DivXNetworks and Franhofer team to develop digital watermarking
 

From CNet News:

Video compression provider DivXNetworks has teamed with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics to develop a system to protect digital video and audio from copyright violations.

Under a deal announced Wednesday, the companies said they would work together to create a digital watermark system. Watermarking technology places a unique bit of code into a video or audio file, making the file difficult to copy or play without permission from copyright holders.

An interesting move from the developers of the highly popular DivX and mp3 formats. Both parties obviously see a possibility to make money from the developing (?) Digital Rights Management market but so far this market has remained mostly hypothetical. And the last serious effort on watermarking was cracked in rather short time by a few free academic researchers.

- tg ;)