TechWag

The news has been all over the place about using watermarking as a way to protect music, without all the heavy restrictions that regular old DRM imposes on users, computer systems and devices that people use to enjoy their entertainment. DRM has taken a large number of hits over the years as both a breakable way of protecting media, and then messing with people’s computers about those kinds of issues, Sony has been the poster child of poor DRM implementations.

What benefits does digital watermarking though have on the process. Depends on how it is implemented, but the meta data that goes into media created, like the rip of the Simpsons movie traced back to Australia, and the meta data in the harry potter JPG files that were published on bittorrent goes a long way in indentifying who or at the least what device made the copy. It is when the serial number, the person, and the pirated file shows up on the internet that the media folks can track back to person and to device. Most of this is moot if you purchase a device on the secondary market from a person who keeps poor records. As a way to defeat the idea of watermarking, the second hand purchase of recording devices should pick up.

Ars Technica has a creepy take on this one right here, and really should make people wonder just how deep the track and trace is going to be embedded in systems in an effort to halt piracy, and at what cost to users. APB has a great article here in that they state:

As the industry heads increasingly up the digital path, piracy seems easier, with rampant digital media thefts — whether in video, audio or data form — along the distribution chain. The hijacking occurs at times before the content reaches its legitimate audience, even at source. While the problem is loudest in film and music circuits, TV networks are not spared the growing frustration, exacerbated by the advent of new media platforms such as IPTV and mobile TV, giving rise to an ever-expanding distribution chain and complicating the task of protection. Source: APB

The problem is when the file is intercepted, or if the data that is embedded in the watermark can be somehow stripped of the contents, or the watermarking system itself can be altered to throw off investigators. That will be the next step in media piracy, how to defeat the watermarking system. Unfortunately, the hackers have been very quiet on the subject so we have no visibility into how the folks who upload or otherwise share copyrighted content are going to fare.

It will also be interesting to see if this will increase sales of physical media.

It looks like digital watermarking is going to be the way of the future, and depending on how well the data is protected (does someone know you bought that copy of Satan’s Claw, and use it against you), as well as what the media companies do with the information, how long it is kept, and who they are going to share it with.

The influence on buyers if they know they are being spied on everywhere they go will determine how well this technology takes off. The sad part is that the majority of people are going to be ignorant of the technology until they get busted by it. That is where it will really get interesting when there is a major data breach somewhere, and someone’s download habits are revealed in all their gory goodness.

Tags: education //