Can Digital Watermarking Address Piracy Concerns?

January 25, 2005

This news item from Digimarc, developer of digital watermarking technology, directs attention to a copyright infringement case soon to go to the U.S. Supreme Court:

Digimarc Participates in Amicus Brief to U.S. Supreme Court Considering Landmark Copyright Infringement Case

As a creative professional, I generally stand on the side of the artist in intellectual property issues. At the same time, I have long felt that an import sub-text in the controversy over P2P file-sharing is the possibility of a legitimate business model that satisfies the desire of consumers to obtain music electronically and yet allows for compensation for the people who created the music.

According to Digimarc, digital watermarking makes such a business model possible. The news release quotes Reed Stager, Digimarc Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Licensing and Public Policy:

"A variety of commercially available implementations of digital watermarking exist today that can identify audio, video and image content, and associated rights management information, to assist in the handling of that content in ways that facilitate legitimate commerce and fair uses.

"Digital watermarking has been widely deployed by record companies and movie studios to forensically track leaked content back to its source, and offers a viable and proven means of enabling trusted transactions and innovative models of digital content distribution while protecting copyrights."

Digimarc has submitted a friend-of-the-court brief (available here in PDF) with the Supreme Court in connection with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios vs. Grokster, being prepared now.

AB -- 1/25/05