Idolator

The penance will be being made to listen to it.

Zing!

I was at a conference last week and some industry folks were talking about watermarking. Everyone seemed to agree it was pretty pointless because every time a watermark has been used to trace a leak, inevitably, the person supposed responsible just says, "it wasn't me." -- which is totally possible, I mean, what if someone swipes the disc? What if it gets delivered to the wrong address? What if you throw it away? Are you not allowed to throw it away?

Also, regarding that 4.00 thing? Adam Shore pointed out on that panel that watermarking a physical CD is 4.00... but watermarking digital is 5.00. WTF is up with that?

And LOLZ/OTM @ NickEddy

Wait, so the leaker "almost" had to apologize and "almost" lost his job? I'm "almost" afraid of those sort of consequences.

Hey, how about if you're not releasing the CD for another 3 months, DON'T SEND COPIES TO ANYBODY YET.

GovernmentNames, how about the album doesn't get any press anywhere then??
yeah, so you see why it doesn't work then.

Don't make me turn this car around, music writers...

Can anyone stay in business now without threatening people? If you're blowing that kind of bread to put tracking bracelets on writers so you can "keep trusting" them, you've been in Lifetime Special territory for a minute. At least it's not as annoying as the hip hop promos that have "This is [Artist, Album Title, Label]... don't copy" spliced in every 30 seconds.

Government: labels have to send out advance copies because print magazines have a delay time of three months. Also, in AC's case, the promos had to be sent out even earlier than usual because all the members of the band were only going to be in the same place and available for publicity stuff four months in advance. It was necessary to give the writers CDs so that they could hear them before they interviewed the band.

Yeah, watermarking is a something of a joke. You can easily record a WAV from the MP3 using free, easily available technology and then viola, no watermark. But it's the best tool they have right now.

I don't think this letter actually came from Domino.

Dear Idolator...

#1: We aren't the authors of this excerpted letter.

#2: We chose to deal with this privately because our personal relationships with the folks that originated the leak. We all accept that leaks are for the most part a way of life, but it was just doubly disappointing that it came so early (album's not out for three months) and from where it originated.

#3: We didn't ask for the apology, the offender volunteered it along with other self-disciplinary measures (which we declined) and seemed genuinely repentant. We accepted the fact that is was an error in judgment and musical enthusiasm, not malice.

#4: There is no other quid pro quo or "penance" being sought out. We're more sanguine about this than you give us credit for.

now back to slsk with you,

Kris Gillespie
Domino Records North America

Does anyone know if there's EVER been a case of a watermark violation leading to legal action?

Idolawyer, get on this!

@gregcoff: Exactly. For this to even be true that would imply that that there was some sort of metadata in the track that identifies the writer, plus whatever software that exists would honor that proprietary piece of information when converting it to a digital format that could be leaked over the internet.

The only way that a watermark could make a difference in terms of a leak is that either the entire disc image was put up online. Maybe it would work if a DJ plays it over the air, then record company ninjas bust through the door, grab the disc and identify the culprit.

I had a (since dismissed) Sony rep tell me a year or two back that Newsweek of all places were leaking CDs on the net, and after multiple warnings were cut off by the label. Never cared enough to dig any deeper, was too busy making sure my friends promised not to leak the third or fourth advance of "Don't Believe the Truth" I pawned off on them.

So if Domino didn't write the letter, who did?

@Catbirdseat: Things may certainly have changed in the 10 or so years since I was a college music director, but back in the day it was, in fact, illegal to throw away promo CDs. The record companies had big stickers on the front proclaiming that any promo CD was still the property of the label and that they could recall the promo at will. I don't know how often (if ever) this actually happened, or if anyone would actually be prosecuted for tossing a promo, but the label's position was that it was their property.

***BEWARE**
-
Read on if you consider yourself brave: As of now if you stop reading it does you no good even this line bears the same consequence.
I wish the death of a family member. I curse myself. The number five counteracts the curse. Someone that I love will die in twenty-four hours unless I repost this letter 5 times. If I fail to do so the curse is on me and only I am to blame.

@Jon Williams: You've tapped into the major label's new counter-piracy strategy.

I'd love to know what "self-disciplinary measures" the leaker volunteered. Shining Alex Kapranos' shoes? Cleaning up after Arctic Monkeys' shows?

@rich36: actually, the reason the watermark is so expensive is because the watermark exists IN the audio people. So no matter how many times you rip or convert it its still there.

@Dr. Paul Proteus: See, I'm not sure about that. If you just do a standard iTunes conversion, sure, it doesn't do anything. But if you use a sound recording program (say, ProTools) and record a wav while the audio is playing through iTunes or its equivalent, then you just toy with the EQ a bit, it can confuse the software that is designed to find the mark, so you end up with a clean file. I've literally watched someone do this. But admittedly it was three or four years ago. Is the technology different/better now?

agreed with Dr Paul, watermarked cd is always going to be watermarked

@GovernmentNames: um, because then you couldn't get coverage or reviews in long lead magazines... meaning almost any major monthly magazine... since most features based magazines are written at least three months in advance... and I would say that coverage in Blender and Spin might be important.

Seriously...what kind of idiot was that writer... with labels so desperate and litigration happy, why would you even bother trying to beat watermarking/recalls.

@gregcoff: I'm sure anything is "crackable" in that sense- but honestly if someone wants to spend that long making a sound loop to record into pro tools and then messing with the EQ, I mean... why would anyone go to all that trouble (especially since the EQ obviously effects the sound quality)? To not get caught leaking something? That is seriously low.

I'm not 100% on the full technology used, but I'm sure that its ever evolving. But obviously so are hackers. Regardless, its just straight up NOT COOL for the writers to be donig this shit. Just because no one may or may not have been fired or prosecuted does not mean everyone should rampantly leak everything they get. 2 Weeks before is one thing- its gonna be all over by then, but 3 months? Have some fucking integrity people. Be patient. We'll all get to hear the full album soon enough.

@Dr. Paul Proteus: Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's possible.

@Whoa-Domino:

I didn't think an attack-lawyer letter would confuse "too" with "to."

But more importantly, could you folks get together with Merge and put out Arcade Fire's cover of Clinic's "Distortions" so I don't have to figure out how to rip the audio from the crappy YouTube video?

I believe Domino. But then it's entirely possible for a crafty publicist/label marketer to send a bogus-scandal email blast out to gullible writers.

Gotcha!

Yeah yeah, thanks for the 3 or 4 people who all felt the need to respond to my semi-facetious comment in the same basic way. I understand lead times and all that shit, I'm just constantly wondering at what point the risk of sending out promos this early in advance of an album's release will finally outweigh the benefit of catering to press outlets that are doubtless going to be covering this band's new album no matter what.

The whole indie rock blog scene needs to pull thier collective heads out of thier collective asses on this one.

As a person who has had to deal with a number of watermarked recordings, I can definitely say that simply ripping a watermarked file from one format to another will *NOT* remove the watermark.

I put up 30 seconds excerpts of watermarked files on a web site for a client (had no choice - label only sent me watermarks). Got an email soon after saying that my watermark was leaked onto the net. I had to point out to the label that they sent me a watermarked CD for net use. Duh.

Point - even in 30 seconds of audio, converted from AIFF to MP3, the watermark was still traceable.

Plus, since the watermark is physically in the audio (it is a rather hidden series of clicks), it renders the resulting audio something less than perfect.

Don't even get me started on the Share digital watermark system. Nightmare!

It's funny that there are still some labels out there who think that getting coverage (placement!) on the week of an album's release is going to make or break it. Anyone making the argument that Animal Colllective needs a three month lead time for writers is happily living in the 1980s.

Well, not that you'd know... last week was the only week that four members were going to be in the same town to do press until the album is released. We'd love to have waited longer to service the record out, but necessity called for it.

living in the '00s,

KCG

@Jfrankparnell: it looks like it wasn't sent by the label, but the by the indie publicist who's handling the album's release. it went out to pretty much every music writer i know (including myself).

as for the lead time, i know that the glossy women's magazines need lots of time to plan, so three months is still a smart move, as it's going to leak anyway. press still helps, which is why it's not a good idea to send out a patronizing email scolding a bunch of writers who didn't do anything.

They have to be in the same town to do press? Wow. You're right, I'd never guess anything like that would be considered a logistical deal breaker. Sounds like Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley were involved. Not that I'd know.