Universal Watermark

[Clara Zellinger]

UniversalWatermark Disabler is a freeware app which can remove all kinds of watermarks in Windows 10, Windows 8.1 and Windows 8. It works in any build starting from Windows 8 build 7850 (early beta) to the latest Windows 10 versions, including future builds.

- Supports all builds from Windows 8 7850 to Windows 10 10240 (and newer).

- Supports any UI language.

- Does not delete branding strings (i.e. does not modify system files!).

- Removes any watermarks including BootSecure, Test Mode, Build string in evaluation and pre-release builds, "Confidential" warning text and even the build hash.

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The Universal Watermark Disabler for Windows 11 is a tool that can assist in removing the annoying watermark on the bottom-right side of the Windows screen that is interfering with your wallpaper and overall experience.

I ran into the same issue - the watermark drives me nuts. I managed to come up with a temporary fix for the problem. Note that it involved editing a system hex file, and while I haven't experienced anything going wrong so far, I cannot promise it won't come with negative consequences. Perform at your own risk.

UMG uses a spread spectrum watermark, a technique explained in detail in this Microsoft research paper. The watermark scheme modulates the total energy in two different bands, 1khz to 2.3 khz and 2.3 to 3.6 khz. The energy is concentrated in the most perceptually sensitive frequencies because that makes it more difficult to attack or remove without significant audible distortion.

The energy is increased or reduced in 0.04 second blocks. The result can be characterized as a fluttering, tremolo sound. Listen closely to the original vs. watermarked audio samples and try to focus on the 1 khz to 3.6 khz noise range. It helps to wear headphones in a quiet environment.

The character of the watermark may seem subtle during this short sample, but through the duration of an entire song it becomes more familiar and more annoying. Check out my original post on the subject for more examples.

The watermark does not start until 1 second into the audio. After this the signal is divided into 0.08 second blocks. Each block is divided in two: some amount of energy is added to the first half and the same amount is subtracted from the second half. This coding scheme allows blind detection (without access to the original file). The actual information in the watermark is not easily recovered because it is modulated by a pseudo random sequence, which is generated by a secret key.

I did a little searching and it seems this watermarking technology is provided by MarkAny, a Korean company that has developed their own watermarks out of university research, and purchased some watermarking patents from Digimark.

Why do labels watermark tracks? Watermarking simplifies copyright enforcement by letting a company track music on peer-to-peer networks. "It gives them the ability to put pressure on policy makers and ISPs to do filtering," says Fred Von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney. That may be about the best explanation you will find. See DRM Is Dead, But Watermarks Rise From Its Ashes

Most listeners probably don't notice the watermark in the music they listen to. The audibility of the watermark is very content-dependent; classical, and solo piano in particular, are affected most severely. I've seen complaints on classical music forums with descriptions calling out the characteristic fluttering of the watermark. These listeners might be acutely aware of these sound quality problems, but blame lossy compression or streaming services.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with watermarking. The problem is with this particular poorly tested implementation. It is unfortunate considering the amount of engineering effort that goes into every music production.

Thank you for figuring this out. I use Spotify and like many had thought something was wrong with the streaming codec. It's also being used on iTunes, judging by a recent LA Philharmonic download of Wagner excerpts--the irritating flutter is there too.

I've been wondering what this flutter was for a long time. Thanks for putting this up. I always just figured it was a compression issue, but when I upgraded spotify to the "high quality streaming" and it was still there, I got suspicious and found this.

I generated the difference audio by aligning the signal of the original and watermarked audio and subtracting them. You can do this in any wave audio editor like Audacity or Adobe Audition, but the sample alignment is the most important part.

Most of the few who actually pay for music are playing it through the laptop USB speakers, (read Spotify &Co) which often aren't exactly HIFI. And most grown-ups don't hear the difference anyway. (I tested the given samples with Sony headphones. And my hearing is flat to a 12kHz personal cutoff, which is average for my age.)

At any rate, this is a step towards sanity compared to copy protection. I think we are on our way to a better future because every year an old boss retires, and instead comes a younger one, who's presumably seen computers as a child.

George - I want to offer a small counterpoint to a few of your statements. It might be that listeners with poor hearing or cheap stereos actually hear the watermark more prominently. Consider that a cheap stereo system will have a low and high frequency roll off, such that only the midrange is left over; the watermark is concentrated in the middle, unaffected. However, played over a hi-fi system, there's more energy in the highs and lows, and that's just more energy that might mask the watermark in the middle. Likewise, for someone with some hearing loss, unless their hearing loss lands right on 1 to 3.6 kHz, they're simply going to be deaf to acoustic energy that would otherwise serve to mask the watermark.

Pl Brtelund: Thanks for this analysis, Matt. All this is in a lossless domain - got any thoughts on how the most popular codecs (AAC, Vorbis and MP3) reacts to spread spectrum watermarks?

I recently subscribed to Qobuz because they are the only ones who stream lossless. However, the Universal tracks do have the digital watermark. Listen to the first seconds of Shostakovich's 8th symphony conducted by Valery Gergiev (Philips). It's simply unlistenable. I'm not willing to pay for audio that is degraded in such a way. Bad for Qobuz which is really a great site otherwise.

I bought one track I had on CD (Track 1 of Boulez' Miracoulous Mandarin on DG). I did an inverted mix paste, and the result was digital silence. So obviously they were bit-identical. So at least with this one example, there is no digital watermarking of Universal tracks at Qobuz.

Thanks for this! I can't believe there hasn't been more uproar over this. There is an Avett Brothers single on the radio these days that has such horrendous watermarking that I want to rip my hair out every time i hear it.

freedom isnt free. if no one bought music from distributors who watermark, AND let them know why, and demanded money back for distorting their music purchase. you get the idea.. people can complain all they want but big industry is only going to get worse, more greedy. however, you can count on greedy business to do whatever they need to do to maximize profits and that means no watermarks if no money is made from them. with the current dictatorship here in america run by the entertainment giants, you are in for a long fight.

barring that, here is my other suggestion. develop software that writes watermarks in the same fashion as the watermarks you are trying to remove. use this software to write new watermarks. various tweaks, namely phase change for the method above and other tweaks for other methods. the idea is to erase, or minimize or overwrite(depending on type) the added watermark enough it fails at its original purpose. this isnt so difficult to conceptualize and a case can be made for removing the watermark as it borders on malware in part by allowing other code on websites for instance or media players to target ads at you. it is malware. but sadly, while the author of the site and a few others do their share in educating, the masses still go back for good kick in the a** only to send the message to the music industry that they are willing to put up with it. yes, shake your fists and type at the top of your lungs friends. no hurry and grab lady gaga's latest.

Fuxk UMG.

Some suggestion on the listening test: Some type of music (piano) can easily reveal the watermark while some (fast/percussive/loud) are much harder to identify that I actually gave up testing. It's better to add an "I can't hear" option to make the statistics more useful. Also, can you publish your statistics to show which music clips have the highest identification rate? Thanks.

frodowiz: freedom isnt free. if no one bought music from distributors who watermark, AND let them know why, and demanded money back for distorting their music purchase. you get the idea.. [[SNIP]] yes,shake your fists and type at the top of your lungs friends. no hurry and grab lady gaga's latest.

This entire post. Yes. Unless we hit them in the pocketbook. Good luck on that because certain demographics only care about the hype that the record companies and other big industry creates. Without thinking and nearly as a majority bloc, they buy into the bling, the rims, the grills, the twerking, the stupid antics, and other "culture" and prop up the corporations. We were given brains for a reason, and unfortunately, a majority of the population still operates on a base, animal level. Big Industry, as a creature of its own, adapts easily to this highly positive reward/response cycle.

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