Watermarking - is this the future of journalism?

With so much concern over privacy, I would expect that the music industry is looking towards the video game industry (not that it doesn't have piracy problems- esp. in Asia, but it's much less on the whole....

I remember that one time a long time ago a (now-defunct) game magazine had a build of a game leak out to pirates and they had some pretty huge problems after that in getting product from companies, lost advertising, etc....

Also, if this starts, I think you'll find that A) no critics like it and B) there's not a fucking thing you'll be able to do about it, other than complain at the water cooler....It's totally an accepted part of doing business in my little sector of the publishing world....

As Horace alluded to, the volume of product physically mailed by the companies that use the scheme equates to trash. There's so much of it, often recipients at a publication, like a newspaper, throw a lot of it in a common pile for anyone to take home.

So if a watermarked embargoed CD is immediately pirated or taken to the pawn shop, there's no way to attribute who took it there even
if the company assigns unique watermarks to -names- on their
mailout.

In effect, it's a "tracking system" that's meaningless. Everyone
with even a small amount of savvy knows it's powerless.

One supposes it might intimidate the clueless or pubs run by
nincompoops.

Can't it be used to determine the source of illegal copies? So if a reviewer rips the CD and puts the MP3s up for everyone to download, they can tell who did it - and sue for damages.

So if a watermarked embargoed CD is immediately pirated or taken to the pawn shop, there's no way to attribute who took it there even
if the company assigns unique watermarks to -names- on their mailout.
Doesn't matter who took it there - the name in the watermark is the person responsible/liable for it not being pirated.

(..er - that is the type of watermark we're talking about here, isn't it?)

.. Wouldn't stop analog copies however.... If anyone wanted to spend the time to do them, that is.

No. Company mails flood of watermarked advance CDs to publication.
Some get reviewed, often not by the people they are addressed to.
Some don't get reviewed. Many wind up tossed onto a sludge pile
in the middle of the room. Anyone in the building who comes by
can help themself. Others are given away by employees, some who
may not even be connected to the chain of names the record company has
tried to assign to such a promotional mailing.

Temp worker, student, intern, reporter, employee in business side of operation, custodian, employee in different editorial section, etc, comes by and takes whatever they want.

Someone in this pool pirates it, gives it away, puts it in the
trash or takes it down to the pawn shop.

No reverse look-up possible using this system. Organization on
target end of bulk promotional mailing not responsible for fate of bulk mailing product. It did not "opt in" or become signatory to
any contractual term with record company. Simply being the target
of a promotional mailing in which the promotional goods are littered
with pseudo-legalese about the promotional good being the property
of the record company doesn't enter the publication into any binding
contract of responsibility with the recording company.

If this were possible, companies all over America would use the
unsoliciting mailing of goods to bind you to contracts with them.

Record companies have no leverage with this. A newspaper features
section, for example, would just laugh at these types of pests.
Take us off the mailing list? So do it, it's not like there's not
enough other people mailing crap to us.

.. Wouldn't stop analog copies however.... If anyone wanted to spend the time to do them, that is.

Very true. If you were hell-bent on distributing embargoed advance
copies, you can do just that. It easily bypasses any copy protection scheme, too. Or you can just rip the CD to MP3 and put them on
someone else's PC hooked to the world network. The person
doesn't even have to know, if it's an always on connection.

This is trivial to do at many colleges.

So if a reviewer rips the CD and puts the MP3s up for everyone to download, they can tell who did it - and sue for damages.

No watermark is necessary to grease this under the current
RIAA strategy. They industry association simply subpoenas the ISP
that houses the account of the PC allowing file-sharing of MP3s.
Then they sue the account holder. And even in this, the wrong
people can be targeted as a recent publicized case has demonstrated.