The Germans have always been known for their stalwart adherence to the "textbook" way to do something. They produce some of the finest products in the world, which of course you knew. The Germans have done it once again, and this time it may be a good solution to our real-world DRM problem. The German company Akuma is letting their customers
download music without DRM. The MP3 files contain a small high-pitched "watermark" that identifies the song's purchaser. This allows people to play the song on any device they want without restrictions, and allows law-enforcement to catch anyone who shares songs on file-sharing P2P networks. I think the idea is brilliant where the best of both worlds can comfortably collide, giving everyone what they want. The question I have still is how easy would it be to remove the "watermark" from the song? What about converting it to another format? Will this loose the track's "watermark" or not? It may not be the perfect solution, but then again it may be. At least now, someone is thinking about both sides of the DRM story, not just the big bad wolf, but the little pigs as well.
Tags: Akuma, DRM, german, music, news, watermark
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Comments
12
Subscribe to commentsliquidSep 18th 2006 3:24PM
so what happens when you loose or someone steals your ipod or other mp3 player with all your music thats linked back to you. And starts shareing it to other people. Then they come looking for you.
jamesSep 18th 2006 4:20PM
liquid,
Good question, but I would guess the same thing as if your gun or car is stolen and used in a crime.
My question is what is the watermark based on, your name, SS#, date of birth? I like the idea that it frees up the music, but I am not comfortable with my tracks from Ace of Base having my name attached to them. It the makes it kind of hard for me to deny listening to them. Of course I don't listen to Ace of Base, I was just using that as an example, and you can't prove that I do! At least not yet.
ChavalSep 18th 2006 6:20PM
I supose a random frequency is asigned to your name in a database when you buy that song. The problem is, if it's only based on a high frequency pitch, it's very easy to remove it with a filter included on any sound editing software, and so is doing a software to automate that process.
JamesSep 18th 2006 9:28PM
@Chaval
Yeah thats true man. You'd think they'd have to use a fairly high frequency band or it would interfere with the music itself. Doing so would make the signal pretty easy to isolate, and remove.
On the up side, think of the naming possibilities:
"Dogwhistle Rights Management" :P
KenSep 19th 2006 9:21AM
Converting a song file to another format is already a method to remove DRM: you can burn DRM'ed music to CD and import it as DRM-free, you can record music from any source and convert it to the format of your choice etc., but all this comes with the cost of reduced sound quality.
The only methods that DRM-supporting companies are after, are those that maintain the sound quality of the original protected file.
DiddleSep 19th 2006 9:22AM
It would have to either be a VERY specific frequency or some kind of pattern of tones above the hearing range since this kind of watermarking would create a limited number of owners.
If I'm not mistaken, Universal has been using this technology in advance music distribution for a couple of years now.
Sascha (akuma)Sep 19th 2006 9:22AM
Hi,
I am sorry for bad english, as you know, we are Germans ;-)
As you can see, I am one of the developers and I saw this blog-entry and want to give you some answers:
- Can I remove the watermark?
No, you can't. Its not a pitch in higher frequency und you can't isolate it. If you for example burn a CD with WMA-songs and then rip than into MP3s, you have "clean" MP3s. But the Fraunhofer watermark would survive. It also would survive, if you use it for internet radio streaming and somebody ripps the stream.
- What informations do they use in watermark?
We do not use personell informations. There is only a transaction ID, which only WE can allocat to one of our customers.
Ryan CarterSep 19th 2006 9:37AM
Sascha, thanks for responding, I think the idea of the Fraunhofer watermark is great. I would guess that the watermark is an overall footprint on the song, little bits here and there, which is why you can't remove it. That also makes sense that it is only a transaction ID in the song, not personal information. Once again, German engineering is good for everyone. Thanks!
John SununuSep 19th 2006 1:54PM
Ryan, it can't be "little bits here and there". The watermark cannot be purely digital, as conversion to any other format would remove it. It has to be some kind of auditory key for it to remain across conversion. This also means that it's probably audible to some degree, probably as white noise, which would decrease the S/N ratio. Not good, but if you listen to compressed music anyway, you probably won't care.
Ryan CarterSep 19th 2006 1:57PM
A quick gander at Akuma's site reveals that their bitrate is 320k, far above the CD quality 192k we generally enjoy, so perhaps the watermark is in that extra bitrate quality somehow or is there somewhere intertwined with the song itself somehow. They say it can't be heard by a human ear, which leads me to think it is a really high or really low frequency. Sounds like musical DNA to me.
Ron LarsonSep 19th 2006 9:47PM
The watermark can be "scrubbed" out.
Any serialized watermark can be detected in digital media by comparing two watermarked versions of the same content. Once detected, it can be removed.
Sascha (akuma)Sep 20th 2006 8:45AM
more information about the watermarking technology can be found here:
http://www.ipsi.fraunhofer.de/merit/mediensicherheit/was_ist_watermarking.en.html