Gizmodo: watermarking

Will Digital Watermarking Rise From DRM's Ashes?

matt buchanan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:30:06 EST

Okay, so DRM is dead dead dead. Hurray, right? Well, Wired says it's simply being swapped out for digital watermarking, which will lay out breads crumbs for the labels to follow as songs make their way across P2P networks, and the bundle of evidence will allow them to place pressure on ISPs to engage in large-scale network filtering.

Right now, though, only two labels are watermarking tracks—Universal and Sony BMG. EMI and Warner aren't lacing their files yet, but it's a definite future possibility, and the watermarks could be used in conjunction with a filtering plan like AT&T's, which was recently confirmed by an AT&T exec. Ironically, Microsoft doesn't support network filtering, so we wonder how it would feel about its new, patented digital watermarking tech being used for the cause. [Wired, Digital Home Thoughts]

Nielsen To Police Web With Anti-Piracy Watermarking Scheme

Wilson Rothman — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:31:22 EST

Nielsen has teamed up with Digimarc to create Nielsen Digital Media Manager, earnest-sounding software that will "use digital watermarking and fingerprinting to establish an industry-wide rules-based solution to copyright security and to assure copyright compliance." While much of this pertains to Nielsen's core business, tracking the popularity of shows, it is very much a security system:

Content owners can leverage the popularity of new media distribution channels by identifying what content is being shared, viewed, mashed up or accessed. This intelligence enables content owners to make meaningful decisions on what content to allow or disallow on such sites.

I guess this means Nielsen no longer needs our explicit participation in order to see what's popular. Makes me feel a bit scared and a bit used. [DigiMarc/Nielsen via Reuters]