Hollywood Experiments with Watermarking

Red Herring is reporting that Hollywood will be using watermarking to protect downloaded content.

The movie industry also believes that watermarks—unique digital stamps embedded into each file—would enable content producers to fend off movie pirates without having to rely on digital rights management software provided by groups such as Apple and Microsoft. But analysts and privacy rights advocates argue that watermarking will not prevent internet piracy and could give rise to a number of thorny privacy and legal issues.

Thanks to Richard for sending this in.

Comments

[Rusty Ramrod]

Out of DRM and watermarking, watermarking wins in my book by 100%.

However, you know what would happen in the end, watermarking *and* DRM.

[Dan]

as if DRM has had any real impact on pirating.

[gir]

One thing watermarking has against it; it's almost guaranteed to implicate the innocent. Do you think any competent hacker/pirate is going to distribute content with his *own* watermark? No way - the pirated content will *always* be stolen or falsely marked.

I don't think I'll ever knowingly sign up for a service that uses watermarking. It's just one more avenue for identity theft.

[Rusty Ramrod]

Good point.

[type-cast]

Water-marking is just as bad as DRM, because it has the same purpose. Preventing sharing, fair use, and public domain. I say copyright has no validity 'til Walt Disney puts Mickey Mouse in the public domain. Copyright is not natural law. It's a social contract that has paid zero dividends to the public. It's time we consign it to the dust bin of history. If companies continue to abuse their customers, with water-marks and DRM, boycott them until their accounting ledgers bleed red.