Digital Watermarking videos with member's username...

[Ann-Angelcom]

Guys, anyone here know how this is done? Or how it works? Killergram.com claim to be able to do it. If that's true, this would be awesome for us! If anyone can point us in the right direction, or recommend someone who can get it done for us, please msg me 305638991.

[RadicalSights]

not sure

[who]

A real watermark? in downloadable content?

[Ann-Angelcom]

A realtime watermarking solution, they call it on Killergram. Does anyone know even the guy who is in charge of that site? I'm sure he can help out. Thanks!

[TeenCat]

finally ... so congrats killergram to make the idea alive!

[quantum-x]

I posted the source of a script that I wrote that does this.
Nothing new here

[Michelle69]

Quantum-X: where did you post that?

[TheDA]

Was just going to say some guy, looks like it was quantum-x, posted about this a while back.

http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=889707

Would have been nice to have gotten a response to some of the questions asked in the thread above since you are either not getting the emails or are not responding to them.

[Mutt]

and what do you plan to do with this? so you find your stolen content with a members username, IP address embedded in it - other than cancel the membership, are you going to sue him? are you going to put a notice in your members area that content is dynamically tagged with usernames etc?

[woj]

It's not hard at all, at least to do a half-assed one it's not, which will work as long as you don't have too many members and your hardware is fast enough... to make it nice and efficient would be slightly tricky, but certainly doable too...

[acctman]

it depends on the video but its can be done fairly easy. if the video is streaming on a website page then you can do a CSS div overlay with the username. That method would be the easiest way to do it. If your videos are downloadable you're going to have to encode on the fly and watermark the name in. That would require a multiple/fast servers to keep up with a high demand.

I'd go with the div overlay and stream the videos from the webpage. make sure you server the video link from a protected file and location on the server that is not accessable to the user. And use a no-cache header too

[acctman]

and what do you plan to do with this? so you find your stolen content with a members username, IP address embedded in it - other than cancel the membership, are you going to sue him? are you going to put a notice in your members area that content is dynamically tagged with usernames etc?

gives your the option to cancel the user. if everyone practiced that method of canceling people who screen capped / downloaded videos then less people would do it. me personally i have no problem with someone saving the video for personal view its when they start posting it and it shows up as content for some other site that doesn't give a fuck.

[maxxx69]

silly concept.. anyone with half a brain can bypass the css or flash watermark, and encoding it into the actual videos would take massive computing power.. you would do nothing but piss of your paying customers

[acctman]

silly concept.. anyone with half a brain can bypass the css or flash watermark, and encoding it into the actual videos would take massive computing power.. you would do nothing but piss of your paying customers

silly concept but 90% of the people who download videos are either doing screen caps or downloading from the links that are given to them in the member area. they're not going out of the way viewing source codes to see if a video has a css overlay watermark or an actual encoded one.

if they see there name as a watermark on the video more than likely they'll pass up screen capping it. and, if they did it would have there name on it. so as silly as it may sound it would work.

[riddler]

chances are its not the member thats uploading the content but someone who brute forced the site and got access to their account so chances are you would be punishing a user that is clueless to having content uploaded with his "watermark"

[acctman]

chances are its not the member thats uploading the content but someone who brute forced the site and got access to their account so chances are you would be punishing a user that is clueless to having content uploaded with his "watermark"

set your login script to 3-4 failed attempts auto lock account. then have an email automatically sent to the user notifying him/her of the account being lock and a link to reconfirm there info and set a new password.

they are plenty of ways to prevent or just make it a hassle for content theives. they'll just skip your site and go to an easier target.

[CIVMatt]

this would be pointless, not to mention the privacy concerns

[seeandsee]

interesting

[DVTimes]

thats cool. could help stop tube sites.

[DVTimes]

this would be pointless, not to mention the privacy concerns

not realy

if your films end up on tube sites you will know who did it, plus its only a username.

what you want is there full address plus credit card details.

[Mutt]

chances are its not the member thats uploading the content but someone who brute forced the site and got access to their account so chances are you would be punishing a user that is clueless to having content uploaded with his "watermark"

quantumx's script tracks IP address - so u can check the IP address the member signed up with the IP which downloaded the content.

[selena]

this would be pointless, not to mention the privacy concerns

I see it as being very non-pointless, really. As to the privacy concerns, I would put a huge font disclaimer on the join page that to protect their privacy their username should NOT be their real name.

[DamianJ]

thats cool. could help stop tube sites.

Yeah, good point. Someone that professionally steals content would have no idea how to remove/disguise a watermark.

</sarcasm>

[quantum-x]

chances are its not the member thats uploading the content but someone who brute forced the site and got access to their account so chances are you would be punishing a user that is clueless to having content uploaded with his "watermark"

Hey Riddler.
This is not the case at all.
I did quite bit of research into this, using my script, and Raven Riley's site as the test - so there was definitely exposure.

Here are the things [again] that I found - and they really were quite surprising.

#1 - Content was stolen, and posted on torrent sites, rapidshare, and various forums.
#2 - Out of all of these, torrents sites were the slowest to update, and had really, really old sets on them. Forums had the most recent sets.

#3 - 2 weeks after deploying the script, I noticed that there was a trend of 5 - 10 accounts that were constantly being used to distribute content. I found the accounts compromised, and removed the accounts.

#3 - 3 weeks after deploying and 1 after removing the accounts, the amount of content posted on forums had reduced *dramatically*.

#4 - From here on, and I watched this for about 6 months - the accounts that were stealing and reposting content were members that had been with the site for 6 - 12 months, or more - the members that you 'trust the most'.

It wasn't new members doing a pump/dump, it was the older members, who, especially in the case of a solo site, feel that they have some 'right' to the content, as they've been a member for so long.

And, it's a tough choice: do you cancel your most supportive members, or let your content leak.


In regards to the privacy issue, my script covered it 2 fold:

#1 - The information was: username, IP, timestamp of download, and original filename of download. All this information was encyrpted, packed, and obfuscated.

#2 - If the member never distributed the content, there was no privacy concern

By the way, this style of content protection is used by Apple w/ iTunes - for the non DRM tracks, your name is embedded in the file - and fuck, they don't even encrypt it.


I don't by any means pretend that the script I posted was a deploy and forget solution, mainly because it depends on the system used [CMS, manual downloads, etc] - but was and is, a proven, completely working system, completely free.

You might also be interested to know that no-one, and I mean no-one ever contacted me about using it, and I'd contacted the CMS developers, etc. Not so sure why it is, but it's sure a shame that this problem is still ongoing when it's already been solved.

[burntfilm]

To reach the ends that I think digital angel is going for one wouldn't necessarily need a watermark or overlay, they'd just need an embedded serial number that corresponds to the IP address. This could be embedded in the code of the content. it doesn't HAVE to be visible to the naked eye and in turn it wouldn't overburden your server.

Then just download the rapidshare, torrent, or VLC the stolen stuff, cross check this # with your MA database and lock the user out of your MA AND all ccbill billed sites. (according to their fraud policy)
That's a hassle most ass-boys won't go through to get "thanks" on usenet, IRC or whatever douchebag hacker forum.
I don't know why anyone would think blocking out some people is not better than blocking out none. The basic premise is used all over, for instance, a DOOR does this. Sure the Juggernaught could knock it down, does that mean i should just leave the shit open? Nah.

[acctman]

this would be pointless, not to mention the privacy concerns

privacy concerns? you're not posting there real names just some made up online alias. plus if they're screen capping videos then any rights should be voided.

1. css div overlay with username
2. set login script to 3-4 failed attempts lock acct and ban ip. send user an email to confirm and reactivate acct.
3. for people concerned about privacy, put something about a zero tolerance for screen capping and re-uploading movies.
4. serve your videos for a protected location. I personally server all user private pics and vids from behind the root. i use a php file to grab the file which looks something like files/pvtexp.php?mid=39&iid=56390&idat=2005/02&sec=3 that file will server a flash video or image. the user sees domain1.com/files/pvtexp.php and the php file is checking all the user info then goes to server2 which holds all my vids and pics and then graps files from a different ip/domain name.

in the end yes i'll probably get 1 person that will probably go out of there way to grab a picture or video then spend time blurring out the username but it will deter any one else from bothering with it. i dont think we should deter webmasters from atleast tempting to protect there stuff by saying it cant be done. anything is better than nothing.

p.s. most of the big sites allow the user to download the videos. its like going on vacation and leaving your front door open, dont get mad if you're robbed.

[Davy]

Where's Stickyfingerz/Ryan?

[stickyfingerz]

Where's Stickyfingerz/Ryan?

Busy still getting new house setup. Announcing site next week to sell our solution / consulting. Btw check the last page of this months Avn Online magazine for an article I wrote about this issue.