BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple iPhone warning proves true

[The Dong]

Don't t(h)read on my tentacles, Earthling! wrote:
> Because a DRM is a mean to restrain reading or copying. Watermarking  
> is giving a nominative licence while you can copy/read as you want. ;)

I doubt that is the goal.
Seriously, I can't believe you cannot see how watermarking will be used 
precisely as a method of DRM. If not now, once it has taken hold as a 
'harmless' tracking tool of the industry 'merely to ascertain artist 
popularity' for example.

What if sometime in the near future the watermark contained a date, in 
one instance, and on that date the software (or hardware) player will 
outright refuse to play your music/film. This is not speculation. It 
will be used this way or similarly and is already being used this way.

The industries are just dying to implement a rental type digital media 
distribution p2p mechanism that auto-deletes files after a set time so 
you have to buy them again. One that dumb consumers will lap up and 
probably pay more than they pay now for or not realise that there are 
processes hijacking their computer to massively prop up the bandwidth 
for the network distribution. ewww..

If you have skills in these fields, please contact the RIAA and MPAA 
with a proposal and make some big money at the expense of some moral fibre!

DRM.