AudioLock – Do We Want More Piracy Protection?
AudioLock, an online proprietary watermarking service, is offering protection for digital and physical promos by automatically tracking illegal downloads. The system continually searches sharing sites and the internet for potential copyright infringements. If one is detected it can identify the individual the copy was originally sent to thus identifying the pirate.
For some the service could be a cost effective solution, helping to make prevention possible. For others, this could be a great way to track the songs they give away. It also allows users to send take down notices. The jury is out on whether this service is forward thinking or not. What do you think?
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Really brilliant. Love it.
Advanced watermarking seems to be the best alternative. Sure, it’s a little Big Brother-ish, but so long as it’s used only on promos and demos, the result is a lot better than restrictive DRM.
I have some producer clients whose demos keep getting leaked. I’ve tried some watermarking software on a few tracks but admittedly, I’m only offering them to a few people, whereas my clients and their managers (and especially label A&R) are circulating a lot more.
Getting at the source of these kinds of leaks would be great – what happens after a song is commercially released is a different (and somewhat debatable) issue. However, there’s no justification for some dumbass insider breaching the trust of his or her colleagues by leaking demos.
How about mixing audiolock.net with creative commons? to know if your work (or pieces of it) is beeing used as you licensed it?
To flag out the popularity of you creation?
You can even begin the discussion of ASPs beeing “taxed” for media and returning the earning directly to any artist or label (not that I like this approach, but the discussion can be taken to another level with this tecnology).
Licensing (specially from one country to another) is still a very long and burocratic work to be done. This could help speed things up.
To know stats from fans… I think it could be very intrusive, unless theres a consent on their part.
As spiderman’s uncle said.. great powers, great responsibilities.
It would be an awesome analytics tool. I would definitely play with it, being a morally bankrupt former hippie sellout who wants to look under the hood of human culture…but as for pursuing legal action, pfffft, waste of time and headspace.
So really, is this more effective or deep-search than (free) google analytics and (paid) big champagne reports? Just asking…I don’t know either.
Kangaroo (http://www.yangaroo.com/) has been doing this for a few years now with their own secure digital distribution system that is being used all the major labels, record stations, broadcasters, journalists etc. So this isn’t really a new concept…
Sounds like Audiolock is bring a similar technology down to the “street-level” by making it affordable for bands, smaller labels and managers.
So basically, it’s DRM, right?
If I was an artist and wanted to use this technology and then distribute my music via iTunes, Amazon, will they let me when considering they advertise that they sell DRM-free music?
It is not DRM though it is a watermarking technology so it does not stop you using the music just allows you to be tracked if you start sharing it online. So if you have nothing to hide it sounds like a great deal to me.
DRM was awful as I found I was always having to update my player with patches from Microsoft. I think it is much better to have something that allows us the consumer to use music how we want like this audiolock system.
As I understand it some music on iTunes is already watermarked just not individually as this system suggests it can do.