I work for a metal magazine and recently watermarked promo cds have become a big issue. There is a new technology that attaches a watermark to the audio signal itself, thus taking care of the analog hole method of copying protected promo cds. Some music reviewers recently got fined insane amounts of money for doing things like playing promo material on a radio show or otherwise sharing promo music. In order to get all the facts straight, I wrote an email to one fo the companies that design such watermarking technology, and here is the information I received from them, it might be useful to some of you.
This is a quote from a post I made in the magazine’s private forums:
“Well, I got my answer from one of the watermark companies. They confirmed my assumption that the watermark is present in the audio signal itself, thus being susceptible to compression and/or manual sound editing. The watermark algorithm is nevertheless robust enough to manage to stay intact in 192kbps mp3 files, with the cutoff being around 160kbps (below that, the compression is large enough to render the watermark useless). I suspect the watermark can still probably remain intact even in 128kbps CBR files though, depending on the actual song. Using VBR or different codecs such as mp3Pro and Ogg decreases the chance of the watermark remaining intact. Using a manual method of getting rid of frequencies that the human ear cant hear is a method that certainly will get rid of the watermark; however, it will also affect the audio signal by making the music sound more flat and undynamic. Still, if you really want to share watermarked music, the best way to do it is to first batch edit the files using a sound editor and then compressing the tracks using mp3Pro or Ogg. All of this comes from an official source so its pretty reliable information. I hope this clears things up a little bit”
Naturally, I dont ‘officially’ support piracy; however, this watermark thing also limits completely legal practices such as inter-office music sharing (for reviewing purposes). Moreover, say that some music is stolen from a magazine without it being the magazine’s fault, the watermark would still point to said magazine, thus making innocent parties responsible for a leak.
you think that is real? or maybe just some “don’t bootleg our shit” scary story made up by companies to try and curb bootlegging? Menaing, that is an awful lot of marks to create and keep track of, just so they can trace it back to the leaking party. Also, has anybody really been hit by this? how can radio stations get fined for playing promo shit on the air, esepcially if no one can hear the tones, so how does the music company know who leaked it? Besides, isn’t that point fo Promo shit? Give it to the radio stations to start playing it in order to create a demand? seems fishy! I hope it’s not true cause then people will be reluctant to release early stuff. Well, until watermark remover programs come out!! LOL
Oh well,
Late,
grmpysmrf
I’m sure watermark removal won’t be too far off, lol. I think it is a good idea… I like being able to MP3 something and listen to it, once I have the album, or just want to hear a song thats stuck in my head or whatever… but like the last sucker, it’s released already, some have listened to it and gone bleh, how crap, not buying it. Others may like it enough to listen occasionally without buying… whatever. The artist still loses out some potentially purchasers with leaks prior to the release date.
I am guilty… the new Manson album leaked and a friend gave it to me… I still haven’t bought the real-deal, whereas normally I would have had it the first week. Although I did buy tix to his show, so I suppose he’s getting enough $$ out of me for the time being, lol.
As for the promo/sampler whatever… working for a music mag, they naturally would receive things earlier to listen to/preview to give the public an idea of whats to come. Maybe they only get it a week before radio play or whatever… enough time to review it for the release date.
But yeah, sending a promo to a radio station then fining them for playing it seems a bit unusual. Maybe they come with conditions for play (ie. do not play before xx/xx/xx).
Roadrunner records sometimes leak songs… or maybe the promos are like this I dunno, where its the full song, in a low-quality rip where every 60-90 seconds someone will talk over the song and promote the album… I actually kinda like this idea, you get a feel of the album/single/whatever, and if you like it you’ll naturally want it without someone talking over the top of it.
Well, as I said, people have already been ‘caught’ by this watermark technology, so it is definitely a confirmed ‘threat’ for music sharing. What that reviewer I mentioned did was that he played like 30 minutes of some yet unreleased album on the radio, which of course results in a fairly clean audio signal, straight from the source (thus conserving the watermark). Naturally, what this reviewer did was totally STUPID and its no surprise he got caught.
I was also unconvinced about the rumors, thats why I emailed that watermarking company. I just thought knowing some details might be useful.
For reviewing purposes, so that a full review of the album can appear at the same time as the official release date. Radio stations also sometimes get them earlier but typically with clear instructions as to when they’re allowed to play the tracks. In the past labels sometimes used to send incomplete versions of the album or versions with annoying overdubs; however, this was met with such a negative response by the reviewing community that they had to come up with some new method of preventing leaks.
Using a manual method of getting rid of frequencies that the human ear cant hear is a method that certainly will get rid of the watermark; however, it will also affect the audio signal by making the music sound more flat and undynamic.
I’d like to test that.
Where can I get ahold of a good example of a watermarked audio file?
I’ll see what I can do though.