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Liquid Audio to Open Source their MP3 watermarking 46

Posted by sengan from the wonder-how-it-works dept.
maskatron writes " Liquid Audio will release their watermarking technology for MP3's as open source on Monday. A new MP3 coalition will be using this technology to watermark MP3s."
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Liquid Audio to Open Source their MP3 watermarking More

Liquid Audio to Open Source their MP3 watermarking

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  • Over here in the UK (and the rest of Europe AFAIK) it is still legal to create a backup of music tapes/CD's for personal use. This right is soon to be taken away from us though, last I heard some Euro MP's were trying to make it against European law....

    Nick
  • I can still get hundreds and hundreds of full CDs in MP3 format, without any watermarks or other means of tracing them back to any source. This won't stop anything, and it won't catch on either.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • Yeah...

    Even if it was audible, the compression process would most likely fry it to the point of being unrecognizable to the watermark noticer.

  • The idea behind watermarking is simply to serial number the file. It doesn't stop copying, but it prevents large scale bootlegging. If they can show several people offering the same audio track with the same serial number, they have criminal evidence.

    Presumably, removing the watermark (by re-recording or whatever) will degrade the quality of the audio, and reduce the value of the track. This is like the low quality bootleg tapes that are out there.

    If the above is truly their aim, all is well IMHO. My problem with most of the schemes out there is that they lock the audio up or prevent perfectly legal personal use copies (backups, one for in the car one for at home, that sort of thing.

  • I'll take the culturo-centric (is that a word?) view and talk about America for right now. Flames from you Un-American people welcome. :)

    Here in America, only about half of households own a computer. Just about everybody has a Discman. I'd hazard that 80% of young adults do. Discmen don't wear out that easily. The fact that so many standard CD players exist means a sustained demand for old-style CDs, a demand that won't go away for a long time.

    Not everyone has a computer, and not everyone with a computer is anxious to jump on the latest digital-music bandwagon. While the CD standard dominates the mainstream market, unfettered, open mp3 will continue to cement itself as the standard in online music distribution.

    Why? Because the mp3 model works. There's no Big Brother hidden tags in it, no nagging "you have to buy this song for another week to play it again" messages. Consumers like this; it makes life simple for them.

    The competing models don't work. Each of them, regardless of the technique used, starts off with the assumption that the consumer is a criminal, poised to pirate every song he or she downloads. Consumers don't like this; they prefer their business relationships to be based on trust. Nobody will buy into a system that doesn't trust him.

    The mp3 market, despite the format's ability to be copied over, will succeed. Artists who lose potential revenue from the songs they distribute online will gain it back manyfold from the exposure they get. Artists will want this, consumers will want this. Guess what happens when there's a supply and a demand?

    When it's time to put away the old Discman because there are no more CDs available for it, mp3, or some open and trust-based standard, will be there.
  • ... ist that they don't work. I haven't seen a single watermarking scheme yet which could not be broken by trivial manipulation, and I don't expect Liquid Audio's stuff to be different.
  • Mass produced identical CDs will eventually be phased out, leaving all media
    watermarked with its owners.

    I hope not. That would eliminate the trade in second-hand CDs, and fill the landfills with the remains of unwanted CDs.

  • The only way I can see a MP3 -> WAV -> MP3 conversion fail to remove a watermark, would be to do the following:

    Add the watermark in a random position in the song. And place it at a certain frequency that a normal human would
    not be able to discern.

    If they can do something like this, conversion would still carry the watermark. Thus making the conversion pointless.

    Then the only way to remove it would be to search for it and destroy it. I would give a good programmer a week to figure out how to that... At the most.

  • how will this make mp3s "secure?"
    will it prevent me from copying it?
    or will it prevent me from playing it in any other player? Is it me, or is this just politics just to make the RIAA feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

    The concept of encoding music and sharing it with others has become deeply ingrained into alot of internet users lives. If the somehow removed all known mp3 players from the internet and the ability to make more mp3 files. Someone will just creat another format. This has been going on before MP3s, and it will continue. Unless the current music industry change and find a more reasonable way to sell and distribute music, they will not be able to do anything to stop "music piracy." The same way that all attempts to stop software piracy has failed, so will all attempts to stop music piracy fail.
  • Unless I've seriously overlooked something this isn't a bad thing, just good.

    It won't stop anyone from using MP3's the way they are used today, it will just give the people who wants to sell their copyrighted music over the net as MP3 files a little more protection and that way the record labels might become more friendly into this kind of distribution and MP3 in general.

    Some kind of protection is needed and if we can get an extension of MP3 instead of some kind of new, more closed fileformat it's good for us and everyone else.

    I don't think that we will have to worry about hardware mp3 players requiring a watermark and even if they would do it we would only end up with MP3s watermarked liked "RiPpEd aNd eNcOdEd bY Da MaStEr" or something like that.

  • You are so right, the purchase of most products over the WWW, etc. is a Yuppy-only scene (I'd wager a guess that most of the people who read and comment of this site are indeed yuppies; just look at the posts when a story about employment comes up, they can't seem to understand that their tech jobs are not and infinite thing, oh yes, they'll be unemployed as well... sometime) People still would rather have salesman to yell at or sue if something goes awry then try to contact the pretty much anonymous company (which they'll never get through to anyone in a company who holds any sway anyway).

    - Chris
  • Yeah, pretty much. A pessimistic, but more truthful outlook on the corporate society (especially in the US) which will lead to more destruction. Many people feel Americans are too complacent when it comes to corporations and power grabbing, and with good cause, would you want to be in court fighting $$$$$ lawyers? No, who would? And don't think that people are too sophisticated for violent upheavals of corporations and the like because they're not. The thing is, it is no different that the aristocrats of the past and the serfs. I am in Canada, we are even worse. When a new, unpopular law comes in, people may get angry for a day or two and then say oh well. Throughout history, people have only been able to be pushed so far... Maybe the corporations are a little more lucky because we're in a new(er) age. Maybe not. Fact is, not too much digital (computers) have gotten into the hands of those in poverty, wait until it becomes the standard in society, when they find there is even more that is unattainable to them, the impatience will wear thinner. People are almost at their peak. In the US, the GOP is becoming ever more popular this is where the people go (for some reason, b/c the conservatives are just as much "in" with corporations as anyone else.) As it is going this next 100 years or so will be ummm... very "interesting" to watch, the winds of change are howling.
    -Chris
  • As far as I've seen, the Johns are the ones they go after with the most vigor, including putting their names and faces in the paper.

    But it's not the same situation. Prostitution is a mutual agreement with moral tones many don't agree with. Piracy's theft. Even if you don't agree with the company's moral standing of charging outrageous amounts, there is nothing civilized or right about simply taking what you like if you don't accept the terms of the deal.

    Artists get a pittance from the record companies when you buy their albums. When you steal them, they get *nothing*
  • This "f-ck the world, f-ck the rich, I'm being persecuted by the coporations, we must rise up against the oppression" meme has gotten out of hand on on slashdot recently. The record companies' crime is stupidity, not malice. This is exactly the attitude that has led to the current attitude the big labels have toward MP3. This is what will destroy any trust-based system for MP3 ditribution, and lead to us all being treated like theives.

  • For those of you (us, whatever) pirates out there,
    wouldnt it be possible to prevent this watermark thing from going on by basically holding on to old copies of winamp and some kind of ripper that dosen't use the watermark? if you kept those in circulation, then i dont think it would float
  • MP3's need something like this before they become more popular, but it needs to be something that everyone has access to. Artists who don't have official record companies need ways to distribute music, and a protected MP3 system could help in doing this, but if it's going to be called MP3, it needs to stay compatible with existing MP3's. By not doing this, it would be similar to calling DIVX disks DVD's.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So let's say they're successful with this. What does it mean? Will the RIAA strongarm the hardware producers into making only "watermark-compliant" car stereos, walkmans, and home stereo components?

    Stamping a file with a digital signature retains information, such as artist or producer contact, copyright data, and a number to track ownership.

    So if I want to play a watermarked MP3 on my watermarked MP3-enabled listening device, is it supposed to connect to their server and verify that I've paid for the download? Or is this thing just supposed to make it easier for them to shut down high-volume piraters? Something sounds fishy here.

    "It's a good thing for consumers."

    hahahaha!!!!!!!

  • And there's no way there'd be enough detail to identify who owned the watermark - which let's face it, is what companies implementing want.
  • What are you talking about? What history?

    Like the refusal by oil companies to accept unleaded gas!
    Like the push for black-and-white tv sets by powerhouses like Sony!
    Like the elimination of libraries by the book-publishing industry!

    No, as you see, greed isn't always such a bad thing. These are instances where they migh have forced the public to accept an old standard, or an inferior one, but they were driven by competition to use a better one. Actually, greed usually helps. Take an econ course. If you already have, take another one and stay awake this time. North America may be in its infancy, but the US has one of the oldest governmental systems of the major industrial powers (200+ for US, compared to about 40 for Japan).
  • From what I understand of the average watermark technique... It's mostly a non-destructive way of encoding info inside the music data itself. It's not some new protocol you need a new version of winamp for. A watermark-enabled winamp would be a good thing... it would tell you if the .mp3 is watermarked. Otherwise you'd probably never know. Some people probably have some watermarked songs right now, they just don't know it.
  • Yeah, I guess a bit of editing destroyed what I meant to say... 'mostly non-destructive'...

    I meant you shouldn't be able to tell a difference by ear.

    :)

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