Universal Pictures to watermark all of its content and distribution channels

15 Oct 03 00:34 by Seán Byrne in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Universal Pictures is to start watermarking the audio sound track of all its distribution channels using Verance watermark technology. This added watermark is inaudible to people, but can be read by consumer standalone and computer equipment. This watermark aims to be used for content identification as well as copy tracking and control. Universal will use this watermarking technology in all its products including theatrical releases, DVD & VHS products, pay-per-view movies including video-on-demand as well as all the way down to other distribution mediums such as regular television broadcasting.

Universal aims to use this technology for securing its content though all stages of product distribution from the theatrical releases all the way down to airing over free-to-air television. The Verance Corporation is continuing discussions with other studios as well as hardware and software manufacturers to widely implement Verance watermarking technology for marking and checking content.

Universal Pictures has entered a
multi-year agreement with Verance Corporation to mark Universal’s film and
video entertainment content with a Verance audio watermark.

The Verance watermark contains information that is inaudible to people but can be read and understood by consumer and computer devices. The mark will impart usage information about the content, including content identification, forensic tracking and copy control information.

Universal will mark audiovisual content with the Verance watermark throughout all its distribution channels, including theatrical releases and DVD and VHS home video product, as well as pay-per-view, video-on-demand and free-to-air television broadcasts.

“Never before has there been a way to convey information to consumer devices throughout the life of a movie,” said Jerry Pierce, Senior Vice President, Technology, Universal Pictures. “The security derived from the Verance watermark allows us to be more confident in the technology we use throughout all stages of product distribution. This flexibility will enable our studio to continually offer the best in entertainment in a secure environment.”

Mr. Cliff Friedman, Chairman, Verance Corporation, added, “After researching the latest technologies and assessing the top providers, we are pleased that Universal selected the Verance watermark technologies to protect their movies. We are continuing discussions with other studios as well as hardware and software manufacturers for wide use of the Verance watermark for marking content.”

Currently, DVD-Audio is the only technology to make full use of audio watermarking, but it looks like watermarking could be hitting all our video recorders, TV tuners and other capturing devices sometime in the future. I don’t mind the technology as long as it does not limit fair use recording and is only used for tracking purposes, but if it works on the DRM principal by preventing recording or restricting recordings to certain equipment or single time playback, then this is certainly not something we are looking forward to.

It looks like Universal will be using this technology primarily to stop internal staff from leaking movies over the Internet and P2P networks prior to its theatrical release. While this watermarking will not prevent unreleased movies from being distributed over the Internet, it does make them traceable to their owner or reviewer; assuming each reviewer’s copy has a unique watermark.

Source: Yahoo Financial News

14 Comments

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 03:54

Aren't mp3's made by removing what the human ear can't hear and then compressing the rest? DivX probably does the same thing. Wouldn't this remove those watermarks? There is always a way around everything. :g

StrongBad: Posts: 20; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 04:40

is it just me, or when you cam a movie you get really crappy sound, yeah, that watermarks gonna be real effective in theatres. :B And as far as putting it on DVDs, well, whats teh dvd player gonna do, make a magic connection to the internet? And wtf is the point of putting it on broadcast movies? thats just retarded. great job universal, you just mangaed to waste even more money.

yoshix: Posts: 72; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 05:32

The watermark is to identify the initial leak. Where it would probably got leak from.

RaMDaY: Posts: 107; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 06:10

Knowing Universal's past, they'll forget to put in on the DVDs and then recall them 6 months later.

sorti: Posts: 281; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 10:55

After all of this they will find out some guy who gets paid 6 / hr is the leak, and they will fire him and replace him with another 6 /hr drone who will in a matter of minutes leak the DVD or whatever to someone.

KaReL: Posts: 137; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 12:21

Is it just me, or is this a stupid idea? Let me explain: You have a dvd, you give it to a friend, or rip it & transfer it to someone. OK audio is in perfect shape, video too. This person encodes the DVD (which is I believe MPG2) into a DiVX or an XViD. OK, audio is still perfect (but we're not there yet). Now this person also encodes the audio (which is mostly converted to MP3). The principal of MP3 is to cut off the high and the low tones, which most humans will never hear, from the music. OK. Now my watermark is broken. Now MP3-encoders (like Lame or such) use advanced encoding algorithms just to lower the size the audio takes. Result: even badder watermark. The only way I see it's possible is to add 'noise' at a specific place, different for each DVD. This is a pretty stupid 'watermark' but I guess it's the only possible way to put it on a DVD. But then again. Will they regenerate the movie for each DVD? Or will they just create 1 basic DVD and add noise before each DVD is made?

katastrofe: Posts: 116; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 13:02

I thought that watermark was broken anyway if i remember correctly. Seems like a waste of time as soon as the movie has been generally released anyway

chsbiking: Posts: 543; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 14:56

Watermarks are designed to stay put even after compression. Usually one strong watermark and one weak watermark. The weakwater mark will be destroyed if you compress the file, the strong watermark will not. If the weak one is missing the device can tell this is a copy and not play it.

squinty: Posts: 232; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 16:56

This is just to track down who leaked an unreleased movie to Kazaa or the groups. It wouldn't make sense to track down something that's already on DVD, etc.

StrongBad: Posts: 20; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 17:00

Yoshix: movie companies already do video watermarks in theatres to "identify" the initial leak, they are dots that appear on certain frames in a movie, this audio watermark is just pointless in the theatres cause as said, when someones brings a camcorder in, the camcorder will not pickup the watermark.

alienooze: Posts: 54; Posted on: 15 Oct 03 22:14

IMHO The movie industry in general is just spewing out low quality movies one after the other. Out of a few hundred releases their are a few worth the viewing and your hard-earned money.
[edited by alienooze on 15.10.2003 22:15]

djstillgill: Posts: 7; Posted on: 30 Dec 04 03:20

I have a copy of resident evil 2 can't decode with any software so far. This bites

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 21 Oct 08 01:18

There is even more to come. Remember dvd-A? The players were designed to recognize the watermark. The purpose of this watermark will be to make sure your burned copies don't play. The watermark would then get passed to the copy on the bl-ray blank disc. The player will see that aacs is missing on the blank disc which has the watermark, and it WILL NOT PLAY! Playback will stop after 15-30 seconds. So much for buying a standalone. It is only a matter of time before this finds its way in EVERYTHING.

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 21 Oct 08 01:21

VERANCE WATERMARK SAYS: Fair use, be gone!!!

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Universal Pictures to watermark all of its content and distribution channels

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