JamieG Analysis

DRM appears to have taken a knock-out blow in the digital music field of late. However, the game is not over yet. Watermarks has been downplayed, but its time to bring out this rookie and see what he can do with the ball.

Putting the analogies aside, the important issue here is that the market has identified that media with strings attached is considered broken media by the consumer. At the current state of play in that most new bands are releasing DRM-free, or even flat out free tracks to promote touring.

Traditional media business models are not competing. Many respected journalists are whispering that DRM will be all over FOR MUSIC within a year. Note here I focus on music, not video. Lets focus on music for now.

This leads me to point at an interesting article found here.

This article has “Evan Hill, CTO of Activated Content” indicating that watermarking technology “could” be used to track who owns a track and who let a copy of a track into the wild. iTune DRM free music ties the owner to the track today (But is relatively easy to remove). Active Content weave the watermark into the actual bitstream. How hard it would be to remove the watermark is currently unknown.

Use of a watermark to ID a consumer would make it very easy for law enforcement agencies to prosecute inappropriate activity by consumers.

But getting back to the story above, Evan takes this story away from the above realizations and heads down the path of. “We can track where content moves and use it to embed targeted advertising on, for example, iPhones, or other media devices.”

This to me is a magic trick. Distract the audience with one hand while your doing something else with the other.

Lets look at this closely. If you look at the trend in watching television media with PVR, Tivio, Torrents. A big plus and why these technologies are so popular is because the consumer can remove advertising from the viewing experience. So saying that consumers would volentee to watch advertising on devices they own and control is inconsistent at best.

Getting back to the real issue here. The use of watermaking to potentially fine inappropriate behaviour. I equate this to getting a fine for speeding. And at the end of the day, with all this technology. The producer has to take a leap of faith in the content they produce and the belief that the consumers will reward them for creating something they enjoy. The occatinal slap on the rist by law enfforcement is simply a way to remind us of this. Its not going to stop piracy. Nothing is going to stop piracy.

We must take responsibility for how we use our media. To abuse it is to wish it to go away.