Re: Watermarking [Re: Campaign for position of chair and mandate to close this community group]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 9:06 AM, Olivier Thereaux <
olivier.thereaux@bbc.co.uk> wrote:

> David, thanks for starting this discussion.
>
> On 10 Jan 2014, at 16:56, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am only aware of two uses of watermarking in copy protection:
> >
> > 1) Define the system such that all players must detect watermarks and
> refuse to play unlicensed content. [snip] So, this approach neither meets
> your goals nor works well.
> […]
> > 2) Use watermarks for forensics. Every copy delivered is watermarked in
> some way.
>
> Generally used for online music sales these days if I’m not mistaken. I
> also recall seeing it recommended by professional photographers
> associations (such as the ASMP).
>
> I seem to remember earlier discussion in here about this type of
> watermarking, and there was significant push back on the idea (from MarkW?)
> based on the assumption that such mechanism would defeat any attempt at
> caching, and thus render an already hairy bandwidth issue even hairier.
>

What I said back then was two things:
- in practice, because of the economics of content distribution, per-user
or per-device forensic watermarking would probably be done at the client
device and this approach does not avoid the need for non-user-modifiable
client components
- using forensic watermarking to identify individuals brings with it a risk
of mis-identification as a result of stolen credentials, identifiers that
persist when a device is sold etc. The consequences of such
mis-identification ought to be carefully considered.

...Mark



>
>
> > Are there other uses of watermarking that anyone thinks work better?
>
> Not as far as I know.
>
> --
> Olivier
>
>
>
>
>
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