CD watermark: a question
johmbolaya
4,472 Posts
I received a CD today for review, and it is watermarked. I think this is the second watermarked CD I've ever received, although if it plays on my CD player, I'm fine. I don't upload MP3's so I'm not worried (and if I do, it's ancient crusty stuff.)My question is, is it possible to single out the watermark and extract the sound (or sounds)? Or is it one of those cases where the only decoder that can do this is the creator of the program that made the watermark? I want to create a song based on manipulation of the watermark.
Comments
I believe the watermark is done specifically for each CD-R that is made, for promo copies. There is one theory that the leaks for albums are coming from journalists. I've never leaked a promo, however I did receive an advance of an album from someone who I still do not know who he or she really is. It was an advance of the Clara Hill album (the recent Folkways album from last year), and I even went to the label to ask if the version I had featured the same songs that would be on the stock copy. I was told it was, and was also asked how I got my MP3's. I told them someone e-mailed them to me, plain and simple. I have no reason to up the MP3's for it, and do plan on buying the CD when I have some extra $$ to play with (or I can buy the FLAC files from Sonar Kollekiv, but I'm still a sucker for packaging).
Anyway, I don't know if he posted it or he told me via IM, but Slug (of Atmosphere) told me that there was an advance sent out for an album made by his friend. All of a sudden there was a leak, and the label (not sure if it was Rhymesayers or another label) downloaded it and was able to detect the source of the leak by decoding the watermark. Apparently, the watermark had the writer's name looped throughout the entire album without him knowing it. The writer was called out, and that was that. That's one of the primary reasons there were absolutely no promos for the recent Atmosphere album, to avoid leaks from writers because in his words, most of the leaks are coming from journalists. I said that gives those of us who do not leak a bad name, but it worked. The album *did* leak a week before the official release date, and since no promos were mailed to anyone (the only way anyone in the media could listen to it was to attend the listening parties they held in NYC and LA), he felt they did well by not having it circulate two to three months before the official release.
If the watermark on the CD I have has my name or of the website I'm writing the review for, I'd like to use that watermark to make a song. Or is it a number of tones which is compared to tones in a database, looking at the sequence to see if it's a match-up? Or numbers? I don't know. Or, if I extract a song as a WAV file, and chop it out of sequence, can someone still detect the watermark, even if my final mix sounds nothing like the original song? I have no reason to upload the songs to pass to people as is, I just want to use the watermark or fuck up the song and see if someone tells me they figured out what I sampled.
From what I read on Wikipedia, some watermarks are able to remain with digital and analog conversion, meaning that even if you do an analog transfer of the song or extract the CD using EAC, or CD > MP3 > WAV, one will still be able to tell who
the CD was intended to go to. If I speed up the track or slow it down significantly, wouldn't the watermark be altered at least in speed, and if I'm creating a song that doesn't use elements of it in normal speed, can that be detected?
For the record, the CD in question is the album by Scarlett Johansson. I'm listening to it for the first time right now, and her singing voice reminds me of the monotone voice she used in Ghost World[/b], which is interesting. It's coming out on vinyl as well.
maybe journalists do upload them. I really don't know.
If they sold it to Amoeba and some kid uploaded it then the watermark is still the one for the journalist, so it's still that journalists fault ultimately.
What a dickhead thing to say. Nothing "h" about that bullshit.
Apparently, you've never tried to release music in any way, shape, or form.
What I'd like to know is when the statute of limitations runs out.
What if it's six months later and the album in question has already been released and all the stores have it. If you still have the watermarked CD, can you now sell it?
I mean, if it's by an artist you don't like, and you know you can make some $$$ off of it, you may as well...
If I like a CD that bad, I'll keep it. The future of CD's probably means it will be the last CD ever made for it, no remasters of any kind unless music moves to the Blu-Ray format, and unless they're Neil Young releasing a 10 Blu-Ray disc box set, that seems unlikely.
Now here's something I didn't think about. Let's say someone needs a song because they want to sample it. They are lazy and do not want to hunt down the record, or if it's not on vinyl, they don't want to go out and buy the CD. These days you don't have to, you did a Google search and find the song you want. It's downloaded, it's at 320kbps, and you find the beat, bassline, and nice vocal that you want to chop and cut up in your song. Let's say you're Timbaland. Your song is a huge hit for the artist in question, and everyone loves the song. Someone in Amsterdam finds out the original source of the sample and makes a video of it on You Tube with an "in-depth comparison". Possible lawsuit. Then someone somewhere discovers that the track that was sampled was watermarked, and discovers that the song came from a CD given to Flint Dorfenorf in Wisconsin. Are they going to bust Dorfenorf, even though he sold the CD two to three years ago and can prove it?
The idea of "intellectual property" is interesting, but it comes off as military programming. The industry wants to survive, that's understandable. The artist wants to pay bills and eat, it's protection. But when there is an awareness of watermarks that are meant to prosecute the user, people are not going to stand up for that. Either that, or it's a quicker way to kill hard copy formats and make controlled/paid downloading the inevitable accepted norm (or the only option).
But, like I originally asked, what if you don't?
Unless you were saying that it's just better to either hold on to it or get rid of it, but not sell it in any case...
I was saying it more for me, I would assume stores have their own policies of what they can and can't buy. Some can get away with buying promos and cut-outs, some don't, so I don't know what would happen if you didn't like or want it.
Correct, and all of that I understand and know. Again, I don't want to find a way to crack the code and remove the watermark so I can have a clean CD and then distribute. I had hoped to sample the watermark if it was an audible one, just to have a sound that most people would not think of using. I lay a beat over it, chop a vocal, and I turned the watermark into a bassline. If it is inaudible then obviously it would be pointless.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Dec02/articles/cuttingedge1202.asp
Interesting. Again, I typed a big reply, pressed submit and the thing said my reply was no longer valid. Let's see if I can trim it down.
I kinda figured that's how a watermark worked for audio, as it does with pictures. I can see how a watermark can be used and abused (if it isn't already), but I can also see a 2600[/b] subscriber manipulating it to be used as something else. A watermark can tell who the CD went to, but someone could also put in some extra code that can only be detected by its intended recipient(s), not unlike some World War II spy stuff or those short wave radio messages that are said to be encoded messages. Home grown watermarks, that's the next level in encryption (if it isn't already).
In time, I can see producers and engineers encoding multi-track files for other producers, DJ's, and remixers so in case a "multi-track file" leaks, they can immediately use the technology and say "these multi-tracks have not been circulating as bootlegs since the 70's and 80's, in fact this was given to The Alchemist". Or someone anonymously reveals the bell-less "Mardi Gras", everyone wonders what the source is and who it came from and then the answer is revealed in the watermark: "Property of will.i.am".