Jul -- General Chat: DRM Mk. II: The Watermark

GuyPerfect
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Posted on 01-12-08 03:47:16 AM

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Depends on how it works. I've thought about it myself in the past while trying to fall asleep, but in regards to video game review copies that are released to reviewers before the game's due date and end up pirated before they ever hit store shelves... Not that I played F-Zero Climax before its Japanese release date or anything...

But I digress. You can move audio data up and down in extremely low frequencies and the audio will sound as normal as ever. But it would look different if you loaded it into an audio editor. Not a likely solution, but a possible route of opportunity.

Either way, I'm actually okay with the idea of watermarking. If people use the music they buy in legal ways, there's no chance at all they'll get in trouble for it. Copy from a CD to your computer? Good. Put it on your portable music player? Go for it. Distribute it to thousands of online friends? Not legal.

At this point, I'm hopeful. DRM attempted to prevent people from breaking the law in the first place. Good intentions, bad method. Watermarking, on the other hand, is a way to track down someone who already has broken the law.

But before I officially endorse it, I'll need to see if any suggestions pop up in the news about why watermarking would actually be a bad idea.

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Posted on 01-12-08 05:11:55 AM

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Well if two companies aren't using it at all and another two are reticent to implement it, then I doubt it's going to happen for a while. You know they really don't want to lose any more money than they already have from this DRM idiocy, so they're going to make sure this works without pissing off customers again. In any case, it's too early to tell anything for sure, so...

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Posted on 01-12-08 05:17:20 AM

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All it does is cause me to not want to buy songs. I was gonna buy some after they lifted DRM, but now they can kiss my money goodbye.

Of course, they rarely sell music I want anyway, but... I figure at this rate it's better to let them all die first.Then maybe I, somebody who avoids pirated music, could buy music without being punished for following the law.

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Posted on 01-12-08 05:41:10 AM (last edited by HyperHacker at 01-12-08 02:41 AM)

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Jul - Post #2133 - 01-12-08 12:41:10am

Originally posted by GuyPerfect
At this point, I'm hopeful. DRM attempted to prevent people from breaking the law in the first place. Good intentions, bad method. Watermarking, on the other hand, is a way to track down someone who already has broken the law.

But before I officially endorse it, I'll need to see if any suggestions pop up in the news about why watermarking would actually be a bad idea.

Yes, watermarking is nowhere near as big a problem, and if implemented properly could very well be of no real concern. Proper implementation, however, requires at least three things:
1) You can't hear it at all. (Or rather, I can't, as I seem to have above-average hearing.)
2) The overall sound quality isn't reduced e.g. by re-encoding it to add the watermark.
3) The identifying information is minimal so as not to violate privacy. I don't want all my personal info recorded in every audio file on my hard drive, even if I don't intend to give them out. Shit happens.
I find it difficult to believe that #1 and to a lesser extent #2 can be fulfilled without it being easily removable, and in my experience #3 isn't particularly likely.

Then of course some potential problems:

Interoperability. I can't see there being an agreed-upon standard. If nothing else, multiple standards equals confusion. In worse cases, it means lack of compatibility.
It's entirely up to the software what to do with this information. For example, a portable player could refuse to play the song entirely for no good reason. Basically a more advanced version of having a "protected" flag.
Convincing greedy CEOs to use it could be difficult, since it doesn't offer control. Any random player should be able to play the files. If the technology becomes widespread then this is a very good thing, but it could prevent that.

Quite simply, I'm confident that this technology can be used to implement a nice, unobtrusive system that allows pirates to be identified without hindering fair use. I'm less than confident, however, that it will. It should be quite interesting to see what they do with this.

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chungy
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Posted on 01-12-08 09:57:05 AM

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I'd like to see it survive being encoded into an 8kbps MP3 several times.

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Posted on 01-12-08 09:58:27 AM

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Another good question: compression? Somehow, I doubt the watermark would still be (easily) readable if you ran it though a standard file compression utility, at least without on-the-fly decompression.

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Posted on 01-12-08 10:02:02 AM

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I think it was fairly obvious they're talking about the uncompressed waveform.

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Posted on 01-12-08 10:22:03 AM

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Originally posted by chungy
I think it was fairly obvious they're talking about the uncompressed waveform.

Yes, but all of their "in-transit filter" plans fall apart if you assume that, so I was taking the other end. Of course it's unlikely, but it's just another point of discussion.

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Posted on 01-12-08 12:14:17 PM (last edited by Surlent at 01-12-08 09:15 AM)

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This week I had to hold a lecture with four other people, we also mentioned the problem DRM [not in-depth as it was not the main object, though] and Amazon's approach to sell DRM-free MP3s, but these also have watermarks included (which I am fine with, too - at least no DRM or any bad file format which require specific audio players and special mobile MP3 players to work with.

Funny thing, I hope this thing fails. Watermarks are usually okay, but the mentioned problems like CD-players unable to play this file could show up ...
Other things were not mentioned. Compare the prices for a single (even if it is DRM-free) track or album from iTunes and the like - now go into a store and check the prices of a CD. You get no jewel case, no fany booklet, no nice artwork and no printed CD.
If this doesn't change or digital music will be siginificantly cheaper (they SAVE a lot of money for not printing CDs and the like ...), this will cease to exist or the consumers simply will be pissed of even more, using programs like Soulseek much more ...

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Posted on 01-12-08 07:11:40 PM

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They might be referring to this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression
That's what I thought first, does that make me a nerd?

As far as the watermarking goes, I have similar feelings about it as hyperhacker. It wont blow up a Windows computer, it'll play in linux and as long as it doesn't identify me in particular, it's fine.

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Posted on 01-12-08 07:35:02 PM

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I'm having some trouble understanding how this watermark would be of any use if it didn't identify a particular owner... I mean, otherwise all it does is identify the song, which can already be identified by playing it, or the song's origin, but ripping from CDs for personal use is legal... ("Oh, I ripped the song myself, but then I lost the CD")

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Posted on 01-12-08 08:35:47 PM

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Originally posted by paulguy
That's what I thought first, does that make me a nerd?

You're only a nerd when you start saying things like "...but will it run Linux?" or "Imagine a beowulf cluster of watermarked music!" or "Netcraft confirms! The Internet is dying!" or "FUCK MONKEY BALLS"

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Posted on 01-12-08 09:19:24 PM (last edited by HyperHacker at 01-12-08 06:20 PM)

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Jul - Post #2138 - 01-12-08 04:19:24pm

Originally posted by chungy
I'd like to see it survive being encoded into an 8kbps MP3 several times.

I'd like to see a song that doesn't sound like utter shit after being encoded into an 8kbps MP3 once.

Originally posted by Imajin
I'm having some trouble understanding how this watermark would be of any use if it didn't identify a particular owner... I mean, otherwise all it does is identify the song, which can already be identified by playing it, or the song's origin, but ripping from CDs for personal use is legal... ("Oh, I ripped the song myself, but then I lost the CD")

I think the idea is just to use it with downloads. There might be a sort of member ID that the people who run the service can link to you, but to anyone else is a meaningless number. Although the article made it sound like the info would just identify the site it was downloaded from, and then they'd see which ISPs the illegal transfers are coming from and sniff their traffic and other not-nice things to see who's doing it.

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GuyPerfect
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Posted on 01-13-08 01:32:23 AM

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I think there are also considerations to encode each CD differently so that every watermark basically identifies a track with a unique serial number. If vendors were to take your name when they sold you the disc, any recordings and redistributions will tie back directly to you.

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Posted on 01-13-08 01:36:19 AM

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Originally posted by GuyPerfect
I think there are also considerations to encode each CD differently so that every watermark basically identifies a track with a unique serial number. If vendors were to take your name when they sold you the disc, any recordings and redistributions will tie back directly to you.

So everyone would have to hand over their name just to buy a CD? Seems kind of invasive to me... and what about gifts? The only time I've bought a CD in the last few years was for presents, what happens if I give a CD to a friend, and my friend uploads it all online, for example? ("Oh sure, your 'friend' uploaded the files, yeah, sure, tell it to the judge")

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Posted on 01-13-08 01:58:38 AM

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I wonder how they'd track you if you pay in cold hard cash.

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Posted on 01-13-08 03:40:18 AM

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Originally posted by Imajin
Originally posted by GuyPerfect
I think there are also considerations to encode each CD differently so that every watermark basically identifies a track with a unique serial number. If vendors were to take your name when they sold you the disc, any recordings and redistributions will tie back directly to you.

So everyone would have to hand over their name just to buy a CD? Seems kind of invasive to me... and what about gifts? The only time I've bought a CD in the last few years was for presents, what happens if I give a CD to a friend, and my friend uploads it all online, for example? ("Oh sure, your 'friend' uploaded the files, yeah, sure, tell it to the judge")

Or if, say, you sell it... imagine even if it kept getting resold to somebody who eventually uploaded it.

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Posted on 01-13-08 05:39:31 AM

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Originally posted by Xkeeper
Originally posted by Imajin
Originally posted by GuyPerfect
I think there are also considerations to encode each CD differently so that every watermark basically identifies a track with a unique serial number. If vendors were to take your name when they sold you the disc, any recordings and redistributions will tie back directly to you.

So everyone would have to hand over their name just to buy a CD? Seems kind of invasive to me... and what about gifts? The only time I've bought a CD in the last few years was for presents, what happens if I give a CD to a friend, and my friend uploads it all online, for example? ("Oh sure, your 'friend' uploaded the files, yeah, sure, tell it to the judge")

Or if, say, you sell it... imagine even if it kept getting resold to somebody who eventually uploaded it.

Honestly, I'd be rather surprised if this didn't come to the attention of the companies when the idea was proposed. You'd think it's pretty obvious that tracking who the actual owner is of the CD would be virtually impossible. I'd assume it's just for music from a download service, which would make much more sense. Although, if your IP address changed, that wouldn't work.

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Posted on 01-13-08 05:48:05 AM

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Originally posted by TheGreatGuy
Although, if your IP address changed, that wouldn't work.

You forget to consider that you'd have to pay for it with some method, which would not rely on IP addresses at all.

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