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Posted by Dave Cohen on 08/20/07 14:27
Ablang wrote:
> Could Audio Watermarking Help Make MP3s Free?
> A technology mostly associated with crackdowns on music and movie
> pirates could instead be used to help make multimedia content free--
> and file-sharing legal.
> Eric Lai, Computerworld
> Wednesday, August 15, 2007 2:00 PM PDT
>
> A technology mostly associated today with crackdowns on music and
> movie pirates could instead be used to help make multimedia content
> free -- and file-sharing legal.
>
> So claims a small Seattle firm, Activated Content Corp., which appears
> to be the leader in the small but growing field of audio watermarking.
>
> Audio watermarking involves taking a song and manipulating it
> digitally to create an audio pattern that is unmistakable to the right
> software -- such as Activated's -- though undetectable by human ears.
>
> "You can't hear it, so you don't know it's there," said Eric
> Silberstein, CEO of the 12-employee, seven-year-old company. Moreover,
> because the watermark becomes part of the audio itself, it is much
> more difficult to remove than, say, a text string embedded in a
> digital file, such as the ID3 metadata tags that Apple Inc.'s iTunes
> embeds in songs.
>
> Only "if you had a Cray supercomputer and a month and a half" could
> you break Activated's watermarks, claimed Silberstein.
>
> Other experts claim that a well-crafted audio watermark can even
> survive being rerecorded using an analog cassette deck with a
> relatively low-fidelity microphone.
>
> A DRM alternative
>
> Audio watermarking has gained some popularity over copy protection and
> other digital rights management (DRM) schemes, which can sometimes
> prevent music from being played depending on the device, according to
> Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne LLC, an online media research firm.
>
> But audio watermarking today remains a niche application. For
> instance, many record companies are "slavishly devoted" to placing
> audio watermarks on any advance albums they send out, and on master or
> prerelease copies floating around inside their offices, Garland said.
>
> "I've heard record company employees tell me that if their copy is
> lost and turns up on the Internet, it will get hunted down and they
> will lose their job," he said.
>
> But audio watermarking has its limitations, Garland said. One is its
> relatively high cost per disc, currently at least. The other is that
> audio watermarking, while it has enabled record companies to gather
> oodles of evidence on consumers illegally file-sharing music, doesn't
> overcome the fundamental problem -- that starting to sue pirating
> consumers on a mass scale would create an even bigger "backlash,"
> Garland said.
>
> Silberstein says that the record industry is finally starting to
> accept that overhauling the business model is the way to move forward.
> How does he know? Because of the many record companies, large
> advertisers and cable and mainstream broadcasters that are licensing
> audio watermarking technology from Activated in preparation for trials
> that would allow consumers to download unprotected music or movies in
> which the content as well as the advertising is tracked using audio
> watermarks. Some of those companies, including Sony Music and
> Universal Music are listed on Activated's site, and many others are
> operating under nondisclosure agreements, according to Silberstein.
>
>>From piracy to promotion (and back?)
>
> The tracking technology allows advertisers to gather information about
> the consumer and the effectiveness of the ad. Such data, according to
> Silberstein, is so valuable that advertisers would be willing to pay
> five to 10 times rate of a regular ad for an watermarked ad. That data
> works particularly well with "call-to-action" type of ads, in which
> consumers, after listening to an ad, respond or click on a link to buy
> something or otherwise opt in to the advertiser's campaign,
> Silberstein said.
>
> "What content owners have been afraid would reduce their income is now
> an opportunity to increase their income," Silberstein said.
>
> It also suddenly turns pirates from forces that hurt a record
> company's bottom line into unpaid marketers on their behalf.
>
> Record companies publicly listed as Activated clients include Sony
> Music and Universal Music Group. The latter said last week that it
> will test the sale of thousands of songs for the next half-year
> without copy protection. Silberstein declined to confirm whether
> Universal is placing audio watermarks in those songs.
>
> While Activated already had its own patented technology to allow
> broadcasters to deliver audio watermarks on the fly, it announced
> Wednesday that it would license audio watermarking technology
> developed by Microsoft Corp.'s Research division.
>
> That technology, Silberstein said, is key because it creates simpler
> watermarks that can be decoded by MP3 players in smart phones, not
> just full-fledged PCs. Smart phones that can natively detect Activated
> watermarks will start appearing by early next year, he said.
>
> Silberstein promised that the price Activated charges -- it not only
> sells its software to record labels, advertisers and broadcasters, but
> also charges per transaction it handles on their behalf -- will not
> "impede adoption." And he pooh-poohed notions that the move toward ad-
> supported media is just a ruse designed to gather information on
> pirating consumers in order to someday crack down on them.
>
> "I don't think that's ever going to happen," he said. Fighting piracy
> is "where we started, but the truly important use is the digital
> linking of consumers to content owners."
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136017/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
>
I think if you can play it on your computer you can capture sound from
the sound card, perhaps with slight loss in quality.
Dave Cohen
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