DRM is Dead, Watermarking to Replace It?

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/sony_music

"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."

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I say bring on the watermarking technology. If it means getting DRM-free audio files that I can use on any device I want without the hassle of authentication, I'm more than willing to put up with watermarking that says I bought a song. In fact, to protect the work of artists from theft, I think personally identifiable watermarks and ISP filtering of P2P traffic based on detection of watermarks isn't such a bad idea. I strongly suspect the people that purchase content are generally not the types to turn around and put their paid content up onto a P2P network, so the people complaining about this probably aren't the ones who buy content to begin with.

Where do you land on this issue? Would you shy away from a watermark that identifies you as having purchased a song or movie?

[Jason Dunn]

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/sony_music

"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."

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I say bring on the watermarking technology. If it means getting DRM-free audio files that I can use on any device I want without the hassle of authentication, I'm more than willing to put up with watermarking that says I bought a song. In fact, to protect the work of artists from theft, I think personally identifiable watermarks and ISP filtering of P2P traffic based on detection of watermarks isn't such a bad idea. I strongly suspect the people that purchase content are generally not the types to turn around and put their paid content up onto a P2P network, so the people complaining about this probably aren't the ones who buy content to begin with.

Where do you land on this issue? Would you shy away from a watermark that identifies you as having purchased a song or movie?

[Adam Krebs]

Personally, I'm afraid of the privacy implications. If your files end up on a P2P network (and you had nothing to do with it), the blame comes back to you. I also really just don't trust the recording industry to decide what's best for me.

The problem with audio watermarking is that it's a catch-22. If the watermark is on a frequency too high or low to hear, it can be easily removed by getting rid of the frequency. If not, then it ruins the quality of the file I've purchased. I don't want to pay for a sub-par product that runs on their terms...

[onlydarksets]

I have a couple of thoughts:

1. I have no problem with anyone being able to track down where any of the music I’ve ripped is. In fact, I’ll tell everyone – it’s on my 3 PCs at home and on the Carbonite servers (for backup). I don’t share music outside of my own equipment, so I don’t have anything to hide.
2. DRM will always have a place for subscription services. That’s 90% of my new music, and I will continue to do it that way as long as it’s possible. Frankly, lack of iTunes subscription service is one of the reasons I sold my iPod.

However, how do you enforce watermarking without DRM (or some analogous control mechanism)? Without something to prevent the watermark from being stripped out, you could just convert to MP3, or burn to a disc. If iTunes music is still tied to the iPod and Zune music still tied to, well, every other player in the world, it’s still not embracing fair use. >>

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by Adam Krebs

Personally, I'm afraid of the privacy implications. If your files end up on a P2P network (and you had nothing to do with it), the blame comes back to you. I also really just don't trust the recording industry to decide what's best for me.

But they aren't doing this for you - they are doing it for themselves. How it affects you is the issue.

Originally Posted by Adam Krebs

The problem with audio watermarking is that it's a catch-22. If the watermark is on a frequency too high or low to hear, it can be easily removed by getting rid of the frequency. If not, then it ruins the quality of the file I've purchased. I don't want to pay for a sub-par product that runs on their terms...

Thanks for the info on audio watermarking. I didn't realize that it was an audio-only solution. That mitigates one of my concerns (listed above). Really, it's the 80/20 rule. If they can discourage 80% of the people who would otherwise share music illegally with minimal effort, then should they really worry about the other 20%?

Of course, another issue is that this is focused on punishment, not prevention. What happens to the parents of that 13 year old who is sharing his entire music collection on P2P? Are they liable? Is the 13 year old?

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Adam Krebs

Personally, I'm afraid of the privacy implications. If your files end up on a P2P network (and you had nothing to do with it), the blame comes back to you. I also really just don't trust the recording industry to decide what's best for me.

True. I sure as heck don't trust the recording industry to do what's best for me either, but if it means getting DRM-free music from them, I'm willing to open myself up to a bit of risk.

Originally Posted by Adam Krebs

If the watermark is on a frequency too high or low to hear, it can be easily removed by getting rid of the frequency. If not, then it ruins the quality of the file I've purchased.

But, honestly, how many people would know how to remove the a frequency from a song to get rid of a watermark? I doubt that most people would know how to do that...

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

Without something to prevent the watermark from being stripped out, you could just convert to MP3, or burn to a disc.

Well, you can do that now with almost any DRM'd song (except the subscription ones): burning a CD, then re-ripping it, is a tried and true method for bypassing DRM. But it's ugly, slow, and often frustrating, so it hasn't and will never catch on.

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

If iTunes music is still tied to the iPod and Zune music still tied to, well, every other player in the world, it’s still not embracing fair use. >>

Ah, but here's the reality: just because the Zune software or iTunes software won't allow you to manage music on your non-Zune or non-iPod device, the music itself is playable on the other devices, so you can use Windows Media Player or another software tool to manage that device. Perhaps not as ideal as having the Zune software recognize your Sandisk Sansa View, but not altogether painful either.

[paschott]

I really don't have a huge problem with DRM-free music if I get a digital watermark. I don't share my music with anyone and don't mind the ability to then easily port my music across all of my devices. My biggest concern would be if someone copied a file off one of my devices and then shared it themselves, but I don't see this as likely. This is one of the things that always bothers me about digital media (video, books, music, whatever) - the DRM is designed in such a way as to be a horrible impediment to the users or in such a way that it requires special software in order to use. I think that one e-book vendor had it right for books - use a CC #, but if you move to an unsupported device you are out of luck. It's also not realistic for music or video.

I kind of like the watermarking idea - the people it hurts the most are those who do P2P sharing. Those who don't share their music should be fine unless someone steals it. I do agree that putting in the watermark shouldn't affect the sound of the music or it just defeats the purpose. As for how easy that would be to remove or keep - I just don't know. I would tend to agree that most people wouldn't really understand the steps required to remove it, but it wouldn't be long before some utility started floating around that allowed people to strip watermarking from their music. I'd say that the time required to do it would be a little bit of a turn-off for people, though. Re-encoding isn't generally a fast operation and even batched up, would take a noticeable amount of time.

Besides, if it means that we can get to the point where we aren't required to use Zune software, iTunes, or some other locked-down player, I'm all for it. Too much overhead just to play/download/buy music for the most part.

-Pete

[cjhp]

I don't have a problem with the watermarking but having it be able to trace back to myself and me personally I have some issue with. I don't like putting all my personal information out there for just anybody to find. Therefore, I don't trust the RIAA to protect my information either. Don't get me wrong I don't steal songs by using P2P or anything like that and since getting a zune the Marketplace with a subscription in place is the way to go for me and now my wife. I have only purchase 3 cds since I started my zune subscription in Dec 2006 because that was the only way to get the music.

[Chris Gohlke]

Kind of off the beaten track; but to play devils advocate, if they sold non-DRMd, non watermarked MP3's wouldn't all of the RIAA garbage have to immediately go out the window since they could no longer prove if you purchased the music or not? Right now, technically, for any MP3 I legally have, it should either have DRM or a watermark, or I should own the physical CD.

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by cjhp

I don't have a problem with the watermarking but having it be able to trace back to myself and me personally I have some issue with. I don't like putting all my personal information out there for just anybody to find.

That's kind of the point, though - you shouldn't be "putting it out there" at all

As for the centralized information, you already do that with any subscription service. What's the difference?

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