Topic: iTunes Reaches 1 Billion Song Downloads

[IceFox]

There are file converters...

[carterhawk]

Sure assuming you have access to either your MD5 hashed user keys or a supercomputer than can crack the encryption on your music :p

[ti89titanium]

well, the average user doesn't want to use file converters.

[IceFox]

Really? I use converters for video all the time...

[cmonkey]

I would much rather buy a CD and be able to do whatever I want to with it.

[snapback]274538[/snapback]

but, alas, how long will even that last??

[snapback]274545[/snapback]

Sadly true.  They are sticking some pretty evil DRM on CDs now, but all are easily breakable.

[ti89titanium]

but soon, the breakability will disappear and we'll be forced to listen to a whole CD unless we have an mp3 player.

[carterhawk]

I think the idea of watermarking will get much stronger over DRM. eventualy it will come to the point where all retail video and audio has a unique serial number that is tracked to whoever purchases it, and that same serial number will be embedded in the video stream. so when a video appears on t3h intarwebs it can be traced to its owner.

[cmonkey]

I think the idea of watermarking will get much stronger over DRM. eventualy it will come to the point where all retail video and audio has a unique serial number that is tracked to whoever purchases it, and that same serial number will be embedded in the video stream. so when a video appears on t3h intarwebs it can be traced to its owner.

[snapback]274762[/snapback]

No, there are far too many privacy and personal rights related issues with that kind of plan, besides the fact that it would be simple to pull the serial out of the video.

[carterhawk]

Digital watermarking, not that stuff that you see on the network tv in the corner. Im talking about puting data into a video or audio stream in a way that doesnt adversely affect the quality, but would be decodable even after the video has been ripped compressed burned re-encoded and is still readable.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/13/207207

Ill take them knowing if i distribute a video to the world in exchange for playing it whereever i want.

[cmonkey]

Digital watermarking, not that stuff that you see on the network tv in the corner. Im talking about puting data into a video or audio stream in a way that doesnt adversely affect the quality, but would be decodable even after the video has been ripped compressed burned re-encoded and is still readable.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/13/207207

Ill take them knowing if i distribute a video to the world in exchange for playing it whereever i want.

[snapback]275015[/snapback]

Yes, but if you can encode it into the video, you can just as easily seperate the watermark from the video stream.  IIRC, DVDs sent out for awards considerations have been watermarked before.