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Record producers were appalled last week when they found they could hear a
supposedly inaudible “watermark” designed to make DVD-Audio players reject
copied discs. The industry’s Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) had chosen a
commercial watermarking system, called Verance, which adds digital changes to
music waveforms. The mark must be robust enough to survive MP3 transmission over
the Internet, but remain inaudible when played on the yet to be launched
DVD-Audio players. After the disastrous London demo, an SDMI spokesperson
admitted: “We are starting all over again.”