boycott-riaa.com - Article: SDMI's Fragil Watermarking Phase II Spec.

SDMI's Fragil Watermarking Phase II Spec.

Posted by Mike Darrah on July 3, 2000 at 1:31 PM (printer friendly)

The group behind the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), are testing a new system of "Fragil Watermarking". The new system is a more detailed digital watermarking system for their upcoming Phase II specification.

This "Fragil Watermarking" system will be in addition to the standard robust digital watermark, and will be much more likely to be corrupted by recompression or other similar operations.

While phase one of the SDMI standard was a complete failure, SDMI has not lost focus on the task at hand and is preparing this new technology for main stream implimentation.

The question is, how long will it take SDMI to get this new spec implimented? And after doing so, how long it will until it gets cracked? lol

Links:

link(www.sdmi.org,SDMI)

User Comments (These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)


pressf8	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 2:20 PM So are these watermark things trackable?

-X-	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 2:36 PM That is a damn good question, but the real question is.. "If this new watermarking system features some sort of tracking ability with in it, will they admit to the fact that it does right away or at all?" -X-

thesporq	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 4:59 PM Also, will I be forced to pay not only for the privilege of listening to what is essentially 'free' music, but for the inability to either share or transport this music anywhere else?

Anonymous	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 5:47 PM Digital music will be treated the same as software. You wanted rules and models to change so you will get it [ deep up yours ] YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY A NEW LICENCE IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT ON ANOTHER PLAYER [ YES, THAT MEANS YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT AT HOME, BUT IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT IN YOUR CAR IT WILL NOT WORK, YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY ANOTHER COPY ] For this you have to thank all of the assholes who decided $1 per song is too much and do not want to pay.

Chad	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 7:11 PM I would like to know where you came up with this? First of all, "YOU WILL HAVE TO BUY A NEW LICENCE IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO IT ON ANOTHER PLAYER" is totally differant than a software license. So.. And second, anyone who has stuided consumers will tell you that a consumer will not pay for a product that they can get for free when they are of equal quality and equal avalibility. Actually, my 10 yearold cousin could tell you that. So yes, we should blame it on the common sense of the consumer, they will bring a the anvil of un-comsumer-friendly copy protection and rights management apon us. Riighhht.... And secondly, you forget that the hardware companies have been less-than enthusiastic about SDMI. It does not work, it makes thier products less usable by consumers. They will not embrace it if consumers will not be able to transfer thier music to another device. Well, maybe Sony will.. I have serious doubts about your origin and agenda. `Chad `Chad

kurt_nimmo	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 8:03 PM It's called transactional watermarking. It embeds your name and other information in the file when you download it. If you copied this file and then posted it in the Napster directory and somebody downloaded it (say a lawyer representing a large multinational record company), they would know who orginally bought the file because of the embedded "audit trail." Since the watermark is an audio signal, it is "robust," meaning it can survive copying, recompression, and sampling. It will always travel with the file. It does not degrade audio quality or add to byte count. It's "invisible." Crafty technology, but it will not be wholly effective unless people migrate en masse to downloads, which I don't think they will do immediately. People will continue to buy CDs, a technology easily ripped to MP3. How will the industry attach an "audit trail" to mass produced CDs? The only way I can see the industry embedding transactional IDs in CD music is if they were to burn all CDs onsite at the brick and mortar store. This would be impractical and expensive. Consumers wouldn't like it. Watermarking is basically a non-issue. Growing numbers of consumers rip CDs and play MP3 files over devices - and swap them over the Internet. All of these files are virgin, non-watermarked. It will be difficult to tell the difference between a watermarked and non-watermarked file, though. Napster will become a crap shoot of sorts.

-X-	Date: July 3, 2000 @ 11:23 PM You lame bastard - get a life and learn something beyond cutting and pasting.. I normally don't comment on negitive comments such as this, but this is over kill. I had to speak out.

Anonymous	Date: July 4, 2000 @ 2:08 AM CAN SOMEONE FUCKIN MODERATE THIS THING PLEASE!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?

-X-	Date: July 4, 2000 @ 8:04 AM Please note - the above mentioned flame is NOT intended towards Kurt Nimmo.

Anonymous	Date: July 4, 2000 @ 10:36 AM another intersting point on why SDMI will fail.. first not only will ppl go after the free one if it's just as good as the pay for play one, but they'll take lesser quality only if it means that they don't gotta pay for it. even if SDMI is supposedly better, it will still fail b/c MP3 is rampant. they would haveto shut-down about 90% of the mp3 sites out there. good fucking luck they're just pissed b/c they didn't get to it first and now they're paying that price.

Anonymous	Date: July 4, 2000 @ 9:40 PM Well im not worried as every body says SDMI will fail, 3 reasons 1)The people would just stick to regular mp3 is easier and FREEEEEE, People won't go to an online store and say "hey look music download let me buy" NOT, thas why napster is there for. 2)Besides the quality is nothing regular mp3 files with 128 and/or 192 bitrate quality sounds EXCELLENT, and there is no difference between 128, 192, or 256 bitrate there all da same shit. 3)And last SDMI will be cracked thats a perfect example of the 40 year old man doING something and a 10 year old comes and cracks it. Besides everybody knows da if it does sell there will be a need for players, and here is an example, WINAMP HAS MANY FILE ASSOCIATIONS AND U KNOW DA, SO SOMEBODY IS GOING TO COME OUT WITH AND SDMI EXTENSION FOR IT AND IT WOULD BE COPIED TO MP3 OR WAV USING WINAMP ITS DAM SIMPLE, I COULD BE WRONG BUT DAS WHAT I THINK.

Anonymous	Date: July 5, 2000 @ 8:07 PM I'm not too worried about SDMI taking over the role of MP3. SDMI - why pay when we can get it free? MP3 - When it's free, does moral ethics matter? Those record companies are ripping us off with high CD prices, for what? Royalties. Stats have shown that Napster trading has increased the music sales of record stores. Why? As more people listen to MP3, if they like the song, they'll buy the entire album, so what do artists need to fear? I think it's high time we stop the SDMI discussion, first and foremose being that it's not going to win in the battle arena with MP3, with adoption by so many people in the industry, consumers, etc. and with so many sites out there, do you think the RIAA can stop it? Btw, I still like ripping MP3s off CDs. It's more self-satisfying. Au Revoir.