User profile for user: realtrance
realtrance Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Universal Music Group audible watermarking on digital downloads?

Hello,


I wanted to take a moment to praise Apple for being so patient and persistent around a sound quality issue I've been noticing for months with certain of my digital purchases from the iTunes Music Store.


Start of story: I noticed that certain of my classical albums purchased had this very strange "fluttery" sound, most noticeable during quiet passages, or with solo instruments with pure tones (flute, clarinet, oboe), or soprano solo singing.


At first, I thought it might be an artifact of the bitrate or encoding of the file. I raised this with Apple, and they confirmed that no, the files were at the maximum AAC quality. I have listened to plenty of other music with similar kinds of quiet passages and pure notes, from the iTunes store, and never noticed this issue.


After making more purchases over a period of months, I finally started to notice a commonality: all of the purchases of classical music from labels under the Universal Music Group -- Deutsche Grammophon and Decca, L'Oiseau-Lyre, EMI -- had this fluttery sound issue.


I continued to be mystified, and Apple did everything they could, refreshing the purchases I'd made on the server side and having me re-download to make sure there were no issues with the files Apple had available.


Well, finally, a professional recording engineer pointed this link out to me:


http://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark


The author, Matt Montag, is an engineer for Spotify, and has obviously done some close analysis of the nature of the problem.


You will find other references to Universal Music Group's audible watermarking of their files online, stretching back to 2011, maybe earlier.


I find this an abhorrent practice, not because I object to UMG's need to protect its digital rights, but because it is basically selling damaged goods at regular prices, without any indication that is the case.


I have pointed this out to Apple, as well as to the music label, and don't expect anything to come of it, unfortunately.


For me, it makes certain historic, well-known recordings by DG artists of some of the most beautiful repertoire in the world -- international treasures, that should be protected for all time, and shared properly, uncontaminated, with those who make a legitimate purchase -- virtually unlistenable.


I hope anyone else noticing this will also report it to Universal Music Group. It is not an Apple quality issue, but something they clearly have to put up with from this particular publisher.


Apple has gone to great lengths to help me, but this is beyond their control. I hope you can help them change that, as customers who should not be treated in such a shoddy way.


Please listen carefully to any UMG purchases you have, particularly quiet passages, solo instruments in acoustic spaces, solo voices; if you notice this issue, report it to UMG.


There are certainly technologies out there that can serve the security and tracking goals UMG seeks, without distorting the sound; with the watermarking technology they have committed to for those purposes presently, they are degrading distribution of their massive library of historic music, and destroying our ability to enjoy these international treasures, and, in the long run, their ability to profit from them.


Thanks for listening.

Posted on Nov 19, 2013 3:24 PM

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14 replies
User profile for user: yeoldelloyd
yeoldelloyd
User level: Level 1
4 points

Mar 24, 2017 7:39 AM in response to realtrance

Today I sent a nice mail to Deutsche Grammophon, since the problem is extreme on Brahms' Piano Concerto 1 by Zimerman and Rattle. Hope they do something about it, because the brand is living from its reputation to have superior sound quality. It doesn't bother me so much at home, where I prefer the good old vinyl, but I like to listen to my favorite recordings also at work and on the go.

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User profile for user: CyberGene
CyberGene
User level: Level 1
46 points

Aug 10, 2017 5:42 AM in response to realtrance

I've been having the same problem with DG records on the Apple Music streaming service since the very beginning of the service. I always thought it was due to some AAC-encoding issues and I've reported that to Apple and we had a long conversation going as far as me sending them my own CD-rip excerpt of the same record with no audio issues for them to compare against their version. Ultimately they acknowledged they can hear the difference (the particular record in question is the 17-CD set of complete Chopin music where this is audible all the time since there's a lot of mellow solo piano passages almost everywhere). Here's their answer:


Thank you for your patience. The music studios provide their content to the iTunes Store and we endeavor to distribute the highest quality content possible.


The issue you’ve reported has been noted and the vendor has been notified. We have received a response that the content is as intended. I can’t say when or if the vendor will correct the concerns reported.


They never mentioned about any digital watermarking so I thought it was just something like DG using wrong sample rate conversion or whatever but I grew so tired of this problem that I started avoiding their releases and preferred other classical music labels on Apple Music. But whenever I encounter this problem, which is audible on more than half the DG releases, I get very irritated. It is today that I was finally fed up and decided to search on the Internet if there are other people who have this problem and here I am.


What can I say, this is just totally unacceptable. This is the kind of behavior that can make me enraged to the point I will intentionally reject UMG releases and will force myself to listen to other music companies.

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User profile for user: realtrance
realtrance Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Nov 19, 2013 5:21 PM in response to ed2345

Hi ed2345,


Simply because this issue seems to have been around for years, and despite a polite "we'll look into it" from UMG customer support, I haven't heard anything since.


Plus - and I am speculating here - I imagine the committment of licensing, resources, processing made to do things the way they've been done was probably substantial; and the likelihood of seeing the value in addressing this issue, for what is probably considered to be a minority of customers like me, who care, and investing in such an address, is thus virtually nil.


I can understand that, and if it's only me and a small number of people who are unhappy about this, a large corporation is unlikely to spend resources to change things just for us.


My bigger concern is not me, however; it is the repertoire and the library. It's wonderful that Deutsche Grammophon's 100+ year history of recording, Decca's and others' are available on the iTunes Music Store. From my perspective, that's a historic transformation bigger, even, than the acquisition of The Beatles' music for the iTunes Music Store. Think of it! The history of recorded music, performances for a century, simple to gain access to at whatever scale you can afford and digest it as a music lover, and to carry with you and retain without all the baggage, expense, confusion, storage of maintaining a physical library.


But that's only going to happen if you can be assured that your access is in fact to the pristine, uncontaminated source, with whatever protections are necessary to make sure the value of that library, and the profit needed to develop, maintain, and sustain it is sufficient for the publisher and archiver of it (UMG the publisher; Apple, the archivists) -- without those protections degrading the sound quality in ways that destroy the excitement and joy of the music.


This kind of half-delivery is a betrayal of that possibility of archive and access, and more than money or any legal definition of quality or representation, sullies what could be a historic moment for the human species, in terms of wide-scale availability of these recordings across the planet for anyone who will pay the price of admission. At the level of quality that captures their original excitement. Not at a level of quality that makes you feel like you're suffering aural Parkinson's disease.


What is maddening is that clearly massive work has been done over the past decade to do the digital transfers and re-masters to get this music into the shape it's currently in; most of the purchases I've made even of early recordings, that I remember as being far noisier and constrained by the medium of years ago, are amazingly good-sounding -- except for this extremely tangible artifacting. Why destroy the last step when you've done so much to get so far?!


Steve Jobs would not have settled for so close, but not good enough.


Neither should we, in his memory, and honor.

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User profile for user: ed2345
ed2345
User level: Level 9
64,160 points

Nov 20, 2013 4:15 AM in response to realtrance

That is something.


When you buy classical music from the iTunes Store, you are signing up for the slightly reduced quality that comes from encoding to AAC/256. But you are not signing up for deliberate degradation by the label. That is not at all in keeping with Apple's stated position: "Digital distribution is no longer an afterthought. It is today's dominant medium for consuming music and as such needs to be treated with utmost care and attention."


Per your point about DG, which is one of the bad actors here, do they do the same to tracks that they sell directly through their own online store?

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User profile for user: ed2345
ed2345
User level: Level 9
64,160 points

Nov 20, 2013 10:20 AM in response to realtrance

realtrance wrote:


That is not something I've tried yet; they link directly to iTunes Music Store as an option on their Buy Now button, so I would certainly assume and hope there are no invisible differences in quality in the sale they make, as the price is the same.


Realtrance, For many tracks DG online sells downloads in MP3/320 or FLAC (lossless). Here is an example. I am wondering whether they are similarly hobbled.

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User profile for user: realtrance
realtrance Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Nov 20, 2013 11:44 AM in response to ed2345

I don't know; perhaps at some point I will buy and compare a particular track.


But that's going down the vector of worrying about competitive business practices, i.e., is Apple offering second-tier-quality content that is offered directly through the publisher at premiere tier, and is there a pricing differential as well as public information available to make that fact clear to the customer.


I'm more concerned about a larger issue, though, which is that people will hear this music in degraded state and be, perhaps unconsciously, irritated and annoyed and enervated by it, instead of engaged and entranced and excited.


Apple itself exceeds when it provides a superlative experience, period. That fact should be well understood, and the benchmark for how to do things.


The repertoire completely loses its chance to capture the imaginations of a new generation if it's distributed at second-tier, contaminated quality, and that's the potential tragedy here.


It's one thing to say, here's a taste of the content in hampered form, for free or at discount; if you like it, here's the real content at a reasonable but necessary price.


It's another to make that distinction murky enough that people will never know what's missing, and think what they hear is as good as it can get, and why should anyone care.


That's my larger concern. And I think it's a question ultimately of what Apple does or does not have control over in its relationship with its content providers, who undermine what Apple represents when they use Apple to be the purveyor of second-rate goods.

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User profile for user: realtrance
realtrance Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Nov 20, 2013 2:36 PM in response to realtrance

Ok well here's a good, simple example:


1. Go to Krystian Zimerman's Chopin Ballades on the iTunes Music Store. Listen to the first few seconds of the first track, Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23. Notice it sounds like the low piano note opening the piece is under a water fountain.


2. Go to the Deutsche Grammophon web page:


http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/us/cat/4230902?sort=newest_rec&per_page=50&ART _ID=ZIMKR&flow_per_page=50&presentation=flow


Listen to the preview of the same track there. No waterfall present!


Pretty obvious.

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User profile for user: realtrance
realtrance Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Nov 21, 2013 2:07 PM in response to realtrance

So, one more datapoint: purchased the older, Claudio Arrau recording of the same Chopin Ballades as are on the Krystian Zimerman album. The Arrau, being older? Analogue? is only $5.99 (great recording also, btw). It is a Decca release, also a UMG sub-label.


It is easy to compare with the Zimerman recording.


Not a single trace of the underwater warbly effect on sustained piano tones.


I remain quite mystified.

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User profile for user: oknidius-too
oknidius-too
User level: Level 1
0 points

Feb 3, 2015 8:38 PM in response to realtrance

Sadly, this is still present to a large extent, and it affects more than just UMG itself and more than just classical. It extends to labels distributed by UMG in North America: Disney and Marvel for one thing, but every other label distributed digitally through UMG. It also extends to pop and country (and no doubt every other genre). It's really pathetic on Universal's part that they're selling this absolutely unlistenable trash. As the original poster mentioned, they're selling damaged goods and knowingly so, with no disclaimer or warning to customers. I would venture to state that the number of defective track and albums that Universal sold exposes them to a risk of a class action lawsuit.


Sometime in 2014 I posted a rant to Universal Classics' Facebook pages. A very nice rep by the name of Danielle took it seriously and we exchanged a series of messages on the topic. I sent Danielle a number of examples (actually dozens) of affected recordings (Decca, DGG, Philips). At that time, the response she had was that this appears to be a Universal Music Canada issue and she would escalate as needed (even though she actually represented Universal USA). Reading the online forums though, it clearly isn't limited to Canada.


The bad news, is that the few times I contacted iTunes about it, the response I received was completely ridiculous. The last time, the iTunes rep sent me a canned response stating they had thoroughly examined the tracks I reported as defective, and determined that there's nothing wrong and the tracks sound "as the artist intended". I seriously doubt any artists would like to be reduced to ugly digital noise that sounds like a poorly compressed 56kbps file.

I suppose it raises another issue: no doubt the iTunes staff, if they did review the tracks, did so either on (a) laptop speakers, or (b) through the atrocious Apple earbuds. Considering how everything sounds bad on those, I don't doubt they heard nothing wrong. But the response remains ludicrous.


Perhaps the worse news, is that iTunes isn't the only one affected. I downloaded some items from 7Digital and they were equally bad; exhibiting the same issues.


The good news, is that it appears to have ceased. More recent Universal releases (say mid 2014 till now) don't show this annoying fluttering.

The even better news, for classical music at least, is that Warner got the EMI Classics catalog after Universal's purchase of EMI, and Warner releases have been thankfully free of this nonsense.

The result of this Universal fiasco, is that:

(a) I have had to repurchase a bunch of digital downloads on CD (I'm tempted to send Universal the sales receipt with a request for refund; their choice whether they want to reimburse me the iTunes purchase or the CD prices)

(b) I have significantly curtailed my iTunes purchases; reverting instead to old habits like, believe it or not, ordering CDs from Amazon

(c) Avoiding Universal Music releases wherever possible.

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Universal Music Group audible watermarking on digital downloads?

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