Promo CD watermarking : Is this for real?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by kwadguy, Jul 19, 2005.

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  1. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I have a bunch of recent promo CDs (well, they're actually CD-Rs, as are most pre-release CDs these days). Several of them (from Warner/Reprise) have the following warning on the cover:

    "Please note: This CD has been individually watermarked with a unique identification number embedded in the music. This number is traceable directly to the authorized recipient, which allows us to identify the source of any unauthorized copies or other reproductions of the music contained on this CD. The watermark is not changed or destroyed by extracting clips of the music, or by using any compression technology such as MP3. The sound quality of the audio playback is not affected. This CD is intended to be listened to solely by the authorized recipient and no portion of its contents may be copied or reproduced in any manner, nor made available in any manner to any third party (whether by means of streaming, so-called ‘peer-to-peer’ networks or otherwise). This CD should not be played in a computer. Thank you in advance for your understanding… Enjoy!"

    It should be noted that the CD itself also has a barcode (probably custom) and a name (custom) on it...

    Now I can believe they can watermark the .cda/wav files on the CD. But I am not sure I believe that the watermark survives encoding to a compressed format. At least, I don't believe that the encoding can both not affect playback and also survive compression.

    It's not that I'm worried about the whole thing...I'm not planning on sharing this music. But I'm curious to understand how the watermark could survive compression. Anyone know?

    (I guess the individual watermarking/barcoding makes these CDs pretty much unsalable on eBay [that info has got to make these a VeRO magnet!], though at the same time they may be pretty collectable in certain circles [for collectable artists, of course]).

    Kwad
     
  2. johmbolaya

    johmbolaya Active Member

    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    Is this similar to what TVT Records does on some of their recent releases, or is it a different technology?
     
  3. metalbob

    metalbob Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I receive copies like this from time to time and don't really know if the copy protection really works all the time or how a record company would know it is my copy. Some of them actually have my name imprinted on them, which will maybe shame me into not lending the CD to anyone because it could be traced back to me. Not sure what I'd be afraid of if it was a copy of the disc and there was no indication that it was mine. In the past, before all this was a major problem, I recall a record company actually inserting dropouts at various points in songs on an advance CD with different locations for each person receiving the disc as it would help narrow down where downloaded copies came from (i.e. drop out at 7 seconds would indicate it would come from person A). Sounds like a lot of wasted time to make that happen.

    I just tried one out and received a message: "This CD is designed to be played only in genuine CD players." Not sure if this applies to other discs or not as I have had different problems with different discs.
     
  4. MartinGr

    MartinGr Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany/Berlin
    There are definitely working watermark techniques for CD-Audio duplication on CD-Rs. Musictrace is the one I know of. And the watermark even survives if you record the content with an analogue tape recorder and then back to digital. I've seen it for myself. But for the duplication a copy tower is needed, where the watermarking software can manipulate the (DDP-)image each time when one copy is created. The watermark on Promo-CD-Rs is individually coupled with the receiving person, personalized on the label imprint.
    The DVD-A has something similar, too, but with the same watermark on each genuine DVD, because it's pressed. Even if you record the surround content of a Warner title via analog inputs and author a new DVD-A with this recording, the DVD-A player stops playing after 30 seconds.

    Martin
     
  5. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    So if the watermark survives transfer to the analogue domain (or to a compressed version) and also supposedly cannot be heard, how is it implemented?

    Kwad
     
  6. RicP

    RicP All Digital. All The Time.

  7. Mark

    Mark I Am Gort, Hear Me Roar Staff

    I get a fair number of promos for review, and this varies from company to company. I am finding that, recently, the big companies are not only putting notification on the CD that it is burned specifically for me, but I also sometimes get a separate note from the company telling me that the CD can be traced and shouldn't be duplicated, yada, yada, yada.
     
  8. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    I like to buy advance cds, especially ones where the liner notes of the offiial releases are not mandatory. I've bought almost every Miles Davis multi-disc advance set, all at great prices, usually about $4 per disc. But on Sunday, as I was about to buy the advance set of "'Round About Midnight", the Legacy Edition, I noticed that the discs were cdrs. Well, I guess THAT ride is over!
     
  9. GregY

    GregY New Member

    Location:
    .
    I guess this is done to prevent distributing MP3s?
    What happens if you (legally) sell the disc, someone buys it used, and they rip, encode and distribute the files?
     
  10. metalbob

    metalbob Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Not sure exactly who you are asking this question, but personally, I don't sell any CDs I get from work and I especially wouldn't sell anything with my name emblazoned on it.

    For a record company employee, you would likely be fired. For a writer for a smaller publication, you might get taken off of a mailing list. If you worked at a radio station or large magazine, my guess of what would happen would be absolutely nothing. I saw the assistant program director of a radio station in Boston walking out of a high profile used record store once empty handed. He might be a record collector and didn't find anything he was interested in, but he was likely selling a whole ton of CDs.

    BOB
     
  11. todd33rpm

    todd33rpm New Member

    I assume you mean if one was a contest winner of a CD and then decided to get rid of it after not listening to it for a few years?

    Most record companies would probably not watermark copies intended for giveaway, 'cause you'd have parties that had nothing to do with the reselling of the CD getting tossed to the curb. The watermarks I've seen have been applied to a single CD-R, advance version of an album, with no cover art or packaging as such...the CD equivalent of a "white label" pressing, in other words. It would be intended for consumption by a PD, music director or specific jock, and I imagine wouldn't be legally saleable. We've never received watermarked CD-Rs in bulk like that for giveaway.
     
  12. Derek Gee

    Derek Gee Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit
    Note that this page tells you absoletely nothing that hasn't been discussed above. Check out this URL which describes how a professor cracked five different watermarking systems:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media/1492835.stm

    Here's a page that includes the professors paper describing in better detail how the watermarking systems work:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/extra/sdmi-attack.htm

    Derek
     
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