VST FX/Instruments Watermarked

[trimph1]

I went looking into that site a little further ..even until paypal...and still no passport thing mentioned...besides..it would have sketched me right out as I have yet to renew mine

[DaveGamble]

OK...

Requiem is water marked for each individual customer
Watermarks are embedded into all files both source and patch files using our own technology
All customers will be required to provide full information for verification purposes
All customers will receive unique sample/source files with embedded custom water marking
All customers will have specific files sent to their verified mail account
This library contains custom water marked files. Each library set is custom marked for each customer.
The water marking methodology is proprietary to Tonehammer, INC
Resale/refund prohibited

...taken from...http://www.tonehammer.com/?p=4276

I would feel fairly confident in suggesting that there's a rationale behind this which is something like as follows:
A lot of sample companies, especially those who produce orchestral packs, do so by recording live musicians.
At the high end, producers have a choice between hiring an orchestra, or using a sample pack.
Thus, the musicians who record for the sample companies may require that the sample companies protect their work, often to quite an extreme degree, since the people who would formerly have paid the musicians by the hour can now buy a recording of their work.

I believe there's an orchestral pack that is only available to buy if you can prove that you regularly hire live musicians in your recording work.

The idea is that samples are killing the market for live session musicians, so this is a step to counteract that.
Thus, the choice they're trying to force you to make is supposed to be: "should I buy this pack, or should I just bring someone in to record?".

Dave.

[V'ger]

I always have the concern it will affect the audio signal negatively even if they say it won't because if the watermark can still be detected even after being run through an analog device, it sort of makes it clear it's not just a digital pattern somewhere, but a measurable difference in the audible signal which can't be ideal.

[DaveClark]

...but it is designed to be completely transparent and there is no way anyone could tell the sound is watermarked by listening to or even analysing the files.

To see if a file is watermarked you would need to know the precise algorithm used to create the wartermarking data, which is obviously only known to the developer.

<snip>

Peace,
Andy.

Hi Andy,

Your claim about "no way" is not true. A simple example to prove this is the trivial case of encoding a watermark in the DC signal. You can evaluate it, or even completely remove it by removing the DC signal.

I would agree that there is a desire to make these things transparent, undetectable, incapable of compromise, etc. but that has not happened and probably will not happen.

One of my former colleagues and good friends, now a learned professor, is an expert in watermarking, having published many papers on the subject. Commenting on your post which I forwarded to him, he says that watermarking is relatively "easy" to detect.

He also says that there are exaggerated claims out there about watermarks that are "impossible" to remove, especially in audio, but that, in fact, they are only computationally difficult. With advances in parallel computation available to all of us now, e.g. GPU-based libraries, even these difficulties are not what they once were.

I'm not sure where you got the idea about "no way" but I'd be interested in knowing where you obtained it. Or perhaps you have misstated or I misunderstood what you meant?

Regards,
Dave Clark

[Richard_Synapse]

I always have the concern it will affect the audio signal negatively even if they say it won't because if the watermark can still be detected even after being run through an analog device, it sort of makes it clear it's not just a digital pattern somewhere, but a measurable difference in the audible signal which can't be ideal.

Disclaimer, we don't use watermarking on the output of any of our plugins.

But measurable and audible are two different beasts. Just take MP3 as as example, completely different coding, lossy, yet it can sound transparent, and offer acceptable quality even at high compression rates. So in theory it should be possible to do this.

Richard

[jonahs]

http://audiowatermarking.info/
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/dow ... fault.aspx

I dunno if CPUs are up to handling this real time, but if not now, eventually.

But yeah, all watermarking really does is point out who the leaker is. This could still be useful in getting CC#s/paypal accounts blacklisted.

I've never heard of anyone have legal trouble for unauthorized use of tonehammer samples. (or any other music software for that matter, other than some studios)

Reverse audio searches are just a matter of time. It would probably have to be a third party that devs hired though as it's still a lot of data to sift through.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the future government requires the OS to embed watermarking in all files generated on a computer. I don't expect to be notified of this happening either.

[kvaca]

I always have the concern it will affect the audio signal negatively even if they say it won't because if the watermark can still be detected even after being run through an analog device, it sort of makes it clear it's not just a digital pattern somewhere, but a measurable difference in the audible signal which can't be ideal.

+1
its more or less pure degradation of quality,no matter whar developer says about transparency...
actually it was also reported to be hearable on some protected audio CDs /but I dont know exactly what type of protection there was/

[trimph1]

I always have the concern it will affect the audio signal negatively even if they say it won't because if the watermark can still be detected even after being run through an analog device, it sort of makes it clear it's not just a digital pattern somewhere, but a measurable difference in the audible signal which can't be ideal.

+1
its more or less pure degradation of quality,no matter whar developer says about transparency...
actually it was also reported to be hearable on some protected audio CDs /but I dont know exactly what type of protection there was/

Some of the early copy protected CD's were such that they had to be played on players that had the protocols for that precise format...IIRC some of the Chemical Brothers CD's of that era where just rife with stoppages, clipping and what not...

[ObsoleteAcc99]

tonehammer DO go to that effort,

That are samples, not VSTs.

and i fought and fought for days and finally got a refund.

Well, it's stated on their site:
"All (non-Requiem) customers will be required to provide full ID information for verification purposes"
"Resale/refund prohibited"

well it was requium.

doesn't it say NON requium? thankyou.

case closed.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Actually sorry it was the no longer available requium light.


Look I am sorry, yes i made a mistake in not checking every part of their site for info but i do believe since the debacle with them they have put it in a much easier to read place.

the point i am making is, i felt uncomfortable sending them such personal things, i mean who are they to me? government?

and i made a mistake yes, but i hadn't DOWNLOADED ANYTHING or received download links so i don't get it, as that stuff would only be released on me complying with their requests anyway.

I fought and fought and they caved in and no i won't buy anything from them cause i don't like those practises.


the way i always understood it is that donwloadable software is not refundable once donwloaded or authorized of which none had happened here.

Anyway i bought EW quantum leap symphonic choir, ew have been amazing to me, answering any support request with speed and courtesy, other people don;'t like east west for example, i have had a wonderful experience, just saying, different strokes for everyone hey.

[whyterabbyt]

Wrong analogy. And no one is forced to buy at such a "supermarket". Look somewhere else.

Are you one of those people who insists an analogy is wrong if it doesnt fit right down to the last exact detail?

Because that's not the purpose of an analogy.

And for the record, you can buy choir samples from other companies, in case you were unaware.

I do not support such business strategies, but every company can do business as they like.

Not actually true. You've presumably heard of something called 'consumer rights?'

If they say "we only sell to identified customers because we save his data in the files" it's their decision. If someone orders something and during the order process agrees to the trading conditions (and even sends the money), he made a contract. Then he has to fullfill the contract. Everyone should read trading conditions before "signing" an order.

And what if the 'trading conditions' are revealed to be not quite what the company stipulated?

By the way 'information' isnt actually the same as 'copies of specific documents'

I would not buy something from this company, but it's also annoying me when reading about people complaining about problems with companies when they did not read terms and conditions or a contract they signed before.

You realise that the terms and conditions don't mention requring a scan of your passport dont you? Only 'full information'.

[whyterabbyt]

I had similar things in (private) ebay auctions more than once - got mails AFTER the auction was finished "oops, I did not read that the unit is defective" (was written in bold, 16pt). "oops, this 2 meter, 200kg cabinet is for pickup only?! I did not read this"  

In the U.S.A. private auctions are 'as is' & not the same contractually as buying retail software from a company unless otherwise stated.

please fix your quotes, i didnt say that.

[ZenPunkHippy]

I'm not sure where you got the idea about "no way" but I'd be interested in knowing where you obtained it. Or perhaps you have misstated or I misunderstood what you meant?

Hi Dave,

I think my post was a little over-zealous with absolute statements - sorry about that. The topic winds me up a bit, mostly because there aren't many legitimate reasons for asking questions. "Am I going to get caught" is usually the motivating factor.

Of course you and your friend are right about detection, but it's only "easy" for those familiar with the techniques. My post was intended to reference the average consumer of digital files, not experts. Meaning, the average musician / consumer is very unlikely to have the tools or techniques to decode watermarks. Even if they did it would not provide any identifying information or compromise the privacy of the person who distributed (or is using) the files.

What I did assume is that it would be possible to encode a specific pattern of bits in to a file that is detectable. It seems very logical that this is possible but if I'm wrong about that I apologise for posting FUD, and it's good to be corrected!

Peace,
Andy.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

Ok onto a serious question then.

It seems i am wrong and watermarked sample libraries can indeed be detected by the output audio.

WOW i find that amazing and of course being a legit user it doesn't bother me at all but i have to ask this, can it have ANY negative effect, even if it's small, on the audio quality? that's the only thing that would worry me.

[Richard_Synapse]

Ok onto a serious question then.

It seems i am wrong and watermarked sample libraries can indeed be detected by the output audio.

WOW i find that amazing and of course being a legit user it doesn't bother me at all but i have to ask this, can it have ANY negative effect, even if it's small, on the audio quality? that's the only thing that would worry me.

It might, when designed to survive even low-quality MP3 compression. After all the idea of psychoacoustic compression is to "encode what's audible".

Richard