Navaho Gunleg

I was just reading this article here about a new watermarking technology from the Fraunhofer Institute (the guys that made piracy, errrr, music compression possible).

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute have successfully tested a software system, based on the group’s own digital watermarking technology, for tracking pirated audio files in P2P (peer-to-peer) filesharing networks, said Michael Kip, a spokesman for the institute.

Kip referred to the Fraunhofer approach as an alternative to DRM (digital rights management) systems, which he said require special players and are prone to hacking.

While watermarking technology isn’t new per se, this is the first time it has been used in a system to automatically track pirating in P2P networks, according to Kip.

Alternatively I was reading about stegonagraphy the other day — and with steganography also certain parts of images are changes — changes that will not be detected by the naked eye.

But the slight modifications will be gone the moment somebody re-samples the MP3.

I don’t see this becoming a success. Don’t mess around with the music. Keep the shit pure for fuck sakes.

With DRM the problem is — the moment your computer breaks, you cannot play your media anymore because they are all locked to your computer.

With watermarking, the moment somebody steals your files, and puts your files on the Internet — you will suffer the consequences.

So from a privacy point of view, this ain’t a good idea either. Record companies should just make good music that’s worth going to the artists’ concert for. It’s as simple as that.

Music, DRM, Watermarking, Tracing