Digital Watermarking Alliance Supports Music Industry Efforts to Sell MP3 Downloads
The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA), an international group of industry leading companies, recently announced proven digital watermarking technologies are available to help the music industry identify and better manage the MP3 digital music files many labels are beginning to sell on popular music download sites.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article ("In a Turnabout, Record Industry Releases MP3's," Dec. 6, 2006), some labels in the industry have begun selling unencrypted MP3 tracks on sites such as Yahoo, despite the piracy problems it may pose.
Digital watermarks can be used to serialize digital media with identifying information — such as where the content originated, similar to a product serial number — which can enable consumers to access metadata or information as well as providing additional promotional or buying opportunities. This information persists through changes in file format and survives acceptable levels of file compression as well as transformations between digital and analog forms of the content — providing an elegant yet unobtrusive way to distribute and identify digital media for a variety of valuable applications. Digitally watermarked content also provides consumers with a richer, more user-friendly entertainment experience and portability across various devices.
Upcoming Events
DWA representatives will be speaking at the following upcoming event:
Digital Hollywood at CES
January 7-10, 2007
Las Vegas, NV
Reed Stager, DWA chair, will be a member of the following panel:
DRM Implementation in Media and Entertainment: From Standardization to Implementation of New Technology Strategies (Session B – DH22)
Wednesday, January 10, 2007 @ 10:30am
Steve Oetegenn | Verimatrix
Donald E. Leake | IBM Research Division
Randall Crockett | DRM Networks
Reed Stager | Digital Watermarking Alliance
Richard LeVine | Accenture
Rob Schumann | Cinea
Paul Erickson | IMS Research USA, Moderator
Additional Resources
DWA White Paper on P2P 
Read this DWA white paper on how digital watermarks can enable P2P systems and online communities to determine copyrighted from noncopyrighted content files within the existing distributed system architecture.