paying for the services of those russian mp3 sites like AllofMP3. The main difference being that the OP's hypothetical involved the copy being made physically in Canada while the AllofMP3 situation is a lot more nebulous about the actual location where the copy is made.

Re:How does that work?

[russotto]

The law is 17 USC 602(a). But you're right, it doesn't apply to a Canadian carrying the work in, as there's a specific personal use exception for that which I hadn't checked for.

In the US, the way it works is that if the copy was acquired legally, then it is legal to import for personal use, but not for resale.

The way it works is that if the copy was authorized by the copyright owner in that other country, it is legal to import (and to resell). That was the holding in 523 U.S. 135 (1998). This does not apply to unauthorized copies which were legal in the other country, because the case was about the doctrine of "copyright exhaustion", not about whether the copy was legal.

The personal use exemption in 17 USC 602(a) is broad enough to allow even pirated copies to be imported for personal use, but the relevant regulations don't reflect that.

Re:How does that work?

[ratboy666]

Of course. The copyright holder has (actually, has no choice) in authorized the copy in Canada (in my example). Which means that 523 US 135 is satisfied. In a sense, NAFTA trumps (I don't think that it is legal to disallow sales or importing of music CDs to Canada. And, if the music is "legal" in Canada, the Canadian Personal Copy Exemption applies). So, overturn NAFTA, and we are good to go again.

Other privacy concerns

[meatmanek]

In order to effectively trace the music back to the original purchaser, the RIAA would have to track who purchases each song or CD. Without a database of CD serial vs. customer, finding a watermark in a song does nothing to help track down the original sharer. This means that they're either going to:

1. Move to an entirely online system, requiring credit cards, which have a fairly positive ID

2. Have record stores keep track of names from credit cards, and take names when a customer uses cash.

Neither of these methods would work effectively against someone who is trying. A simple fake ID or having a friend working behind the counter would circumvent the record store measure. I can't say as much about the credit card system, but I'm sure there are easy ways to remain anonymous.

This means that the RIAA could then track all legitimate users, knowing what kinds of music they buy, when, and where. However, it will not prevent or help fight piracy in any way.

Or maybe they won't implement such a system, and this whole watermarking thing will be even more useless.

Depends on Watermark method

[raftpeople]

Whether the information is lost depends on the watermark method and the method/format of destination. If the destination format includes a process that strips out frequencies that are not audible, and the watermark method was to encode information in those frequencies, then the info is lost.

If, on the other hand, the watermark method employs other techniques of embedding information that is not already modified by the burning process, then it won't be lost. There are many ways to encode the information other than non-audible frequencies, including non-audible time-shifting, wave peak modification, phase shifting, etc.

Can we perhaps just leave it?

[mpcooke3]

Watermarking only works if people believe that the RIAA could prosecute you for distributing a watermarked file.

If everyone knows that the watermarking is flawed or that the evidence would not stand up in court then the RIAA might ditch watermarking and go back to DRM - so why don't we just let it drop, after all it's a hell of an improvement on DRM.

Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[Gordo_1]

For the vast majority of folks, many of whom might share audio from a watermarked source, the watermarking thing is a moot topic. The logic goes something like this: Since the watermark data will be placed in the files in such a way that they will presumably be inaudible, the watermark bits are not going to survive a *lossy* compression algorithm like MP3. Even at MP3's highest bitrate of 320kbps, there's no way you could take a watermarked .wav file, compress it to Mp3, decompress it and expect to see any reasonable part of the original watermark left. Furthermore, MP3 encoders could be instructed to add their own random inaudible data, thereby thoroughly defeating anyone trying to discover the original watermark.

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

there's no way you could take a watermarked .wav file, compress it to Mp3, decompress it and expect to see any reasonable part of the original watermark left There is more than one way to skin a cat. What you are talking about is frequency-domain watermarking. But consider the possibility of time-domain watermarking - where certain 'events' in the recording are shifted in relation to each other by a few milliseconds. That kind of watermarking *will* survive even extreme amounts of lossy recompression.

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

But consider the possibility of time-domain watermarking - where certain 'events' in the recording are shifted in relation to each other by a few milliseconds. That kind of watermarking *will* survive even extreme amounts of lossy recompression. Seems like it would easily be beaten by averaging a very small number of copies.

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[Gordo_1]

Yup didn't think of that. But I still contend that mp3 encoders could add their own time-domain noise and defeat it just the same.

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[drspliff]

Last.fm does their watermarking this way, or atleast thats what I think it is.

At specific points in the track it'll jump 1/16th or something equally small but still noticable, and I've always presumed that they were part of a watermarking system. It's quite annoying to listen to because it throws you off balance for a bar or two, but I guess it serves it's purpose well...

Other than snipping bits out like that, I can't really think of any other watermarking system that would work across multiple encodes/decodes at different qualities. The same system is used to watermark DVD screeners (or so I'm told), when specific sections go greyscale for a different amount of time, basically it's removing information which can't be recreated (and even if it were recreated, the watermark would likely be detectable).

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[zenkonami]

Excellent point (and unfortunately I'd already used up my mod points).

Re:Watermarking won't stop piracy.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Last.fm does their watermarking this way, or atleast thats what I think it is. I highly doubt that. The time-based stuff is a lot more subtle than what you describe, pretty much inaudible unless you have two versions to A/B compare against each other, and even then its hard. A few milliseconds of drift (not jumps like you mention) are beyond perceptible for most humans. For example, most people won't notice a problem if the sound track for a movie is off by less than 50ms. (NBC's entire HDTV line up has an extra 50ms of audio delay compared to all the other networks and only the most dedicated home theater freaks even notice).

I dropped last.fm when CBS bought them so I don't have any experience with it. But my educated guess is that what you are hearing is a bug.

The problem is stolen music.

[ChangeOnInstall]

Everyone I know who has ever had their car broken into has lost all of their CDs.

So if my car is broken into, am I responsible for the millions of dollars in lost "revenue" for burned tracks when the thieves share them with others on P2P?

Other common scenarios of course are laptop theft, network intrusion, and ipod theft.

I pay in cash

[nurb432]

So how are they going to track me?

Also, prove it wasn't stolen off my pc..

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[KermodeBear]

I second that.

My dad is pretty cool and all, but he never made a ceremony out of me beating old equipment to death.

You have a lucky kid. (o:

Do not have to be unique

[SuperKendall]

Like, duh. For watermarks to work they have to be different between different copies of the same file

No they don't. It all depends on what your goals are. It's quite easy to have watermarks unique to only a music seller (say Amazon or Apple) and not an individual. The only thing watermarks have to do to "work" is be readable; uniqueness is an additional property that may or may not be of use.

At the highest level, you could watermark all digitally distributed music the same purely to determine if a ripped copy came from an authorized electronic copy or not.

the true colors of the fags comes through

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone bitched about drm because of their ipods and car players. now that the issue is solved everyone is bitching about being tracked. fuckers, just admit that you're fucking thieves and stop hiding behind some non-existence shield of virtue.

i hope you all go to jail and get ass raped by an aids fag.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, fair use isn't illegal. Yet.

Not about catching thieves

[Murrquan]

A lot of people posting on this thread say that there's nothing to complain about, unless we're going to be filesharing with millions of people on the Internet. The problem is, this isn't about them reducing theft, and it never has been. The thieves are the ones who are savvy enough not to get caught! This is about them restricting the freedoms of legitimate users. In the privacy of your home you can let someone listen to tracks that you bought -- right now -- but if they had their way you wouldn't be able to loan them over the 'net, because someone will catch you and lock you away.

What if your iPod gets stolen? What if you want to gift tracks to someone? Do you think they care? It seems like they'll sue anyone if they think they can get away with it. Moreover, they're still gouging their customers, and keeping nearly all the money for themselves (instead of paying the artists).

I don't believe in taking things that aren't mine to take. I'm not filesharing, I'm not stealing music, and I'm still against DRM and digital watermarks. Furthermore, the Motley Fool stock gurus are cautioning people against buying stock in RIAA-affiliated companies. They're not in the business of creating value anymore -- if anything, they're the ones who are thieves.

collusion attacks

[joe_plastic]

Well many people mentioned collusion attacks against watermarks so the real size of the encoded id has to be greater. factorial(P)/factorial(P-C) where P is population and C is number of colluders. so to find out which ten out of 6 billion people conspired -- you need to robustly recover around 32.48*10 or 324.8 bits. each colluder might knock out around half the bits -- so 2**9 is 512 times that. around 166310 bits or 20,789 bytes . that has to fit in realm where the end-users don't complain and where lossy compressors don't stomp on it anyway.
Also will how bad peoples computer security is it could be hard to pin the leak on the person(s) assigned the id(s) anyway.

simple bandwidth fix

[Gothmolly]

Take yer watermarked file, play it through a low-pass filter, aka Soundblaster line-out port, then re-record it. Presto, all those pesky high-frequency 'marks' filtered away!

The more you tighten your grip, etc. etc.

Not!

[greg1104]

Wow, pretty clever--average the waves together! I'm sure none of the math geeks doing audio watermark research ever thought of that!

Like any protection scheme, it's possible to hack watermarking, but it's not trivial. Good audio watermarking can survive all sorts of transformations while still being detectable. It can certainly survive averaging, conversion to other formats or passing through the "analog hole", and similar things that defeat simple DRM implementations.

A typical audio watermark implementation adds noise to the signal at some amplitude deemed inaudible; let's call it noise at a low volume level to pick a concept people understand. Detecting the watermark is essentially listening for that unique noise. Now, if you put a watermark into two copies of the file, then average them together, you've essentially mixed the two watermark noises together. What you'll end up with is the original music plus the watermarks for both accounts, with each watermark at half its original volume. Can the watermark detector still hear the noise if it's at half its original volume? If the original watermark was "loud" enough, sure.

Now, if you have more than just two copies, maybe you can mix enough of them together such that the individual watermarks are inaudible. But the problem here is that unless you know exactly how the watermark detector works, you'll never know whether you've done that. Maybe there's a base watermark that's the same on all the files and all you've accomplished is eliminating their ability to figure out which account it came from--but they still know it's definitely an illegally distributed copy. And who knows what happens to the fidelity if you start mixing too many copies of different noise together.

Security by obscurity won't work

[aepervius]

Buy 10 of those files. Decode through audio. Decode through frequency/fourier. Compare. Since watermarking must be inaudible or at least not perceptible, then it can be changed. Just re-encode the same with all different bit changed randomly either in the fourrier domain or in the real domain. It does not matter. You CANNOT hide something, to somebody with too much time on their hand which has 100% access to it, especially when they know it is there for them to find. It is even more stupider than to think it won't be found as to think software DRM can work. Such a scheme can only get the unaware caught. And once it is "cracked" or bypassed, then you are back to point zero, a few million $ less with a useless watermarking scheme, and some individual are a few dozen/hundred hour short, but get praised by millions.

I don#t condone piracy, but frankly if you think you can win that fight by watermarking then I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:Security by obscurity won't work

[dangil]

actually you can't win.. so the RIAA can only do 2 things: make music free or make music unplayable... so far they are going to the unplayable route...

Sources

[Anonymous Coward]

Most pirated stuff that's found on the internet is out before the retail things are out anyway. This means people who originally supply the media to release groups are probably working in a place where the original unmarked files are so there's still nothing to stop them being released by pirates without watermarks.

Also what about CD's bought in shops with cash? Are they going to start requiring you to show ID and record your purchase and link it to the watermarked CD you bought? Then it's equally easy for anybody working in such a place (thousands of people) to simply alter the records with a fake name I would guess. Or for the purchaser to use a fake ID, etc, etc

Somebuddy square me away, please

[earlymon]

OK, I've followed this issue closely over the year, have R.lots.TFA - but now, unless I've been missing something, a whole new level of smoke-screening has been added to the subject.

In the referenced article, watermarking now has two attributes (not the only two, no anal please): 1) method exists from large player (in this case, Microsoft) to add digital info to a media file that cannot be circumvented; 2) this info can be used by media distributers to, for example, to give the music industry power to prove pirating or to trace the illegal move of media across the net (goes hand-in-glove with ISP filtering, so the article indirectly said that, whether it meant to or not).

Now, even though the article and everyone here is acknowledging the death of DRM and discussing watermarks - I think it's propaganda and a lot of people are buying.

How is the watermarking discussed here _NOT_ DRM?

Think about it. DRM was not an attempt to lock down media on a single platform (read on before shouting, please). DRM is an attempt to control pirating where the media industry wants to prove and control piracy and prosecute those sharing. Its first incarnation was lock-down on a per-platform basis, which from a business sense is pretty smart - saving money on lawyers and putting things on technology's backs. I think this is just the next incarnation, where they can still put the burden on the backs of others, but now give their lawyers - especially their I-told-you-so lawyers - the technical muscle to be much less embarrassed in court over digital forensic screw-ups.

And to me it seems like they're succeeding. I remember when the debate in the early days was a) how easy DRM would be to circumvent so no one would take it seriously, b) consumers wouldn't stand for it, c) there's nothing wrong with it if it were implemented properly, and d) _no one_ here condones pirates, it doesn't interfere with the digital stream too badly, so this may be an acceptable course of action if done right.

So. To me, this thread sounds like the exact same discussions, with s/DRM/watermark/g.

Somebuddy square me away, please. How is this not DRM Phase II and a propaganda victory for the dark media overlords? I don't get it.

This sucks...

[feepness]

Don't they know that water and electronics don't mix!

Re:compression removes watermarks Re:I don't reall

[jbengt]

With sufficient care, all watermarks are removable in practice.

A missing watermark is evidence that you don't have an authorized copy.

On the other hand, if it's destroyed by compression, then lack of a watermark in your fair use copy may not be reliable evidence.

Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spare me the assertion that anyone who wants to remove the watermark is a pirate. The watermark has no legitimate purpose to the consumer and represents possible risk. It puts a chilling effect on fair use. And I for one don't share your assumption that the record companies will only go after the 'hardcore' pirates. What, you think if your roommate 'borrows' your iPod and puts all your songs on p2p you won't be found liable? Right.

Why would I keep it if I can easily remove it?

Re:Meh.

[Joe Jay Bee]

The watermark has no legitimate purpose to the consumer and represents possible risk

It is a way to prove you purchased the file, similar to a receipt. The only risk is if someone steals your MP3 player and, rather than wiping it and selling it/putting their own music on it, decides for some fucked up reason to upload it to P2P, cos I know that's what I'd do if I stole someone's iPod. (Note: heavy sarcasm.)

It puts a chilling effect on fair use.

How so?

What, you think if your roommate 'borrows' your iPod and puts all your songs on p2p you won't be found liable? Right.

No, you won't, because it'll be your roommate who infringes and you could call him as a witness or something.

Why would I keep it if I can easily remove it?

I could turn that around: why remove it? What's the point? All the negative points I've heard against watermarking are just outlandish, if not actually conspiracy theories.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't turn it around because your only attempt to address the negatives is with absurd optimism. Case in point, you think a pirate roommate will be honest enough to throw himself on the grenade. This optimism is especially ironic since you have a very pessimistic view (assuming piracy) when it comes to removing the watermarks.

The point, though, is that - whether or not you think such concerns are likely - there are clearly reasons other than piracy to want to remove the water marks.

CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Purchase a CD at a store using cash.
2. Rip the CD.
3. Post on P2P
4. ???
5. Profit!

Re:CDs

[Anonymous Coward]

6. Audio watermark is discovered on P2P files.
7. Watermark found to be from store in your area.
8. Store's CCTV recordings from the date and times that CD was purchased are analysed.
9. Big explosion.
10. Police sirens are heard, ironically overlaid with the sirens playing on the hiphop CD of your downfall.
11. Car chase.
12. Another explosion.
14. Gripping finale.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

You work for the industry and are finding yourself screwed by the industry's own DRM and living in fear due to their tactics. The things is by lending your elderly mother those disks you're commiting piracy. If you weren't doing that you wouldn't be "living in fear". Are we really suppose to have any sympathy for you? You're part of the industry that's created the problem. You get advanced releases and are in a position of trust. You do the wrong thing with them. How about the poor schmuck that pays for every movie and can't return them when they discover a manufacturing fault or worse when the entire DVD collection starts to rot? How about the schmuck that does the right thing and doesn't copy their disk only to find they have to sit through 10 minutes of brainwashing anti piracy propaganda every time they watch their movie?

Anonymous watermarking

[Anonymous Coward]

As part of a required test protocol, our previous statement suggesting that these watermarked audio files would be anonymous was an outright fabrication.

Re:compression removes watermarks Re:I don't reall

[WolfWithoutAClause]

What use is a tracking technique that only tracks people that aren't breaking the law? None. It's the ones that are breaking the law they are interested in. And watermarks don't deliver, or only against the very stupid ones.

You can use anonymous credit cards

[Anonymous Coward]

https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=95198

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

no by lending the discs to his elderly mother, he's committing an act of lending.

Get the fuck off your high horse, or at least be more accurate in your terminology when being an asshole.

Cause vs Effect = Inconvenience & Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't, as an Academy member, believe that trading movies with your friends is piracy. As a kid we used to do it with VHS all the time"

I'll address this by asking you a question. back in the day did you have the technology to make perfect copies? Back in the day did you have the technology to distribute that perfect copy to all that wanted in, even if they're halfway across the planet? Why do you then expect back in the day and now to be the same?

"So is this what we're reduced to? Living in fear and paranoia as if in a police state? Will Big Brother find my name/number attached to a rip online and bust my ass down to the basement?"

Someone flew several airliners into some buildings and now we have the present. Someone decided that it was OK to repeatedly violate copyright and now we have the present. You're a bright guy, can't you see the link between cause and effect?

Regional Price Fixing

[Ox0065]

Given the regional nature of DRM in DVDs, it would be interesting to see if they produce regional watermarks to enforce regional price fixing... cough ...I mean regional copyright licensing agreements. A per vendor watermark?

Ok for fair use.

[MichailS]

Well, the argument was that we want to be able to exert our Fair Use rights all along, right? Watermarks don't interfere with that right - on the contrary, I kind of approve of the idea that my files should have a "Belongs to Michail" stamp - so I find it to be a fair trade-off.

Except of course if someone steals my harddrive and my MP3's end up on the net and authorities accuse me for spreading contraband. That would be un-nice.

Re:compression removes watermarks Re:I don't reall

[jbengt]

Successful fingerprinting to track individual users is difficult to successfully accomplish. You can more easily use plain watermarking and can still get some benefit from that in being able to tell whether or not the copy you're examining is an authorized copy.

I'm not advocating either one, mind you.

Ignore this post

[SETIGuy]

The new discussion code screwed me, so I'm undoing my mods...

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

He's violating the conditions of being given those disks - conditions which the industry imposes much more harshly on outsiders. Furthermore his worry is that his mother will lend out the disks against his wishes and therefore allow them to be copied which is piracy. Therefore he would be cut off for aiding the piracy. This is why he lives in fear.

The solution is simple. He's not meant to be lending out the disks to his mother, so he shouldn't do that. No paranoia or fear required. If he thinks these conditions aren't reasonable well then perhaps he ought to complain to the powers that be in the industry he's part of. After all if he's getting those disks its because his opinion counts in some way, not because the movie industry likes to give them away for charity. He's in a much better position to change the situation than an outsider.

So how about you stop your trolling long enough to get the mud out of your ears and the shit out of our brains, and perhaps learn some social skills so that you don't come across as an anal trolling git with the social skills of a hungry grizzly bear. Or more succinctly: Grow the fuck up.

This is a genius.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fear that you are somehow being invisibly tracked is far more effective than the actual watermarking technology.

It's new tracking technology

[Mesa MIke]

When you forward this watermarked MP3 to friends, RIAA can and will track it, for a two weeks time period.

For every person that you forward this e-mail to, RIAA will sue you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, RIAA will sue you $2450.00 and for every third person that receives it, You will be sued $24500.00. Within two weeks, RIAA will contact you for your address and then send you a summons.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

He's violating the conditions of being given those disks is he? I also *assumed* that such lending would *probably* break the terms on which he receives them, but unless you have a copy of his terms of use in front of you, or would like to toss a link I'm going to go ahead and not presume anything about what those terms might actually be. At the very least, and all i was trying to say, lending is not piracy. lending is lending. if lending is prohibited, then clearly he's a jerk for breaking the terms of use. But dont get all uppity at him for doing something he's not. Its not just linguistic squabbling on my part, you are inappropriately using narrowly defined terms, and that's bullshit argument.

If he thinks these conditions aren't reasonable well then perhaps he ought to complain to the powers that be in the industry he's part of Because clearly complaining to the powers that be in his industry is mutually exclusive with posting a rant on /. I mean, if he'd already made his objections heard, he'd have no reason to chime in on a /. discussion, right? Of course not. once again, you're deriding him for doing or not doing something which you have no way of knowing he has or hasnt done. what exactly is the point of that? I mean, apart from it being easier than taking issue with something that was *actually* said, of course.

So how about you stop your trolling long enough to get the mud out of your ears and the shit out of our brains, and perhaps learn some social skills so that you don't come across as an anal trolling git with the social skills of a hungry grizzly bear. Or more succinctly: Grow the fuck up

Hrm, anal trolling git... that's a new one. Well, i do apologize for taking issue with the toolishness with which you were taking GP to task. Clearly, i should have, like you, responded not to something you actually said, but some implication of what you said that I had no way of knowing or verifying and then taken you to task for that. Man, what was I thinking? As for this talk of trolling and social skills, well, i dunno. You posted a rant against a guy predicated on a faulty use of piracy. you were being an asshole. I pointed out both things. Can't handle it? Fuck off. Saying that Lending != Piracy isnt being anal, its pointing out a fact. Calling you an asshole is, well, just how i saw it. Simply my opinion, but based on the way you were conducting yourself in the discussion. It is, of course, absolutely hiLARious that your response ends with what is essentially 'stfu TROLL' given your sig. From the particular way in which you seem to think it best to disagree with something, I'm entirely unsurprised you've found it necessary to have a sig like that.

so i will again, say, get the fuck off your high horse, or at least try to avoid calling someone a troll when they are merely correcting your previous troll, it just seems...disingenuous. cheers

How does this stop a LAN party?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I haven't bothered DLing music in years. It's a terrifically inefficient use of my time. I just go over someone's house with my hard drive, and Click 'n' Drag what I want.

If I like it, then I buy the CD. If I don't it sits and rots and gets ignored until I need more room on the drive and delete it.

I don't see how watermarking defeats this practice of file sharing, as my music collection has ZERO internet foot print.

RS

bad music/content as watermark itself.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of MTV, the crappiness of the lyrics and contents of their music is its own watermark itself.

Many pop labels share this crappermark :)

(resents)

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

is he? I also *assumed* that such lending would *probably* break the terms on which he receives them, but unless you have a copy of his terms of use in front of you, or would like to toss a link I'm going to go ahead and not presume anything about what those terms might actually be

Please, get a clue and try and argument that isn't piss weak. Can you fucking tell me why else he'd be living in fear of it? Or why he'd have received a player and dvds that only work in that restricted player. Do you think it's because they're trying to facilitate copying? The ONLY logical conclusion is that it's against the terms of use (not terms of service - if you're going to be pedantic about abusing me over minute detail at least get the detail right yourself).

At the very least, and all i was trying to say, lending is not piracy. lending is lending

Oh boo fucking hoo you dishonest prat. Try saying it without calling me an "asshole" and telling me to get off my high horse. You're a troll.

t. Its not just linguistic squabbling on my part, you are inappropriately using narrowly defined terms, and that's bullshit argument. ..and yet you're just as lax with your own language. Again you're a troll.

you're deriding him for doing or not doing something which you have no way of knowing he has or hasnt done

Huh? Nice straw man. I'm posting a response to the details he gave me: That he's an association member and gets pre-release dvds. I made very little in the way of assumption and found it disturbing that someone in such a privelleged position still wanted to complain whilst breaking the rules when the consequence for him is losing his position of privelege (in contrast to those who live in fear of being prosecuted into bankruptcyfor doing something as simple as backing up their dvds).

You're a quibbling troll.

Hrm, anal trolling git... that's a new one. Well, i do apologize for taking issue with the toolishness with which you were taking GP to task. Clearly, i should have, like you, responded not to something you actually said, but some implication of what you said that I had no way of knowing or verifying and then taken you to task for that. Man, what was I thinking?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

I suppose what you expected was chocolates and flowers when calling someone an asshole and telling them to get off their high horse. Idiot.

As for this talk of trolling and social skills, well, i dunno. You posted a rant against a guy predicated on a faulty use of piracy. you were being an asshole. I pointed out both things. Can't handle it?

"Faulty use of piracy". Well how about your "faulty use of terms of service". No, you understood the meaning and intent of my message and instead of responding like a rational human being you choose to be abusive and fixate on the technical misuse of a term. What exactly is it that I'm suppose to be unable to handle? Your feeble argumentative skills or your complete lack of social skill? Don't make me laugh you pathetic little troll.

Fuck off. Saying that Lending != Piracy isnt being anal, its pointing out a fact.

Well double dumb ass to you too fella.

More straw men. It wasn't me that first mentioned piracy. The GP said that he was afraid his mother would lend to friends who would copy. That's called piracy (even though its not rape and pillage on the high seas). The GP was afraid of being caught over piracy. He wasn't afraid his mother would get caught with the lent dvd, he was afraid it would be copied and distributed.

Instead of taking this on board, you choose to be a stupid childish troll and fixate on a definition.

Simply my opinion, but based on the way you were conducting yourself in the discussion. It is, of course, absolutely hiLARious that your response ends with what is essentially 'stfu TROLL'

Dude you need help. You started the abuse and you're lecturing me on how I'm conducting this discussion??? What are you

Big Business sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Music is being ruined by greed. Big business owns the US gov't who will soon own the internet. After all, corporations and gov't are merely quid-pro-quo whorehouses sold to the highest bidder. When the gov't needs illegal wire-taps, Verizon and Sprint allow them secret rooms to listen in on calls. When Haliburton (and KBR) need more revenue, the gov't hands out no-bid contracts. When the gov't dislikes literature, Amazon and Wikipedia ban the book "America Deceived". We The People had our gov't sold out from beneath us.
Final link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)

Re:Big Business sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for clearing that up.

Nuts! My ipod was just stolen...

[macbeth66]

I guess all of my DRM-free, watermarked MP3s will soon show up on the internet now. Too bad there was nothing I could do about that.

Time Shifting

[raftpeople]

You are assuming that you can keep them in sync. If you read up on the time shifting method of encoding additional information you will see that arbitrarily small lengths of the original are either compressed, expanded or unaltered, leaving the encoded data not very "syncable".

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

The ONLY logical conclusion is that it's against the terms of use

this is true, which is why I also assumed as much. But there's a difference between assuming something and acting as if its fact. Pretty simple. You never know, there may be a clause in the terms of use explicitly allowing family members access. I wouldn't assume there is one, but it wouldn't surprise me either.

(not terms of service - if you're going to be pedantic about abusing me over minute detail at least get the detail right yourself).

Go ahead and search my comment for the word "service." You will find that it does not appear. You will also notice that the section of my comment you quoted uses the phrase "terms of use" not terms of service. You pulled terms of service out of your ass, and then layed in to me for misusing them. Which I didnt. I'd write this off as an honest mistake, but it really seems to be how you roll. find something i *actually* said to curse me out for, eh?

Oh boo fucking hoo you dishonest prat. Try saying it without calling me an "asshole" and telling me to get off my high horse. You're a troll.

Yes, I should have been more specific. All I was trying to say when pointing out that you had misused the term piracy was that lending != piracy. I entirely meant that you were being an asshole, and needed to get the fuck off your high horse. That doesnt make me a troll, that makes me vulgar. Both points were valid, and have clearly sparked a lively debate. Also, I fail to see the relevance of slandering my honesty. but clearly not understanding this point is what makes me a troll and you not...

and yet you're just as lax with your own language. Again you're a troll.

I'm not lax with my own language, as I pointed out above. You attributed a comment to me i did not make, and took me to task for it. Go you!

Huh? Nice straw man. I'm posting a response to the details he gave me

I'm not sure you understand what a straw man actually is. Since correcting misused terminology apparently makes one a troll now, I'll simply reiterate that I feel you went beyond the reasonable reach of assumption in taking GP to task for lending out the pre-release dvds. Even prefacing your statement with "isnt that against the terms of use, because if so, you're being really stupid for the following reasons," would have alleviated my concerns, but no, much more fun to just treat your own reasoning as fact and proceed from there.

I suppose what you expected was chocolates and flowers when calling someone an asshole and telling them to get off their high horse. Idiot.

damn, were flowers and chocolates an option?

"Faulty use of piracy". Well how about your "faulty use of terms of service". No, you understood the meaning and intent of my message and instead of responding like a rational human being you choose to be abusive and fixate on the technical misuse of a term.

Well, i guess we disagree there. See, to me, briefly correcting terminology and letting someone know they're being a self-righteous asshole is a more rational human response than ripping in to someone for my assumption about the implication of something they said without first ascertaining the veracity of that assumption. I will again point out that I never used Terms of Service instead of Terms of Use.

What exactly is it that I'm suppose to be unable to handle? Your feeble argumentative skills or your complete lack of social skill? Don't make me laugh you pathetic little troll.

Uh... me calling you an asshole and telling you to fuck off. I'd say, 'but clearly you can handle it,' but methinks the lady doth protest too much. Nothing says "i am totally handling this" like resorting to Bond Villain language.

More straw men. It wasn't me that first mentioned piracy. The GP said that he was afraid his mother would lend to friends who would copy.

mo

Wow, ENTIRE albums? ZOMG!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uploading entire albums is hardcore piracy? That's like saying running entire metres is hardcore exercise.

Watermarking is a serial number, not fingerprints

[Torodung]

My question is how does this safeguard anyone?

If you think about it, watermarking is really a solution to a nonexistent problem. What a watermark will determine is "Yup, this is a legitimate, official copy."

My concern is not authenticity; the problem is piracy, not forgery. We are talking about an act of infringement, not actual physical theft. The "stolen" track can't be returned to its licensee, can it? Why do we need this then?

After all, the prosecution will still have to prove that the "owner" of the tracks (who is named by the watermark), in fact, distributed the tracks himself, and possibly even that he did so from a machine that he was authorized to use in that fashion.

In the end, watermarked tracks solve nothing.

To use a car analogy: If this was a car, a VIN number could track whose car it was, when it was bought, maintenance records, and who produced the vehicle. It couldn't prove that the owner ran somebody down with it. You'd need someone to testify that he was at the wheel!

Same thing here. It doesn't matter who licensed the song for playback, it matters if he committed infringement. The watermark can't help prove that any more than the VIN number.

What scares me about this is that unethical prosecutors are going to claim that this is just like "fingerprints." Such claims can compound the mess we are already in if they are presented to credulous juries as an incontrovertible technological identifier, like a fingerprint, instead of what it actually is: a cleverly applied certificate of authenticity and licensure.

This would no more prove infringement than the serial number on a hundred dollar bill could tell you who stole it.

--
Toro

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

this is true, which is why I also assumed as much. But there's a difference between assuming something and acting as if its fact.

Oh so you've never heard of deductive reasoning, troll? How do you think we know most of what we know about the world around us? Because some magical person walked up and spelt it out? Then you have the gaul to tell me you're not sure I don't understand what a strawman is because you can't see one in your pathetic rant.

i *actually* said to curse me out for, eh?

You mean like calling me an asshole and telling me to get off my high horse. Stop playing the fucking victim. It's pathetic.

Yes, I should have been more specific. All I was trying to say when pointing out that you had misused the term piracy was that lending != piracy. I entirely meant that you were being an asshole, and needed to get the fuck off your high horse. That doesnt make me a troll, that makes me vulgar.

Actually, it makes you a vulgar troll. You know nothing about me, and if you start hurling insults then whine about it when they're slung back (as you most definitely did do), you come across as a loser.

I don't know how many times I have to state why you're a troll. I guess that mud in your ears isn't falling out any time soon. You're a troll because you harp on semantics and are rude and ignorant. Purposefully missing the point then abusing someone for getting their semantics right makes you a vulgar little troll. Get it?

Do you fucking understand the meaning of the word troll, shit for brains? A troll is someone who's main goal in arguing is to piss the other person off. Being vulgar and abusive (which you've just admitted to) is certainly a nice start.

Arrogance. Check.
Pendantic raving about semantics. Check.
Vulgar and abusive. Check.

YOU ARE A TROLL. You're just too stupid to know it, or too trollish to admit it.

As for the rest of your post stick it up your arse you pathetic little troll. Go find someone else to feed you. I hope you enjoyed typing it because I'm not going to respond to personal attacks by a child with anything lengthier. So go fuck yourself. I have better things to do.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Oh so you've never heard of deductive reasoning, troll? How do you think we know most of what we know about the world around us? Because some magical person walked up and spelt it out? I most certainly have heard of deductive reasoning. I just took the final line of Wittgenstein's Tractatus very much to heart. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent. However confident in my analytical reasoning skills I may be, something making perfect logical sense to me in no way makes it fact. I find this way of thinking to be infinitely superior to one that cant tell the difference between reason and demonstrated fact, and i think that the scientific method would agree with me. First hypothesize, then test the hypothesis, then draw conclusions. Basically what I've been trying to say all along is that you seem to skip the middle step. if this has been unclear, i apologize.

Then you have the gaul to tell me you're not sure I don't understand what a strawman is because you can't see one in your pathetic rant. I have the gall to tell you that you dont know what a straw man is, because you misapplied the term both times you accused me of creating one, and yet had time to commit the fallacy yourself. Seems fairly self-evident to me. I have never once ascribed intention to any of your actions, nor sought to overstate your position for the purpose of more dramatically bringing it down. You, on the other hand, have repeatedly misstated something i said and then repeatedly and dramatically used said misstatement as the anchor of your argument. That is about as textbook a definition of straw man as I've ever seen on /.

You mean like calling me an asshole and telling me to get off my high horse. Stop playing the fucking victim. It's pathetic. Yes, i mean exactly like that. Did it feel different, laying into me for something i actually said? Of course by omitting the first part of that quoted sentence, you obviate the awkwardness of admitting that you were wrong, that I never said Terms of Service, and that your tirade on the subject was just you being a huge asshole. Well done.

Purposefully missing the point then abusing someone for getting their semantics right makes you a vulgar little troll. Get it? *sigh* If you really want to stand behind that comment, you should realize that it applies equally to you, but at least I was right about the semantics. Though, i don't really have any real response to this beyond I believe it is you, sir, who are missing the point.

Do you fucking understand the meaning of the word troll, shit for brains?

apparently not, perhaps you should try explaining it again, maybe this time with more invective, personal slander, and cursing, it wasn't quite meta enough that time.

Well, I do know what troll means. My favorite part of the wikipedia article is this:

The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often erroneously used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument fallacy ad hominem. Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities Hmmmm term troll often used to discredit opposition via fallacy ad hominem... sounds familiar. Granted, I did call you an asshole first. mea culpa.

Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you still buy music with cash? Or stolen credit card information? Then you can safely launch watermarked music into the p2p networks. *AA can download the music, determine the watermark, and catalog it for future reference, but there is no trail back to the initiator through the music.

If they want to prosecute a user, they have some watermarks to look for. Turning that into forensic grade evidence could be a little harder, if you have a good-enough defense lawyer.

On another note, the current means of production for CDs by stamping does not make it practical to mark each disc with a different watermark.

Re:Nuts! My ipod was just stolen...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, your Ipod holds 4.3 TiBs?

P2P

[HermMunster]

P2P networks are not illegal. Some acts performed on them may be illegal. A car isn't illegal even if it is use in a bank robbery.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

Wittgenstein's Tractatus? Please. You're so full of yoruself. You've tried to dazzle and confuse with your purportedly wide knowledge, but fail to actually counter-argue the point. (Plenty of personal attacks though).

The GP said outright that he was afraid one of his mother's friends would copy the DVD. This is called piracy. It doesn't matter what books you've read or what terms you apply to it. The GP was afraid of being implicated in piracy and therefore being ejected from the association.

Your straw men:

Straw man 1: syousef's main point was thatd lending is piracy. Lending clearly is not piracy. Therefore syousef is an asshole and doesn't know what he's talking about.

While I may have misapplied the term, that certainly wasn't my main point, nor was it crucial to my main point. Yet you keep attacking the point even after I'd conceded it. Since you're into the history of logic I suggest you actually look up where the term straw man came from.

Straw man 2: Find it your damned self.

Granted, I did call you an asshole first. mea culpa.

Now why is it that I don't think that's a genuine apology especially given that you continue to whine...

apparently not, perhaps you should try explaining it again, maybe this time with more invective, personal slander, and cursing, it wasn't quite meta enough that time.

Translation: I can dish it out but I can't take it.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Wittgenstein's Tractatus? Please. You're so full of yoruself. You've tried to dazzle and confuse with your purportedly wide knowledge, but fail to actually counter-argue the point. (Plenty of personal attacks though). hardly wide knowledge. its actually a very short and simple read. but it has shaped the way i approach what is knowable, and is actually a direct response to your critique of my deductive reasoning skills. It should be neither dazzling nor confusing, as it is a very straightforward idea which, as i mentioned is very much in line with the scientific method which we use to gain knowledge of the world around us.

The GP said outright that he was afraid one of his mother's friends would copy the DVD. This is called piracy. It doesn't matter what books you've read or what terms you apply to it. The GP was afraid of being implicated in piracy and therefore being ejected from the association. Afraid of being implicated in potential piracy and actually committing piracy are two very different things, a distinction which seems to evade you.

Straw man 1: syousef's main point was thatd lending is piracy. Lending clearly is not piracy. Therefore syousef is an asshole and doesn't know what he's talking about. I did not allege that you said lending is piracy, i quoted your comment saying that lending is piracy. This is not overstating an opponents position to more easily knock it down, its directly responding to exactly what you said. again, here it is:

The things is by lending your elderly mother those disks you're commiting piracy. Where in this comment are you saying anything other than lending = piracy?

While I may have misapplied the term, that certainly wasn't my main point, nor was it crucial to my main point. Yet you keep attacking the point even after I'd conceded it. I must be missing the part where you conceded anything, for all the other parts where you not only failed to concede that you had misspoke, but rather just continue to talk about some hypothetical situation that GP was afraid of that would be piracy. But of course had not actually happened. I'm certainly not here to say that if GP's mother lent the discs to friends who copied them and distributed said copies that wouldnt be piracy. saying that would be as wrong as saying that by lending the discs GP himself was committing piracy.

Straw man 2: Find it your damned self. Hrm, you initially followed your second accusation of straw man with saying that GP had mentioned piracy first and therefore accusing you of misusing the term was a straw man. This simply is not the case. You misspoke, and have been unwilling to recognize this fact. Its actually the same non-straw man as no. 1, when it comes down to it. You said that lending is piracy, when it clearly is not.

Now why is it that I don't think that's a genuine apology especially given that you continue to whine... You probably think that because its not an apology of any sort. Its an admission of culpability. I'm also not sure how I can be said to have continued to do anything after that, as it was the final line of my comment. You seem to think that sarcasm is whining. it isnt.

Translation: I can dish it out but I can't take it. Again, sarcasm != whining. I just thought I'd point out how ridiculous you sound. But of course, its much easier to simply call my responses whining and ignore them than address them, so i can understand where you're coming from.

Encryption and signature...

[bwcbwc]

Are you saying that if they use an encrypted, possibly steganized watermark on a lossy format like mpg or jpg, you'll be able to separate the watermark from the signal and tamper with the watermark? Yeah you can tell which bits have flipped between two versions of the recording, but if they make the watermark size large enough (say 1024 bit) so that the variations can exceed the number of copies sold by a few orders of magnitude, yet small enough so that it can be randomly scattered around the medium, how are you going to tamper with a watermark without leaving a trace? And you'd have to get digital copies of multiple versions of the media. It isn't like Wi-Fi packet sniffing where you can just download data for about 1/2 an hour and you've cracked the system. You need thousands or millions of different versions of the same song/disc to decipher any meaning from the discrepancies.

In the old days, you could say just wait a few years and the CPUs will take care of it. But it looks like we're getting near the end of Moore's law: while processor feature sizes continue to decrease, the clock rate is no longer increasing as fast, so they're forced to use multi-core and other workarounds. And given that for a CD we're talking 600-700 MB, and for DVD and HD (pick your format) we're talking 4-20 GB, it's trivial to hide a signature several kilobits long in there.

The one catch is that they have to enable a robust encryption system. If they candy-ass it like with CSS on DVDs, eventually it'll get out. On the other hand, there are more countries that have anti-circumvention laws, so even then there may not be any takers.

Not to mention that...

[bwcbwc]

There is no way to associate the watermark with "your details" unless the retailers report back to them every purchase by every customer. And if you pay cash, then what?...or is that illegal now?

I suppose that once you've been tracked buying one item, they could fake a purchase on their own online store and then put the watermarked file out on the internet. But why would they do that? These guys have been aggressive, but it's always been about preserving their access to the revenue stream as it transitions to digital distribution. When they've sued the wrong people, it's because of their low-budget approach to evidence-gathering more than an attempt to pick members of the general public at random. Even if they're convinced you're the world's most prolific media pirate and they need to take you down, they've got a better chance of getting you on the stuff you've actually ripped and distributed, rather than some bogus paper trail that would take months to set up.

If I were being paranoid, I'd be more concerned about the watermarking scheme coupled with a rootkit to see exactly what fair-use format conversions you're doing. Or whether you're ripping disks you've borrowed from your local library. That would tempt them both from a copy-enforcement and a market-research point of view. And even if they don't uniquely identify individual disks sold to consumers, they may opt for other approaches in relation to libraries, rentals or download services.

I have to give them credit for finding a method of copy auditing that responds to the needs of both the market and their lawyers. It's early days to say whether it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but at least they're finally breaking out of their old mindset and accepting the new distribution model.

lost/stolen collection & resale are problems

[Anonymous Coward]

How many computers are compromised every day? All these people would -potentially- see their collections on P2P, oops. And, once one file is shared, you can never get it back... Nice, having your ID linked to that forever. Or what if you lose/get stolen your MP3 player?

Then there is the argument of resale. This system prevents it. I think it is unfair.

(However, I agree that there is a serious hypocrisis from most of the 'pirates')

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

hardly wide knowledge. its actually a very short and simple read.

Yeah thanks for the tip - I'll put it on my list. In the meantime you're still being a pompous arrogant pratt. You didn't need to bring any specific book on logic into the argument except in a crappy attempt to come across as superior. You've brought in every irrelevant thing into the argument, from Wittgenstein's Tractatus to my sig in an attempt to distract from the actual argument. It's called being a troll. It shows you have no interest in the argument at all. It doesn't come across as clever. It comes across as what it is: petty and childish.

Afraid of being implicated in potential piracy and actually committing piracy are two very different things, a distinction which seems to evade you.

Give it a rest. I already admitted I used the term piracy incorrectly. I wrote the message quickly. So shoot me. Instead of actually considering my point you chose to attack my technical error. It makes you a troll.

Where in this comment are you saying anything other than lending = piracy?

Fuck you're annoying. Go re-read it. My point was that the guy had no right to complain when as a privileged association member rules affect him in a relatively minor way, compared to say prison sentences for those implicated in aiding piracy who are outside of the association. You completely and repeatedly choose to ignore this point while harping on about piracy isn't lending. Yes, but lending to someone who commits piracy makes you an accomplice to that piracy. I'm sorry I wasn't crystal FUCKING clear the first time.

but rather just continue to talk about some hypothetical situation that GP was afraid of that would be piracy. But of course had not actually happened

The GP's exact words were:
However, I frequently lend movies to my elderly mother -- and I'm always living in fear that one of her tennis friends is going to talk my mother into loaning the movie to her, thusly exposing the DVD to possibilities of piracy

- The GP brought up the possibility of piracy
- This is what the GP is "always living in fear" of.

He goes on:

-- risking the one benefit I have of being an Academy member

- GP is afraid of being kicked out of the academy and losing his movies (it seems he's more afraid of this than criminal charges as he doesn't bring those up)

Basically I addressed exactly what the GP said he was afraid of not some hypothetical.

NOW FUCK OFF AND STOP WASTING MY TIME YOU TROLL.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

You've brought in every irrelevant thing into the argument, from Wittgenstein's Tractatus to my sig in an attempt to distract from the actual argument I brought up the Tractatus merely as a means to point out that your accusations to the contrary notwithstanding, i was quite familar with the process of deductive reasoning, but disagreed with you on the criteria for determining something as fact. pretty straight forward, on topic, and relevant to the argument you were presenting, ad hominem though it was. I brought up your sig merely to imply that you yourself might be prone to trolling, if you'd been modded flamebait and troll enough to have a 'dont mod me troll just because you disagree with me' statement in your sig. Given your consistent flaming of me as troll rather than responding to argument i feel this is relevant.

Give it a rest. I already admitted I used the term piracy incorrectly No, you responded that I was full of it. You then later said that you'd already clarified the lending != piracy point when in fact you hadn't. Hardly my fault you dont recognize this.

You completely and repeatedly choose to ignore this point while harping on about piracy isn't lending. Yes, but lending to someone who commits piracy makes you an accomplice to that piracy I didnt respond to that point because it seemed pretty self-evidently correct. If you hadn't started your tirade with a blatantly false statement, just to really start things off with a nice STFU tone, we wouldnt have a problem.

- GP is afraid of being kicked out of the academy and losing his movies (it seems he's more afraid of this than criminal charges as he doesn't bring those up) Basically I addressed exactly what the GP said he was afraid of not some hypothetical. GP is afraid of something that is one of many possibilities happening, seems pretty hypothetical to me. He didnt say that his mother had actually further lent out the discs, nor that her friends had actually copied them. He was afraid of a hypothetical situation coming true. I'm still not entirely sure why this is confusing.

NOW FUCK OFF AND STOP WASTING MY TIME YOU TROLL The only person wasting your time is you. Dont want it wasted, stop posting. Not like I'm twisting your arm and forcing you to repeatedly post vitriol-ridden, point-missing bullshit.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

Your style of arguing reminds me of how bad politicians do it. Completely and purposefully miss the point, abuse and slander (then cry foul if your opposition does it), hand wave your way through your shortcomings, ignore the actual count or counter point being made

GP is afraid of something that is one of many possibilities happening, seems pretty hypothetical to me.

My entire point and the GP post was about his fear of this happening. I don't care what it seems to you. That was the argument I made. It's pretty clear to me you'd happily argue the world is flat, but that doesn't make it so my friend.

Every time I refute your out and out lies (GP never said blah blah), you try to turn it around with BS and misdirection. You've been caught in a lie. You are a troll. If you were interested in the original debate you wouldn't have started with abuse and you wouldn't continually misdirect the entire discussion.

He was afraid of a hypothetical situation coming true. I'm still not entirely sure why this is confusing. ...and my entire point was that he has a lot of nerve being afraid of this happening given that all he loses is his privellege and he's not likely to end up in jail over it (as may happen to others). Instead of this point all you deny I even made it and then rant on like the raving lunatic you are about lending != piracy. I conceded that point about 4 posts ago. You missed it because I'm guessing you're in the habbit of turning any argument you enter into your own private argument in your little hobbyhorses, bringing in any external sources and making any personal attacks that you feel make you look big. You're a child. You scream at the top of your lungs and shout down the opposition with BS that has nothing to do with the original argument.

The only person wasting your time is you. Dont want it wasted, stop posting. Not like I'm twisting your arm and forcing you to repeatedly post vitriol-ridden, point-missing bullshit.

You have a brilliant knack for doing something stupid in your arguing then accusing the opposing orator of doing it. You repeatedly abuse and put me down then when I respond to your trolling come up with garbage like this. My advice to you: Seek professional help. I can only imagine what you must be like to deal with in person. Do you do this in person? Walk into a conversation, call someone an asshole and tell them to get off their high horse (purposefully mis-interpretting what they said), then when you have managed to piss them off you tell them not to waste their time defending themselves? Who do you think this impresses exactly? I can only imagine what your social life must be like.

Give it up. You're a proven lying little troll. Go impress someone your own mental age.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

My entire point and the GP post was about his fear of this happening It would have been a valid point had you not attempted to make it by misstating the facts.

Every time I refute your out and out lies (GP never said blah blah), you try to turn it around with BS and misdirection. You've been caught in a lie. I don't believe I have misstated anything or intentionally lied at all during this discussion. you, on the other hand, have done so both in your original post as well as subsequent posts attributing to me comments (in quotation) I never made. As I cannot really speak as to whether or not you did so consciously and/or intentionally, i have refrained from calling you a liar. You don't seem bound by that particular hangup, so i guess thumbs-up to you.

If you were interested in the original debate you wouldn't have started with abuse and you wouldn't continually misdirect the entire discussion oh, I see, responding to something you said that wasnt the main thing you wanted to talk about is misdirecting the discussion. Interesting. Well, we seem to have been arguing the same points for a while, so I'd say that the discussion re-directed itself. If you wanted to talk about something else, you wouldn't have wasted all this time vainly attempting to refute me.

You're a child. You scream at the top of your lungs and shout down the opposition with BS that has nothing to do with the original argument. The only person doing the digital equivalent of screaming, yelling or otherwise shouting down the opposition is you. I called you an asshole, which in turn makes me an asshole. you pointed that out, and I've not argued otherwise. I told you get the fuck off your high horse, and you called me pathetic, immature, a child, idiot, liar, troll, little troll, lying little troll, petty, stupid and arrogant. I'm perfectly aware that my initial comment was inherently self-reflexive, why aren't you? Of course, its much easier to simply label your opponent's arguments as 'raving' or 'whining' because then you don't actually have to respond to them. You've said I'm playing the victim... well, right back at ya, buddy.

You have a brilliant knack for doing something stupid in your arguing then accusing the opposing orator of doing it. You repeatedly abuse and put me down then when I respond to your trolling come up with garbage like this You have a brilliant knack for confusing dismissing the validity and worth of one's comments with personal abuse. Since I called you an asshole, the only person leveling personal abuse has been you, only confirming my initial assessment.

then when you have managed to piss them off you tell them not to waste their time defending themselves? I only suggested that you stop posting in response to your second request that I do so. seems rather absurd to point to my comment in such an accusatory tone given that. I dont actually care if you keep posting or not, but you seemed concerned that your time was being wasted, so i suggested a solution.

Give it up. You're a proven lying little troll. Go impress someone your own mental age. Yes, because there's no better way to follow up taking me to task for having told you to stop posting than doing it yourself for a third time. well done.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

It would have been a valid point had you not attempted to make it by misstating the facts.

You picked up on a technical mis-step and expect that to invalidate the entire argument. Pure garbage.

I don't believe I have misstated anything or intentionally lied at all during this discussion

I've proven you have, and done so repeatedly. Not my problem you refuse to accept that little fact.

i have refrained from calling you a liar. You don't seem bound by that particular hangup, so i guess thumbs-up to you.

Oh yes so restrained. You called me an asshole and told me to get off my high horse instead. Then proceeded to proudly try to correct me in the process admitting that you're vulgar. You're the very definition of a troll. Seriously am I suppose to give a monkey's nut that you're offended at being called a liar when you started off so abusively. Quit yer whining.

I'm perfectly aware that my initial comment was inherently self-reflexive, why aren't you?

First my initial comment wasn't directed at you.

Second it wasn't vulgar.

Third I didn't get abusive or vulgar until you became abusive and vulgar. I play the doormat for no one chump.

You've said I'm playing the victim... well, right back at ya, buddy.

That's what you're reduced to? Nyer nyer you too? I'm not playing any victim here, which is why I hurled 3 times the abuse you gave and pointed out the flaws in your trolling logic.

you seemed concerned that your time was being wasted, so i suggested a solution. ...Which is to accept abuse from a troll. Nice solution.

Yes, because there's no better way to follow up taking me to task for having told you to stop posting than doing it yourself for a third time. well done.

I'm having fun with it now. I can't wait to see who'll quit first. My guess is that the thread will be locked due to age before either of us quit.

Have a lovely day.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Oh yes so restrained. You called me an asshole and told me to get off my high horse instead Well, you were, and needed to, so i told you.

Seriously am I suppose to give a monkey's nut that you're offended at being called a liar when you started off so abusively No you're not, I wouldn't expect you to care at all. I'm not offended though, I was just pointing out what a pointless insult liar is in an online debate.

First my initial comment wasn't directed at you you're entirely correct. I meant to say the rest of your subsequent comments.

Third I didn't get abusive or vulgar until you became abusive and vulgar. I play the doormat for no one chump A fair point. Not sure that continuing after I'd stopped is really a necessary part of your stance on doormat playing however. *shrug* whatever the reason, its pretty amusing.

That's what you're reduced to? Nyer nyer you too? I'm not playing any victim here, which is why I hurled 3 times the abuse you gave and pointed out the flaws in your trolling logic. This from Mr. "Well double dumb ass to you too fella." You probably forgot that you said a very similar thing much earlier in the discussion. Well, that's ok. You said so before making an argument, i said so drawing one to a close. I'd hardly say either is being reduced to anything, but if you really feel that way, I'll concede that you were reduced first. As for playing the victim, well, I'd say making a fuss about being the wronged party while using it as a pretense for justifiably accelerating hostilities is a pretty good definition and precisely how you've conducted yourself.

I'm having fun with it now. I can't wait to see who'll quit first. My guess is that the thread will be locked due to age before either of us quit. Unfortunately I'm not really in the mood to contribute to your enjoyment even if it means giving up a bit of my own. congratulations, feel free to exult in whatever manner gives you that 'w0000 number 1!!!' feeling. I'm sure you haven't called me troll enough, you should do that some more.

Re:Cinea v. Watermarking = Inconvenience v. Parano

[syousef]

Well, you were, and needed to, so i told you.

So you insist that it's good of you to call me names, and be profane, while simultaneously complaining that I return your profanity. Whining troll. Do you realize how delicious the irony of you continuing to pick on one or two minor flaws in my logic while continuing our personal attacks, misdirection and putting up straw men actually is?

No you're not, I wouldn't expect you to care at all. I'm not offended though, I was just pointing out what a pointless insult liar is in an online debate.

So again one set of rules for you and another for me (I guess that's the only way you can win in your own childish mind). When I point out your deceit and your flat out lies, it's pointless. When you call me a liar, that's good and proper.

. Not sure that continuing after I'd stopped is really a necessary part of your stance on doormat playing however. *shrug* whatever the reason, its pretty amusing.

Go on, have fun, knock yourself out.

This from Mr. "Well double dumb ass to you too fella."

Go and look at what that was in response to before you point the finger. I was chuckling when I wrote that. I guess you missed the film reference. Not surprised.

Unfortunately I'm not really in the mood to contribute to your enjoyment even if it means giving up a bit of my own. congratulations, feel free to exult in whatever manner gives you that 'w0000 number 1!!!' feeling. I'm sure you haven't called me troll enough, you should do that some more.

Troll! times infinity nyer nyer! Better?