Hello ,
I took part in a competition of a sample library manufacturer and they rejected my submission without comment.
I later learned from colleagues that they had protected their library with watermarks.

My question: is it possible to determine within a mixed song that a sound from a sample library has a watermark?
Can you discover the watermark within a single track?

Or did the manufacturers filter me out because I'm not listed as a client there?
Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

can it be done? probably. do they take the time, probably not.

you did get rejected but how, didn’t get a mail o anything?
if you don’t know, how are we supposed to guess If that’s what happened
why don’t you do yourself and us a favor and simply ask the organizer what happened? it sure would be interesting to actually know

otherwise it’s just guesses

 

Last edited: Apr 6, 2019

With a spectral display this is possible. These are often shown as a suspicious frequency content (repeating frequencies that you didn't play/do not belong to the sound).

 

I dont want to be unkind but its highly possible you recieved no feedback because your track just wasnt all that good.Alot of these online competitions can often create thousands of entries and the organisers may not respond to every entrant and only contact finalists/winners. Its also possible, though less likely that they check entrants with registered users of the product in question.

 

@Tonk It would have been a good idea to upload the song.
Have you tried this: https://www.sourceaudio.com/2015/07/try-out-our-new-watermark-detection-tool-now/

 

You're very helpful, Pirate.

 

OMG, so helpful, thank you as always Pirate BRO !!!

 

wtf, you are always dropping a bomb when least expected Pirate

super interesting! if anyone does test it please report here the results, if if worked, detected anything or if it didnt etc

 

Brother I think this last bomb is a Mickey mouse one. I am tired of throwing audio files, videos in there and nothing is detected.

 

lol, well then we at least know you are human! ;)

hmm, but then its not that easy to do this "detect" samples thingy, like we all suspected.

 

All comes down to: The watermark! Soudsource relies on Digimarc Digital Watermarking which is very, very good. Sometimes we read about compressing, transcoding, trans-sizing, transrating, etc., in an attempt to defeat the watermark. That does not work with Digimarc's technology. https://www.digimarc.com/products/digimarc-barcode/audio

 

Have you ever thought about the possibility that your track was terrible?

 

Wel

..So i popped over to SourceAudioDetect.com as directed, and this is what i see on the way in:



Huh?!? Well, i went ahead anyway (i don't frighten that easily ) and uploaded a small mp3 - which definitely had utilised sounds from a 'liberated' kontakt lib - and their analysis tool (after some delay) didn't detect a thing... What did i learn? - not to be so paranoid. After all, unless you make substantial money from copyrighted material it's simply not cost-effective to pursue compensatory redress under the law...

I guess that's what informs (at least in part) the dodgy EU Article 13 - prevention is better than cure, as it were...

 

So cruel but so true!

 

@Paul Pi As I am sure you noticed, the SourceAudio website has HTTP content. In other words , it is only partially encrypted and Firefox blocks mixed content. The irony of this is that a site designed to protect gets blocked to protect us from it.

 

Wow thank you Pirate!

 

bollox !

 

Yeah dude, that was my first thought... and if it were to do with unencrypted images being imported from elsewhere etc i wouldn't have even bothered to mention it - i even did a quick page-source check (including the css) and - apart from google analytics (which zillions of secure sites use without flagging firefox warnings) - all images etc are internal relative links, not external ones...
Indeed, curious and most ironic for a company selling 'protection'!

EDIT: I just noticed a real dumb bug in their html - they're referencing their 'contact' and 'learn more' links as plain old http, even though they revert to https if the links are actually followed... don't they sanity-check their own site?!

 

Last edited: Apr 5, 2019

Exactly, I just contacted them and let them know.