Audio watermarking and fingerprinting:: For which applications?

Although not a new issue, music piracy has acquired a new status in the digital era, as recordings can be easily copied and distributed. Watermarking has been proposed as a solution to this problem. It consists in embedding into the audio signal an inaudible mark containing copyright information. A different approach, called fingerprinting, consists in extracting a "fingerprint" from the audio signal. In association with a database, this fingerprint can be used to identify a recording, which is useful, for example, to monitor audio excerpts played by broadcasters and webcasters. There are far more applications to watermarking and fingerprinting. After a brief technical review, this article describes potential applications of both methodologies, showing which one is more suitable for each application.