Noisy pre-release (Trusted recipients)
Piracy affects the music industry at different stages of release.
A "leaked" version of an album appearing on the internet
before the official release reduces the amount of sales made.
This is easily understood however what is of interest is that
while sales will occur despite this pirated copy being made
available the loss in sales for the first week is more dramatic as
most sales are made in the first week of release.
These pre-release "leaks" are attributable to persons in a
position where they can exploit their position such as studio
workers, journalists who receive a copy for review, cd
manufacturing plant staff etc.
The problem is that these persons cannot be excluded from
being in a position to exploit the content and so it is the content
that must be protected from them.
Current protection is offered in the form of watermarked cd
manufacture. The process creates an identifier watermark
which is placed into the audio stream in turn linked to a
recipient list. An illegal copy of this content can be traced back
to the offender. However this is a deterrent more than a
practical solution. The packaging makes a clear statement that
the content is protected however the tracing of an uploaded file
becomes mush more problematic. The watermark may not
survive ripping the cd or consequent conversion to mp3 or
other formats. A determined attack to remove the watermark
will also succeed.
"Noise Control" is a system based on watermarking however in
simple terms it reverses the process. Watermarking seeks to
hide from the listener the presence of any noticeable change in
the audio stream from the original whereas with "Noise
Control" the audio is rendered into noise using an algorithm
derived from a patented watermark system developed by
digitalWEED.
The effect is that the audio is no longer listenable. In the same
way the watermarking systems work a recipient list is
generated by the program with each recipient having an unique
key.
This key is issued only to the recipient and is then used in the
"Noise Control" compliant player to unlock the audio which
reverts back to it's original state i.e. pristine audio.
The "clean" audio played from the player may be recorded by
an individual by recording the audio feed from the sound-card
however this process is a non standard procedure and
inconvenient.
This "audio loop" problem is further protected by the addition
of a watermark inside the audio stream. This can be traced
back to the individual who illegally distributed the file as the
watermark contains the same recipient information generated
for the code.
While the operation may seem clumsy in that the recipient
needs to have a compliant player and a key to play the audio
there are convenient solutions to this which make for easy
access.
The audio is supplied as raw data on cd rather than a traditional
cd for playback in a cd player. The Noise Control player is
included on the cd. It runs without the need to be installed. The
recipient need only launch the application and enter the code
supplied by email to play the audio.
The interception of the cd does not pose a problem as the audio
data contained on the cd is "noisy" and therefore
unlistenable/unusable to pirate.
Further Application of Technology
An extension of the system is the use of the same technology
as a promotional tool. A situation where a release contains a
low level of noise which is acceptable but is an obvious loss in
quality can be of value to promote the release. A degradation
of the audio over time or over a number of specified plays is
also of value as a promotional tool.
Together with a protected "noisy" version and/or promotional
versions there is the possibility to create a protected
distribution system not only for private pre-release but also for
general public release.
The potential to sell music within the digital environment
which is protected by this mechanism and for purchasing the
license which is the key code to unlock the music offers a vast
potential not only to content owners to effectively control their
content but to tackle the issue of digital piracy in general.
Cloud based lockers and distribution have become part of the
industry landscape and create further problems of piracy for
content owners.
Enabling a system where the content is locked
("noisy"/unlistenable) and only un-lockable through an
authorization layer containing specific data on the track, the
purchaser and their device creates a secure and effective anti-
piracy solution.
Combining the promotional version of Noise Control with the
pre-release version allows for a flexibility in distribution. Each
audio file can only be "cleaned" with parameters created by the
initial application of "noise", the sellers code, the purchasers
code and the player device code. While this is an extremely
complex data transaction the user/customer/end user is
unaware of it, for them they click buy and that's it.
However should they copy the file or redistribute the file
illegally it will not play as the codes are protecting it from play
on another system with another device. In fact the technology
will not only play it "noisy" but will further increase the
"noise".
As the file type: audio, video, image, document is irrelevant to
the scrambling process of Noise Control the same application
can be adapted easily for all digital content. The film industry
also suffers from piracy and is significantly of more value than
the audio industry.
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