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?

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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Last edited by Terrence Parker on Jul-29-2006 at 14:15

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

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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)

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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!

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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.

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