For Universal, No Soft DRM Either (Updated)

Written by A. L. Friedman

Monday, August 13. 2007 at 04:54 PM EDT Post a comment

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It's OK, you anti-DRM zealots, Universal will not be stalking you through P2P networks and other file-sharing services. I spoke to a source at the label this morning who confirmed that while the DRM-free music it plans to sell will have digital watermarks, these watermarks will be "transactional" and will contain no personal information. The watermarks will be used to track how much of Universal's music ends up in the file-sharing networks, but not who is sharing the music.

The potential outrage at the presence of watermarks is no doubt rooted in Apple's somewhat deceitful claims of offering DRM-free music from EMI which actually had the name of the buyer coded into the file. Some felt this was still a form of rights management, and thus felt the claims of "DRM free" were not so accurate.

Just based on how shady major labels have been in the new millenium, there is reason to be suspicious. But at least for now, Universal is probably more interesting just in seeing how much legally purchased DRM-free music finds its way to the file sharing networks, not who is doing the sharing.

Update: In light of more questions raised by the watermarks, I got more details. The watermarks are unique to a song, not an individual download. If ten people download the same song, they all have the exact same watermark. There is no way to trace who bought what or, subsequently, who leaked what where.