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Watermarking Music - is this the future?

So im just having a chat with a few pals about watermarked tracks and we discuss how most producers are throwing around the term "watermarked" lately, presumably to combat mp3 piracy and the such. A few interesting points got raised. Namely by CDs / web-based mp3 shops.

Its feasible to "watermark" cds, that is to add a unique identifer to each track on the CD. It might not be practical, but its possible. Just burn off 200 or so CD's and edit each track manually, to include some extra audio-info unique to that cd, or maybe to add some non-audio info at the beginning/end of each track, such as a series of numbers or a barcode.

It might be time consuming, or there may be an automatic way using some batch process on computers, but it is possible.

Its the web-based mp3s thats puzzling me. Its not practical to save 200 individual mp3s and then distribute them to web shops like AJ, Beatport, Voync etc, thats just silly. I also cant beleive that when a customer purchases an mp3, an identifier is added to that mp3 at the point of sale, that would be too time-consuming. A high-spec computer server would have to edit the mp3 in question and then send it back to the shop. Thats just not feasible, with hundreds of mp3s sold daily.

I was thinking along the lines that each webshop is sent an mp3, unique to them. For example, Armada release a new Armin track. Each webshop is sent 1 mp3 thats unique to them. Audiojelly might have their mp3 'watermarked' as Audiojelly, Beatport the same.

Should any mp3s leak into p2p networks, you could trace the source back to the webshop, but not the buyer. Unless you did some digging around.

Any opinions?

Re: Watermarking Music - is this the future?

quote:

Originally posted by swisstoni_uk I also cant beleive that when a customer purchases an mp3, an identifier is added to that mp3 at the point of sale, that would be too time-consuming.

They sorta do this already. If in a limited and easy to defeat way.

For instance some online shops I buy from add what I assume is a unique identifier in the ID tag. Below is part of an example

quote:

00056863 000089DF

Either that or you could get a program to edit the length of the track slightly. Make one track 7m45s, one 7m45.1s, 7m45.2s. Then just get a second program to generate a hash index for each file. Easy watermarking. Not foolproof, but simple and easy.

Re: Re: Watermarking Music - is this the future?

quote:

Originally posted by Subey They sorta do this already. If in a limited and easy to defeat way. For instance some online shops I buy from add what I assume is a unique identifier in the ID tag. Below is part of an example

Ive noticed some of them when ive bought from Audiojelly, easy to remove though as you said, just remove the ID3 tag

quote:

Originally posted by THE_Chris Either that or you could get a program to edit the length of the track slightly. Make one track 7m45s, one 7m45.1s, 7m45.2s. Then just get a second program to generate a hash index for each file. Easy watermarking. Not foolproof, but simple and easy.

I was thinking of that, but editing the audio itself would take too long i think, especially when your selling hundreds of mp3s per day, sales need to be done in real-time, editing audio files by adjusting track lengths incur added time on the sale. You'd have impatient customers wanting to know whats taking so long

I think this technique is used more when sending out promo copies to other DJs and record labels rather than the mass market.

For example

You send a bunch of CDs to various DJs for promotion then the following week your track is doing the rounds on illegal sharing sites. You check the watermark on the copy doing the rounds and it seems DJ xxxx is responsible for leaking it then you know for future reference not to send promos to him/her and let other producers know this person leaks tracks.

quote:

Originally posted by Grrrrr I think this technique is used more when sending out promo copies to other DJs and record labels rather than the mass market. For example You send a bunch of CDs to various DJs for promotion then the following week your track is doing the rounds on illegal sharing sites. You check the watermark on the copy doing the rounds and it seems DJ xxxx is responsible for leaking it then you know for future reference not to send promos to him/her and let other producers know this person leaks tracks.

Agreed, its probably already in effect now with the major labels like Anjunabeats, Armada, Vandit, its a fairly easy thing to do with a few cds.

I think Vonyc.com licensed a watermarking system from the Fraunhofer Institute: http://www.ipsi.fraunhofer.de/merit...t/index.en.html

quote:

The individual watermarking of audio data for a CD production can be performed in a 20 times real time (play-back time) on a normal (2 GHz) PC, while for mp3 files a performance of 500 to 1000 times real-time can be achieved.

Wouldn't watermarking features mentioned in this thread be bypassable by re-recording the audio?

quote:

Originally posted by Nsonic Wouldn't watermarking features mentioned in this thread be bypassable by re-recording the audio?

No, they use robust watermarking.

quote:

Audio watermarks: Robust against conversion into compressed audio formats (mp3, Ogg, etc.), microphone recordings or analogue VHF radio broadcast.

Retrieval rate after mp3 compression (in percent)

quote:

Originally posted by Nsonic Wouldn't watermarking features mentioned in this thread be bypassable by re-recording the audio?

It depends how you watermark the track, you could literally add an extra cymbal (or whatever) to designated times on each promo copy you send out. No amount of rerecording would take that away!

The thing with all this watermarking malarky, is that who is going to police it? Whos going to be the people tracking these mp3s down, because it seems to me that if files can be copied easily then they will continue to be copied, and spread about using whatever means the pirates see best. I mean its ok tracking the odd DJ down that uploads promos to the internet, but that wont change a thing.

as much as i dont want that to happen, i'm pretty sure easy ways of tagging CDs and mp3s will be developed in the future. From the producer's point of view, mp3 sharing is theft !! today it is tolerated simply because the technology cannot provide for a good solution to the problem. But if companies fund extensive research into universities, i'm sure some bright professors will make it happen.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryarni The thing with all this watermarking malarky, is that who is going to police it? Whos going to be the people tracking these mp3s down, because it seems to me that if files can be copied easily then they will continue to be copied, and spread about using whatever means the pirates see best. I mean its ok tracking the odd DJ down that uploads promos to the internet, but that wont change a thing.

Good point. It'd probably only be done on a reactionary basis (like a Beatport purchase flying around or the example given of the promo copy uploaded). To try and make sure no copies of material are being shared would just be too costly. The cost of trying to track down every illegal share of every track would be greater than the lost revenue from that activity.

It'll wind up being like the movie industry now--they go after the people who actually get the Screener copies (promos) and go after the people who initially upload the DVD rips (the ones who buy the tracks & start the sharing process). They're not making any effort to stop person A from giving a movie to person B, because by the time the people qualified to track that down sit down in their office chairs, their fees have already exceeded the $5 or $10 the studio would've gotten from that sale.

Sure, they'll probably become good at marking files so they can track them, but that doesn't mean they will. Nobody's gonna get prosecuted by labels or distributors for sharing files, but if your doing so causes that file to be spread across a large scale & starts costing them substantial revenue, well, then that makes their job of recovering that income easier.

By the way, I'm all for watermarking of tracks - stopping these idiots who go around sharing promos for all the world.

What I DONT want to happen is for the labels to get DRM in everything that restricts how I listen to my music. If I get music, I want to be able to listen to it on my computer, on a CD player, on my MP3 player etc.


Watermark it, but dont make regular listeners suffer.

quote:

Originally posted by THE_Chris By the way, I'm all for watermarking of tracks - stopping these idiots who go around sharing promos for all the world. What I DONT want to happen is for the labels to get DRM in everything that restricts how I listen to my music. If I get music, I want to be able to listen to it on my computer, on a CD player, on my MP3 player etc. Watermark it, but dont make regular listeners suffer.

Agreed totally, i think more of the Dance Download industry is realising that DRM is tricky to implement and the customers dont want it, we want the freedom of doing whatever we like with the mp3 (not aac/wma!!) and to not be restricted with how we use it.

I think automated watermarking of all cd's and downloads is well within the realm of what is possible with today's technology. It is probably much more feasible than you realize, requiring little more than a tweak on a machine that they are probably already using anyay.

It doesn't bother me so long as we can't hear it sticking out and interfering with the flow of a track. They could use it to identify the source of whatever stuff gets massively exchanged online illegaly, but this will lead the enlargement of a different problem, bogus identities, which is much more dangerous than music copies IMHO.

I predict there will be alot more people trying to get copies of these watermarked tracks with false (or stolen) identities to keep them from getting traced back to a real person, which could lead to some sort of rediculous invasion of privacy in order to verify somebody's identity, then you wouldn't be able to buy watermaked music without filling out some bullshit forms or handing over your private information and letting them do god knows what with it.

All this antipirace stuff is a real slippery slope, sometimes I wonder if the ends justify the means.

all the elaborate protection schemes in the world are useless. Computer science is not opaque; it's totally transparent. Any person with the skills in a large development house also guarantees a chinese hacker with equal or better skills. The copy protection on software, dongles and all was cracked before it was even implemented. The chinese hackers cracked osx in it's finishing stages. Albums are easily shared, as any sort of audio editing/watermarking/cryptography/protection is just as easily undone. People simply need to think of a new business model. I've noticed most big djs/artists ignoring file sharing. They let it be promo for their artistry and recoup the funds in live shows, product endorsements, corporate sponsorship etc. The artist will get money if the fans feel close to them and feel they deserve it. that's all. All the artists i love get my money. But I can have all the albums/tracks of any artist before i have to make that decision. Metallica finally accepted reality, why can't you? Truth is, one track never made any big money, especially in trance. Even in the payola days of the 50s, one hit wonders make 5-10k tops. To real make a living with music, you have to be an artist and draw people into your world. If you have no intention of being that serious, just want to throw a little chip in the party, then make a nice 320k track or two and give it away. If you live art and people respond, piracy won't affect you much anyway. shpongle, autechre, aphex, squarepusher are electronic artists who have my money and respect, and they have never impaired file sharing one bit. Autechre gives away his project files for max/msp on the web after every album! He dares you not to respect him. That's an artist. G&D and ASOT fags whine about file sharing because without payola and musical pyramid schemes, no one would pay to hear them.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryarni The thing with all this watermarking malarky, is that who is going to police it? Whos going to be the people tracking these mp3s down, because it seems to me that if files can be copied easily then they will continue to be copied, and spread about using whatever means the pirates see best. I mean its ok tracking the odd DJ down that uploads promos to the internet, but that wont change a thing.

yea.. they know damn well they can't easily stop the millions who are breaking copyright law by sharing music online. What this is intended to do is to help producers figure out which DJs leaked their promos. If they watermark each promo they send out to specific DJs then when one hits the net, they can figure out which DJ they gave the promo to leaked it, and make sure he doesn't get any more promos from him, his label, and all his producer friends.

quote:

Originally posted by Majutsu all the elaborate protection schemes in the world are useless. Computer science is not opaque; it's totally transparent. Any person with the skills in a large development house also guarantees a chinese hacker with equal or better skills. The copy protection on software, dongles and all was cracked before it was even implemented. The chinese hackers cracked osx in it's finishing stages. Albums are easily shared, as any sort of audio editing/watermarking/cryptography/protection is just as easily undone. People simply need to think of a new business model. I've noticed most big djs/artists ignoring file sharing. They let it be promo for their artistry and recoup the funds in live shows, product endorsements, corporate sponsorship etc. The artist will get money if the fans feel close to them and feel they deserve it. that's all. All the artists i love get my money. But I can have all the albums/tracks of any artist before i have to make that decision. Metallica finally accepted reality, why can't you? Truth is, one track never made any big money, especially in trance. Even in the payola days of the 50s, one hit wonders make 5-10k tops. To real make a living with music, you have to be an artist and draw people into your world. If you have no intention of being that serious, just want to throw a little chip in the party, then make a nice 320k track or two and give it away. If you live art and people respond, piracy won't affect you much anyway. shpongle, autechre, aphex, squarepusher are electronic artists who have my money and respect, and they have never impaired file sharing one bit. Autechre gives away his project files for max/msp on the web after every album! He dares you not to respect him. That's an artist. G&D and ASOT fags whine about file sharing because without payola and musical pyramid schemes, no one would pay to hear them.

You'll find that armin has admittied numerous times that he wouldn't be where he is today if it weren't for people exhaching his shit online. He talks like he is rather pro file sharing actually. Please don't think im saying this out of being an armin fanboy (cuz I am really really not a fan, maybe I've read like 1 interview and ehard one ASOT in the past few months out of curiosity), but in his interviews and the shit he has said on his show, he has always appreared in favor of sharing. Airbase is a different story though, and I don't really keep up with G&D so who knows where they stand on this stuff.

But armin, he even gave a shoutout on his radio show to the place that's name gets censored out on this site every time somebody types it.

Actually Armin is a good businessman and has done a lot for commercial trance. God knows he's been more important to trance than I will ever be whatever I do from here on in. So I stand corrected.

He still sucks,

but I stand corrected.

The rest of my comments I stand by. File sharing is and always will be. A smart man will deal with reality, not deny it.

Actually, Armin might suck but he's most definitely not stupid, so he probably is pro file sharing. Good for him!

It's actually very freeing for artist and listener this way. I'm really into Cylob and you can get his stuff free at cylob music . I especially recommend his britain's best dj set on that site. I can have his music free but it says "if you like my music send me money". I've been digging him for two weeks, I just sent him a paypal donation for $20, which would be the rate of the tracks I like on beatport. Isn't that a cool way to be?

quote:

Originally posted by THE_Chris What I DONT want to happen is for the labels to get DRM in everything that restricts how I listen to my music. If I get music, I want to be able to listen to it on my computer, on a CD player, on my MP3 player etc. Watermark it, but dont make regular listeners suffer.

Totally agree, but most companies wont care. All that matters to them is the $.

quote:

Originally posted by jrbuddha All that matters to them is the $.

You say that like there's something wrong with it.

well i think that your missing the point which is that the people who are making money from corporate sponsorship, gigs etc are just the bigname djs who file sharing only helps.. unfortunately for the producers who are actually making the music that these guys make their reputation from they aren't out there getting paid for gigs or sponsored and rely on the miniscule income they get from royalties to survive and continue making music so they're the ones that filesharing really hurts
and no amount of armin bashing will ever make that ok

quote:

Originally posted by Inconspicuous You say that like there's something wrong with it.

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