cisler on 14 Aug 2000 14:19:50 -0000


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[Nettime-bold] Re:Terror in Tune Town. Watermarks







Monday, August 14, 2000

Watermarks a part of `secure digital music initiative'

BY JON HEALEY San Jose Mercury News

If you hold your birth certificate up to the light, chances are you'll see a
watermark -- a hidden, indelible image that makes the document nearly impossible
to duplicate.

Now, as online file-swapping services like Napster Inc. fuel the duplication of
songs on a massive scale, the music industry is looking at a new generation of
watermarks for protection. These hidden bits of digital code wouldn't prevent
song files from being copied, but they could help labels and artists keep track
of their works as they propagate across the Internet.

The watermarked songs also could give consumers more than they're getting today
from MP3 files, the common and easily duplicated format for songs downloaded
from the Net. That added value, watermark developers say, is critical to winning
over consumers.

``If the watermark is perceived as a tool for tracking pirates,'' said Ahmed
Tewfik, chief executive of Cognicity Inc., ``that software will never get
installed.''

The flip side for consumers is that watermarked files may not work with their
favorite jukebox software, at least not without some additional downloading. And
they may not work at all on the current crop of portable music players.

There wouldn't be much need for audio watermarks if the digital songs on CDs
were secured with electronic locks. But there are no such locks, at least not
yet, so songs can easily be ``ripped'' off of a CD, compressed into MP3s and
shipped freely over the Internet's global pipelines.

Napster of Redwood City has helped generate tens of millions of MP3s by enabling
consumers to find and copy them off of other consumers' personal computers. A
group of record labels and music publishers is trying to sue Napster into
oblivion -- a preliminary ruling that would have crippled Napster is being
reviewed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- but Napster is just one of
many ways for consumers to copy MP3s over the Internet.

Some Napster proponents argue that the company has helped the music industry by
boosting CD sales, but the major labels scoff at that notion. They believe that
consumers should pay for the music they download, not just the CDs they buy, and
they don't want to lose their cut of the digital action.

To date, the labels' response to MP3s has been ``secure'' downloadable files
that cannot be played without an electronic key. Compared with the
point-and-click simplicity and breathtaking selection offered by Napster,
however, the labels' secure downloads are unwieldy and sparse.

Watermarks could become an element of secure downloads, or they could serve as a
more user-friendly alternative to the labels' current approach. They're also a
piece of the ``secure digital music initiative'' that the labels and
consumer-electronics companies have been formulating for a year and a half,
although the initiative has yet to be formally adopted.

The marks themselves are bits of data embedded into a song file in a way that's
designed to be inaudible and virtually indelible. A variety of techniques are
used to mask the presence of the watermarks, such as hiding them in a noisy
passage of a song.

Cognicity is one of a handful of companies developing technology to add
watermarks to digital music files. Others include Verance Corp., AudioTrack
Corp., Blue Spike Inc. and Liquid Audio Inc. of Redwood City.

Using customized jukebox software, Cognicity can add a watermark to an MP3 or
other music file as it's being copied over the Internet. That watermark would
serve two purposes, Tewfik said. It would trigger extra features within the
jukebox, providing a ``much, much richer'' listening experience, he said, and it
would help the labels track the popularity of individual songs.

If consumers gave their permission, Tewfik said, the Cognicity software could
monitor what music they played on their PCs and recommend other songs or
merchandise they might like. Such scrutiny might strike some consumers as an
invasion of privacy, but Tewfik emphasized that ``you decide exactly what you
want to do with that information.''

One thing consumers couldn't control unless they remove the Cognicity software
is the record it creates of their file-swapping habits. The Cognicity Web site
notes that tracks shared over the Internet ``will have an embedded audit trail
that points back to the original transaction.'' In other words, people making
unauthorized copies can be traced.

The point -- as the company puts it on its Web site -- is to deter honest people
from doing dishonest things. ``Users will be less likely to abuse tracks if they
know that their fingerprints are in the music,'' the site states.

AudioTrack's approach puts much more emphasis on rewarding consumers, but the
basic goal is the same: helping record companies and artists follow their
digital music files as they spread across the Net.

When consumers play a song file with an AudioTrack watermark, a button pops up
on their computer screen. Clicking on the button connects them to an AudioTrack
database, where their computer follows the instructions left by the band or its
record label.

For example, they could wind up at a Web site with a music video, chat room or
concert dates. The result, said CEO Stuart Rosove, is to let the labels and
artists communicate directly with music fans -- something that's hard to do in
the anonymous world of CD sales.

Fans may like their anonymity, though. The system won't collect any personally
identifiable information unless it's volunteered, Rosove said, although it can
automatically detect the fan's ZIP code.

Artists and labels can use the system to promote the sale of downloadable songs,
CDs, concert tickets and the like, as well as raising revenues by selling ads on
the Web sites they direct their fans to. But Rosove said the system was not
designed to force people to pay for songs in order to hear them, adding, ``We
believe in enabling, not disabling.''

Added Ron Sobel, AudioTrack's president and a former entertainment lawyer and
songwriters' representative, ``None of my clients . . .  have ever wanted to
restrict their art. They just want to be compensated.''

Verance is making watermarks that can be embedded into the master recordings of
songs, appearing first on CDs and then in the digital copies made from them. It
uses customized software on the consumer's PC to read the watermarks, telling
record labels which of their tracks were downloaded and how many copies were
made.

This approach could enable ``a legitimate type of Napster-like business,''
spokesman Greg Hampton said. At some point Napster is going to have to start
charging someone for its service, whether it be advertisers or users, and
trackable watermarks could help divvy up the royalty payments appropriately to
the labels or artists who own the copyrights, he said.

Users would benefit, Hampton added, because only legitimate, undamaged song
files would be watermarked. And lesser-known bands with small, scattered
followings could benefit because the tracking would be better able to detect
small numbers of downloads than traditional sampling techniques.

``It's really dependent upon the Napsters of the world and the record labels to
determine if this is something that's worthwhile to implement,'' Hampton said.
Today, he added, Napster and similar file-sharing systems don't believe they
have to pay royalties, so they don't want to add watermarking.

Meanwhile, the record labels are at the other extreme, trying to shut Napster
down. ``Hopefully,'' Hampton said, ``we'll end up with something in the
middle.''

Napster may already be headed in that direction. Last month, Liquid Audio CEO
Gerry Kearby said that Napster had licensed his company's watermarking
technology for research and development, although Napster officials insisted
that they hadn't committed to using any Liquid Audio products.


Contact Jon Healey at jhealey@sjmercury.com or (877) 727-5005.


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