Bitmunk Content Protection

From DBWiki

Arr, matey *shakes hook in the air*... that be a good question.

We digitally watermark, sign and stegonographically identify each and every individual sale on Bitmunk. However, none of the watermarking and signing that we do affect the play-ability of the file. A standard MP3 stays a standard MP3, as does a standard MPEG movie or FLAC file. Our watermarking methods are completely non-invasive and do not affect the quality of a digital file.

Digital watermarking is a technique that involves digitally signing the sale of a digital file by embedding the sale information inside the file. Think of it as embedding the buyer's receipt in the digital file. This not only protects you and the artist, but it protects the buyer from sellers on the network that may try to sell them bogus files.

Steganography is the practice of hiding one form of information inside another. Therefore, our digital watermarking (embedding the receipt in the file that was just sold) is a form of steganography. However, we go further and encode the buyer's information inside the file as well. We use several different methods of steganography that change and evolve constantly, thus reverse engineering the watermarking method is pointless as we can produce new watermarking methods faster than they can be reverse engineered.

All information is digitally signed to ensure that nobody can fake their identities. There is no such thing as anonymity on Bitmunk, afterall there are real financial transactions happening and electronic financial transactions should not happen between unidentified individuals.

The digital content that you register and sell on the network are protected to the degree that enable you to make money from them and still allow your customers to be able to play the work wherever they want.