Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Topic: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz? (Read 23166 times) previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #25 – 2016-02-29 16:08:34

Quote from: Case on 2016-02-29 13:59:09

I bought a "lossless" album from them too when I heard people recommend it. I picked an album I had on CD so I ccould reliably confirm if it's properly lossless. It turned out to be lowpassed and the tracks even had silence between them when the transitions should have been gapless. I didn't know to check for watermarks.

I heard about something similar but not sure it was on qpbuz. The watermarked 24/44.1 Studio Master has broken gaps while the 16/44.1 cd hasn't. I will try to ask if we get it online.

Quote from: bennetng on 2016-02-29 13:45:19

Instead of the delta file, can you post some 30 seconds clips from the files you mentioned in this thread as well? So that all of us can examine them.

I am not 100% sure how legal 30sec samples are.
Here in germany it costs license fees even for 4 beats or as soon a song can be recognized.
We had more than 5 Million sued people for music copyright things here in the last years and this is a big business assisted by our lawgivers.

Quote from: halb27 on 2016-02-29 15:03:10

I am afraid that watermarking is a pretty universal strategy among music download sellers.
I read the book 'The mp3 story' recently written by a Fraunhofer Institut insider. From that I took that watermarking is the technology which overcame copy protected downloads which mean strong restrictions for playback. Guess that's the price we have to pay.
As long as it's really inaudible (or very very close to) it's an acceptable price to me (especially as I do lossy codec download - iTunes AAC most of the time). For lossless codecs it's a different beast of course.

I am afraid i see this completely different. A lossless file should be lossless leave alone something sold me as Studio Master.
Do you really want to look for non watermarked for every purchase? I will always prefer the non watermarked.
Seems like there are albums sold on HDtracks with watermark in where the CD and the qobuz version has none. What version do you prefer?
Imagine the theory about The Killing Fields album is correct and they compressed the hell out of silent parts only to fit the watermark in.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #26 – 2016-02-29 16:44:20

If the seller say it is "lossless" and they embed watermark into it, then it is already not "lossless" by definition. If the watermark is really there and the seller denies, then it is a fraud. Also, if a watermark with personal information is decrypted by some malicious parties (let's say, if someone stole your files and share them in public), the buyer can get troubles including spams, phishing and so on. I think these points are enough for a lawsuit.

Therefore if someone is capable of making a detector and have passion to save the consumers, please help us. The rest of us can do is maybe, to spread the message and arouse public awareness.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #27 – 2016-02-29 17:11:07

Quote from: Wombat on 2016-02-29 16:08:34

... I will always prefer the non watermarked. ...

No doubt, so do I.
But they don't ask us. Sure downloading watermarked 'lossless' music isn't attractive.

What I wonder: if it's true what I think that watermarking is pretty universal anti-piracy strategy: what about CDs? Copy protection is given up here too. Do we have to fear watermarked CD music? Never heard about it, but it would be in line.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #28 – 2016-02-29 17:14:59

Exactly thats why we need a detector plugin

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #29 – 2016-02-29 17:45:29

Quote from: halb27 on 2016-02-29 17:11:07

Do we have to fear watermarked CD music? Never heard about it, but it would be in line.

If I understand the technology correctly, we can have watermarked vinyls as well.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #30 – 2016-02-29 18:06:36

I still hope the situation is better for CDs or vinyl. I can't imagine they can contain CD- resp. vinyl-individual information. But I don't really know, I guess without individual information watermarking doesn't make sense for the music industry.

Just did some research. On the Fraunhofer page on watermarking they are only talking about watermarked CDs when CD production is done with the Rimage CD copy station.
So standard CDs or vinyls should be fine.
Also with individual watermarking the AccurateRip mechanism wouldn't work.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #31 – 2016-03-01 02:54:10

I guess buying physical media from a physical shop is safer in this era, at least personalized watermarks don't work. If you see the screenshot from my previous post, the red text actually means personal data leakage is none of their business and they can even use this as an evidence to sue you for sharing the files. I guess the company treated me as an "artist" rather than a consumer at that point.

Also, in the music industry, if someone tell you it is audible, then it is supposed to be inaudible (like hi-res), and if something is audible (like watermark) they will tell you it is inaudible. I didn't know about audio watermarking until that time, when I saw the word "inaudible" I immediately googled about the watermarking technology and of course, one of the results is from HA.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #32 – 2016-04-15 21:35:22

Quote from: Wombat on 2016-02-21 17:24:21

To keep it On Topic and to have a screeny of mp3 here is another "Mike Oldfield at qobuz" pearl.
I purchased a single track in "16bit CD quality" lossless last year and it was 100% mp3. Mike Oldfield - Lakme @ qobuz
Today i re-downloaded only to see nothing changed.

For completeness i have a screeny of the real lossless file added. https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,111197.msg916593.html#msg916593

I hope somebody has already an idea how to realize the detector plugin. I bet there are more marked files as we think.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #33 – 2016-06-14 12:42:52

To bump that affliction i have another one.
Almost one year before i got the qualified answer from qobuz "our files are not watermarked" i purchased "Ben Howard - I Forget Where We Were" as 24/48, so called Studio Master at them.
Now i was able to do a delta with audio diffmaker to the CD and i see the attached picture.
I have no 3rd source to counter check but i am pretty sure it fits the pattern.

I still hope to motivate some talented person to program us a detector

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #34 – 2016-06-15 20:18:27

If someone else would purchase the same title as you have, and exchange and compare - but who will support such a vendor with a fistful of dollars, "even in the name of science"? ;-)

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #35 – 2016-06-15 20:29:38

I am pretty sure the blu-ray version and its 48kHz content is free of the watermark. I for sure won't spend one more cent but when i knew before i never would have bought that download but the blu-ray.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #36 – 2016-06-16 18:37:16

I am sure the watermarks are not personalized but if someone is interested to verify just waste some money and compare.

My qobuz watermarked purchases from this thread for Mike Oldfield - Discovery (Deluxe Edition)

24/96
01-01-Mike_Oldfield-To_France-SMR.flac
Audio MD5 7F281CFE11BC17275D201D39D3680E9F

16/44.1
01-01-Mike_Oldfield-To_France-LLS.flac
Audio MD5 3DCA97C8AE8A57C560E6FC8C20CFCFA8

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #37 – 2016-09-26 19:30:35

Quote from: Wombat on 2016-06-16 18:37:16

24/96
01-01-Mike_Oldfield-To_France-SMR.flac
Audio MD5 7F281CFE11BC17275D201D39D3680E9F

I bought the track and the audio MD5 of my track is the same as yours.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #38 – 2016-09-26 19:39:23

Many thanks for your effort! You can be sure now to listen a watermarked file in High Resolution.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #39 – 2019-11-02 10:57:07

Good morning all,

Thanks to the admin to have me activate my account;)

Very interesting this post One thing caught me. How does an audio file scan, can contain the information on the album?
Apart from the title and the name of the file, the rest is stored somewhere (the photo of the album, the year, artist etc)
Is all this information encoded in the audio system?
How does the 'dac' retrieve and manage to display the information of the album?

I would like to raise this mystery

Thk you

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #40 – 2019-11-02 13:02:51

That is what is called tagging
In the header of the audio file all kind of information can be stored.
The media player strips all this stuff, decode e.g. MP3 to raw PCM and send PCM to the DAC using a protocol like SPDIF, UAC1/2 etc

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #41 – 2019-11-02 17:13:28

And that is definitely not how watermarking works.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #42 – 2019-11-02 19:10:30

Thank you for your answers Like's + +
Good evening to you both

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #43 – 2019-11-02 22:28:39

The type of watermark being discussed is data mixed with the audio. Other than potentially annoying people who can hear it, has it actually achieved its purpose in combating illegal distribution?

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #44 – 2020-11-08 02:04:28

I did read more than once people talking about watermarks failed and are not in use anymore.
Here is a very recent example of a DECCA release. It is the latest Melody Gardot. DECCA is a part of Universal.
It may be a newer version of the mark with a slightly different, lower in frequency distribution.

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #45 – 2020-11-08 08:01:46

Why do they even bother, if the watermarks aren't even identifying down to the individual user who downloaded them? Who cares if someone bought tracks from $site and widely redistributed them? What are they going to do, punish that site?

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #46 – 2020-11-08 10:37:00

Quote from: kode54 on 2020-11-08 08:01:46

Why do they even bother, if the watermarks aren't even identifying down to the individual user who downloaded them? Who cares if someone bought tracks from $site and widely redistributed them? What are they going to do, punish that site?

Look at the e-mail address tag and look at the owner tag or whatever else someone forgets to remove... Oh wait, punish the store! My guess is to do research and see where the individuals who are uploading it are buying it from and in what format. Or maybe some record companies are just trolling at this point and watching the reactions from people while sipping coffee from their Reese's coffee cup while saying "excellent" Mr. Burns style?

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #47 – 2020-11-08 10:56:15

Quote from: kode54 on 2020-11-08 08:01:46

Why do they even bother, if the watermarks aren't even identifying down to the individual user who downloaded them?

* Research. They would like to know whether files sold are disproportionally more often uploaded than CDs.
* If the end-user believes it is watermarked to individual level ...

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #48 – 2022-11-01 20:01:18

Had to resurrect this thread because qobuz still knows how to treat customers.
Here at the Steve Hofman forums they found the watermark may be region based.
Germany or europe seems to be strong with watermarking.
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/region-based-drm-watermarks-by-universal-music.1159186/

Very interesting is the watermark they added to the 2022 Beatles Revolver Remix. It creates garbage the DR meter interprets as higher DR.
DR7 + Watermark = DR8

Re: Oldfield watermarked at qobuz?

Reply #49 – 2022-11-01 21:50:24

What's the point of a fingerprint if everyone's got the same?

(Qobuz refused my credit card back then six years ago.)

Notice