Audio Watermarking Utility or Plug-in

[Redbeard]

Does anyone know if there is an audio watermarking Plug-in or utility available for ProTools/Mac?

Any developers listening? I'd pay for a plug-in that watermarked files.

[JFreak]

If you watermark a file header, how can you be sure the header isn't de-watermarked? the watermark must be in a header, because you don't want to be messing with the audio part of the bit stream -- and al headers can be manipulated. So what's the point?

And if you do want to mess with the audio, say, for demonstration purposes, why not make an automation that mutes the mix for a second every half minutes?

[Howardk]

Describe a little more about what specific type of water-mark you are looking for:

1) do you want an audible water mark in the audio, so people can not use the audio without the obvious mark or

2) water-mark encoded such that water-mark would be visible with a code/application, to trace distribution and source of the audio (sometimes audio water-marked so that leak sources can be identified.

[dBHEAD]

Agreed, JFreak, and I don't know what the OP wanted it for, but in my case it would have value. It would help me catch instances of cheating by my students, and none of them would know how to manipulate file headers.

I'm at a university, and these days it's unbelieveable how many students would rather cheat than actually learn Pro Tools basics. Two years ago, on an editing project to be done on Pro Tools (which actually even had a step-by-step handout on how to do it and was demonstrated in class on a video projector) 19 out of 68 students cheated. But in the process of leveling academic dishonesty charges, I had to reveal how I knew they were cheating. They now can figure out ways around it.

The watermark would be a good solution. If they're too lazy to learn Pro Tools basics, there's no way they'd take the time to learn how to manipulate file headers.

[lesgammas]

there is a way to watermark your audio files, even if they had been resampled in the analog domain:
check out the link
http://www.numericalsound.com/music-...rotection.html
but i guess, there is no plug in for that task, but maybe the people of numericalsound are interested in developing such a thing.
hope that helps.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Originally Posted by JFreak

If you watermark a file header, how can you be sure the header isn't de-watermarked? the watermark must be in a header, because you don't want to be messing with the audio part of the bit stream -- and al headers can be manipulated. So what's the point?

And if you do want to mess with the audio, say, for demonstration purposes, why not make an automation that mutes the mix for a second every half minutes?

Watermarking is when the watermark is embedded inside the audio data - we did listening tests for watermarking in the 90's... It never took off.

Rail

[Redbeard]

To my understanding, a watermark is not in the header, but incorporated into the audio itself. There are many types.

I would like to have the ability to add the recipient info to a file so that if it gets "leaked" to the internet, it can be traced. This is a "Robust" watermark. I do not care if it is perceptible or not because I would use it only for reference or rough mixes.

It would be very nice to have a plug or utility that could do all of the various types though.

FYI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
http://www.ece.uvic.ca/~aupward/w/watermarking.htm
http://www.musictrace.de/technologie...marking.en.htm

[Redbeard]

lesgammas,

This is the right idea, but I would like to be able to do it in house and not on CD production.

The question comes up because so many songs/albums are getting leaked to the internet prior to release. Not a problem at our studio, but we need to assure clients that we are on top of it. If I could watermark rough mixes sent to producers, record companies, artists, etc, (even if it is audible is OK for roughs), then we can gain some control over potential leaks on their part.

[jimlongo]

Can't you just use the pencil tool to put an inaudible signature at some particular sample location?

[Top Jimmy]

If you have FXpansion's RTAS-VST wrapper, you could use Voxengo's free Beeper to introduce a tone at whatever frequency and repetition you want. Multiple files could be run with different settings to differentiate between them. Also makes pirating undesirable.