Japanese Recording Industry Tracks Online Music Files
from the go-go-trackers dept
The Japanese equivalent of the RIAA announced today that they had successfully tracked “watermarked” digital music files that they surreptitiously put online. They say that using such a system would discourage people from downloading unauthorized music files, since those files could be tracked back to where they originated from. Of course, if such watermarks become widespread, it won’t take long before people create ways to strip the watermark files from the songs.
Comments on “Japanese Recording Industry Tracks Online Music Files”
Watermarking consequences
If it were possible to watermark a sound file such that the removal of the watermark would seriously degrade the sound quality, then we might have a decent compromise for everyone. Labels could offer MP3s for download at reasonable/cheap prices, watermarking each file with a uniquely identifiable watermark. The consumer is allowed to make personal copies for his car CD player, his MP3 handheld player, his PC, etc. He can even make a copy for a friend… but he has to be pretty sure the friend won’t start file-sharing it (and certainly the original purchaser shouldn’t) because the file could be ultimately traced back to him through the watermark. No, it’s not an ideal solution because file-sharing itself can be seen as a sort of promotion instead of piracy… but it IS a solution I think a lot of people could live with. The labels could be more confident in releasing tons of content inexpensively, and be more targetted in their lawsuits. The average consumer would flock to it, I believe.