Comment: Re:A nice idea, but short-lived? (Score 2, Informative) 365
Yes, it is even more trivial than you think : simply re-encoding the whole song (from mp3 to aac for example) will remove the carefully placed watermark.
It's the same as with invisible watermarks in pictures. Just save the image (normally a jpg) again, with recompressing, and the watermark will be mostly gone.
You can argue that re-encoding songs like this diminishes quality, which is true, but it is so little that it's not audible. A minor, inaudible quality loss is a small price to pay for DRM/Watermark free songs.
It's the same as with invisible watermarks in pictures. Just save the image (normally a jpg) again, with recompressing, and the watermark will be mostly gone.
You can argue that re-encoding songs like this diminishes quality, which is true, but it is so little that it's not audible. A minor, inaudible quality loss is a small price to pay for DRM/Watermark free songs.