Like MozartEstLa wrote, with Harmor is that easy (never used the synth).. but the lib producers have probably more sphosticated stuff.

It’s completely different thing what they can or will do with it. Track what is going on? Cancel your update account? (there are a lot of warezd libs for which I’ve never seen an update) Or take a legal action against the “distributor”. I know that big library producers (in US) get really pissed when somebody is re-selling their libs in South America. But they usually have little success legally persecuting them.

As a music producer it would be at least uncomfortable for me, if I’d make (release!) a track that would become a top hit and I’d know that I (maybe) used watermarked libs. Well, that did not happen till now.. :P

 

That's some cool stuff. Although i don't understand how they can add it instantly to purchased downloadable files or software with a user specific id?

 

@peghead What do you mean by DA/AD converting? Just, for example re-sampling the whole mix through my DAW? (re-recording it?)

 

here is one watermark software. there is demo to download and try youself if you think it is not real (Embertone is on the Customers page)

audiowatermarking [dot] info/awt2_main.php

What it does and who it is for

AWT2 targets audio recording and production studios, on-line music stores, audio hosting services, broadcasting companies and other small and medium sized businesses. Here are some of the most common AWT2 applications:

content signing and ownership ascertainment
- audio content is marked with a special digital signature stating ownership
[ relevant for audio content authors and owners such as recording labels and studios ]
copy protection and monitoring
- each recipient gets his own copy of an audio material watermarked with unique signature
[ relevant for music web-stores, broadcasting companies, FM radio stations, content distributors ]
signaling and triggering via audio
- varying binary identifiers (triggers) are embedded into audio stream by a transmitter (live or by pre-processing) to trigger events on the receiving side
[ relevant for broadcasting companies, monitoring and license ascertaining services ]

Here is a very simplistic example of AWT2 usage. Imagine, you're a musician selling your tracks on the web. Using AWT2 you add a hidden inaudible digital signature (watermark) into every sold track. The signature contains your (creator's) identifier together with identifier of the target user who buys the track. Now imagine that later on you find your track on torrents or broadcasted on radio. You download or simply record the file and easily extract the signature from it. The signature confirms your ownership and indicates who was your "bad" customer who spread the file.

FAQ / More info:

The watermarking algorithm works in the time domain in several frequency sub-bands. The overall idea behind the algorithm is in embedding of a binary watermarking payload into carrier audio signal in the time domain by time-shifting the carrier signal blocks.

Watermark robustness and aural (im)perceptibility

The proposed watermarking scheme demonstrates very high robustness to almost all kinds of audio conversions. Here are some typical examples:

lossy transcoding using MP3, Ogg Vorbis and other audio codecs (including multiple transcoding at very low bitrates)
acoustic coupling (i.e. traveling of sound from D/A to loudspeaker, then to the microphone via air and then to A/D)
time-stretching (time scaling) up to 50%
mixing with other signals, noise addition
signal cropping, cutting
sample rate conversion (even down to low sample rates such as 8 KHz that is typical for phone networks); amplitude re-quantization
effect processing, from a simple EQ to an extreme dynamic range compression, reverberation, echo, spectral effects, etc.
waveform distortions such as limiting, clipping, slope manipulation, gain control
A/D - D/A conversion
transmission over radio waves

A quick example: the watermark survives even transcoding with low-bitrate MP3 codec, then time-stretching and transducing of the signal via air (i.e. reproducing it with a loudspeaker and recording with a microphone).

this is v2 and you can dl the demo and try youself, you must contact dev for v4 demo

like @MozartEstLa say, best to compare 2 legit seperate purchase of same audio files

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2016

I apologize. You caught me before my first coffee that morning. But after I had a couple of espressos and a bran muffin around the corner at the Greek restaurant I went back, told the trumpet player how sorry I was for berating him, hooked him up with a fantastic trumpet teacher that I know and then dropped a ten dollar bill in his hat there laying at his feet on the ground. We are now best of buddies and regularly jam together every Wednesday night under the arch in Washington Square Park.