April 2020 Update: Most UMG tracks are now watermark-free on Spotify.
Today, years after first complaining about Spotify sound quality issues, I'm happy to report this problem is fading out.
It appears that watermarks are gradually disappearing from the Universal catalog. The following tracks have undergone a marked improvement, first noticed in mid-June 2019:
They used to have a distinct watermark, and now they don't. Importantly, these tracks come from the back catalog. They're not merely new tracks that were delivered under the latest watermarking policy.
jpeterson
/ July 12, 2019 QuoteI can confirm the absence of watermark on Stevie Wonder "Songs in the Key of Life" on Deezer (96001912, 124787). Only 1649297 still has it.
Watermarks that still exist in listed and available releases¹ are slightly different than described in the old article. The frequencies are between 2 kHz and 4.5 kHz. The added noise is relative to the signal power. During fadeouts, less/no noise is added.²
It seems that in the surviving (but unlisted) Stevie Wonder example there are two layers of watermark starting at 1 kHz.
1. "Barenaked Ladies Are Men", 13634976. "Growing Up", 41842071
2. http://i.imgur.com/0kkNIyG.jpg
RussellH
/ July 27, 2019 QuoteWow, that's great news! I wish there were some way to catalog what has been fixed. It would be great to create some kind of detector/crawler to create a database of watermarked tracks.
Chris
/ August 19, 2019 QuoteThanks for this Matt. In your last post about this you referenced a MATLAB script to attempt to smooth out the watermark. Is that script open source? And would it be possible for that script to analyze an audio file and determine if the file contains the watermark?
Moongrazer
/ August 29, 2019 QuoteI feel like I'm still hearing the watermark on Piano Concerto No 1. It's subtle - but it sounds like there's still some fluttering noticeable in those opening crescendos. Not having the previous version to compare it to, I don't know how much has changed.
Matt
/ September 22, 2019 QuoteHi Chris, just sent you an email.
bestringtoness.com
/ September 23, 2019 QuoteActually, it was Tim's words. Now, can you explain how ripping off watermarks makes them a "conduit" to the "free world"? I'm not sure if you're just confused about the technology, but watermarks are not an actual protective DRM mechanism, they just allow UMG to slightly narrow down the source of a pirated file (though I'm not sure what they accomplish by doing so). Meanwhile, they reduce the value of the product - they may not be that noticeable in a heavily-produced pop song, but they sure as hell ruin an orchestra. In fact, that's a great idea. Live symphonies should have a guy stand in the back playing a steady didgeridoo note, in case anyone makes a bootleg recording. The audience surely wouldn't mind!
Harry
/ September 28, 2019 QuoteMost of their newly released materials starting from March 2018 (International Division e.g. Asia)/August 2018 (US Division) are watermarked-free, except if it is to be released in the United States region services, those are tagged with variant 2, watermarked region 1-3 kHz.
They reuploaded their entire catalog in June this year on Apple Music/iTunes for unknown reason. However, there are still some new releases with the content watermark enabled.
Joerg
/ September 29, 2019 QuoteHi Matt,
Thank you so much for these blogs and the basic work.
For several years occasionally I came across these kind of artefacts knowing from my own experience as engineer they are not from encoding. It took until today to find your pages via the Spotify forum and when I heard the examples here I found confirmed what annoys my ears. I even left Tidal for Spotify some years ago and now find impaired albums rarely in Spotify also.
This is very annoying as such to get bad quality for money. It also damages the reputation of digital audio processing.
However the most nasty thing is the fact the support teams are denying any issue and recommend to reinstall what ever is needed to get the stream – pointing to the users equipment. I spent days re-installing what so ever before I gave up. No wonder I had no success. I assume that the platform operators such as Spotify, Tidal others MUST know the watermarking is applied.
So why not tell the customer? Because it cannot be what must not be? Why not mark the respected tracks?
Luckily most of the music on Spotify is OK and I am more than happy with it.
And now there is hope the watermarking is removed over time.
Again thank you. Excellent work: Keep it up!!
Best Regards!
Joerg
Rich B-S
/ November 29, 2019 QuoteHi Matt,
Thanks so much for highlighting this, we've been discussing it a lot in the Spotify community and this week I think we've finally seen the end of the watermarking!
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/Audible-watermarks-degrading-sound-on-Spotify-premium/m-p/4862681/highlight/false#M34553
Would be interested to hear if you have found the same in your test cases!
ringtonesdump.com
/ December 4, 2019 QuoteI managed to get ahold of one of the songs and ran it through a ID-10-T Spectrum 4 Analyzer, cutting out the primary tracks and cutting down the supposed 'humming'. When isolated and played back and normal speed, the watermark sound is obvious. It's a chorus of redneck belching recorded while they were all drinking Schlitz beer. Heck of a watermark. Guess UMG really wants to screw up the music so nobody can enjoy it.
b00d
/ January 1, 2020 QuoteI went deeper and checked out one of the tracks from the original comparison post: "Just Dance". It's on Qobuz three times, or at least three times that I cared to check out in Hi-Res.
Rick
/ May 8, 2020 QuoteNothing beats vinyl or very well mastered CD. A vinyl record will sound better, more open, detailed with no colouration depending on the cartridge used. No compression of the sound in order to accommodate a small digital file. The imaging, depth, front back and lateral dispersion comes from the source. Assuming the record was well mastered for vinyl it will kill Spotify all day. Spotify is for the convenience and frankly most people find it sounds good enough. Then when some of them compare with a good source -turntable they hear the difference. Spotify is without doubt a sound compromise for the sake of convenience and access on any device that works on a data plan or wifi from your modem
John Bahn
/ May 8, 2020 QuoteYou are so right Rick it's when people actually compare they notice that streaming music is most definitely a compromise. A half decent turntable and cartridge will sound better most of the time.
Russell Haga
/ May 10, 2020 QuoteYeah!!
Nielson Caetano-Salmeron
/ September 3, 2020 QuoteOn Spotify, the UMG watermark is still audible on Lorde's song "Team" and Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles". "Team" still has the watermark on Google Play and "A Thousand Miles" is watermark-free on Google Play and the CD.
On Google Play Music, OneRepublic's song "I Lived" actually did have an UMG audio watermark (unnoticeable), along with "Apologize". The Apple Digital Master version does not have the watermark at all.
On Amazon Music, some of the UMG tracks weren't even reuploaded.
The Band Perry's song "If I Die Young" had the UMG watermark, along with "Too Close" by Alex Clare. It is unknown if the other pre-2015 UMG tracks were still watermarked or if it was reuploaded on that service.
iTunes & Google Play still had the UMG watermark on Taylor Swift's "Ours" and the acoustic version of "Back To December".
Pandora had the watermark in a few OneRepublic songs, it was reuploaded in other services.
Some of the songs that are played on radio stations owned by CBS Radio/Entercom and Cumulus stations after 2012-2013 or so had the TrustedAudio watermark, which is really noticeable. The songs that had watermarks on those radio stations were watermark-free on iHeart.
Nielson Lucas Caetano-Salmeron
/ September 11, 2020 QuoteTried iTunes Match for the first time this week. Turns out some of the UMG tracks were reuploaded (e.g. Apologize by OneRepublic and Run Around by Blues Traveler) and others pre-2014 or 2015 were still with the watermarks (e.g. It's The End of The World by R.E.M., One More Night by Maroon 5, Latch by Disclosure, Royals by Lorde, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, Little Talks by Of Monsters And Men, 1901 by Phoenix, Party In The U.S.A by Miley Cyrus, Counting Stars by OneRepublic), and others. Even most of the Sony/BMG tracks (e.g. Electric Feel by MGMT, Whenever You Will Go by The Calling, Always Be My Baby by Mariah Carey), and others that had their watermarks pre-2008 were not reuploaded there even though other rival streaming services reuploaded Sony/BMG's tracks to remove the watermark.
Apple should have reuploaded Sony/BMG's entire library by now, even though they said they reuploaded UMG's entire catalogue, they should have done the same to iTunes Match (should have been rebranded as Apple Music Match) as well.
Nielson Caetano-Salmeron
/ September 11, 2020 QuoteAlso, Taylor Swift's 1989 album still has the UMG watermark on iTunes Match, while it was watermark free on the Mastered for iTunes/Apple Digital Master version, GPM/Youtube Music, and Spotify.
Bob Marley
/ December 22, 2020 QuoteApril 2020 Update: All UMG tracks are now clean. Enjoy the music! ? ?
Unfortunately, not the case!
UMG is watermarking many new albums again! The new Queen+Adam Lambert - Live Around The World has an ugly audible watermark in HiRes version. McCartney III - same thing. Even Japanese MQA-CDs of Queen albums from 2020 have the watermark!
I have to admit, many albums from Apple Music streaming service are actually free of it now just like Spotify but if one actually purchases the album online - expect the watermark!
Nielson Caetano-Salmeron
/ January 8, 2021 QuoteYes, the audio watermark even affected 2020 and possibly 2021's releases from or distributed by Universal Music Group. Even newer releases (e.g., "Inside Out" by Zedd (2020), "Supalonely" by BENEE (2019, but became popular on TikTok in 2020), "Better Days" by OneRepublic (2020)) were affected by audio watermarking, but some older releases (e.g., "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton (2002), "Stay With Me" & "I'm Not The Only One" (2014) (including its' radio versions) by Sam Smith, "October" by Alessia Cara (2019), the radio edit of Jennifer Lopez's "On The Floor" (2011), Lorde's "Team" and "400 Lux" (2013), and other releases still affected by audio watermarking on Spotify, and most of the UMG tracks (older catalogue) are still watermarked on Amazon Music.
To this day, as of 2021, some older songs from Universal Music Group record labels still have audio watermarking on Spotify. Even tracks exclusive to the deluxe version of Taylor Swift's 2010 album "Speak Now" still have the UMG audio watermark (e.g., "Ours). And some older tracks still watermarked from other record labels (Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment) on Apple Music and iTunes Match. (e.g. "Electric Feel" by MGMT (2007), "Bus Stop" by The Hollies (1966), but that song had the watermark on the Sony-issued "Greatest Hits" from 1973, but watermark does not exist on other albums that had the song, and "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil (1987).
Even songs released after 2015 by Universal Music Group (Republic, Interscope, etc.) had audio watermarks and most of them have since been reuploaded.
In 2021, UMG should reupload some of the songs/last remaining that still have watermarking (e.g., "A Thousand Miles", and "I'm Not The Only One") over time.
Matt
/ January 20, 2021 QuoteSorry, I didn't mean to imply that UMG has ditched the watermark across all distribution channels. Nonetheless, you guys are right. There are definitely some straggler tracks on Spotify. "A Thousand Miles" sounds awful.
Tor
/ September 6, 2021 QuoteSo I've heard some of this watermark, but today I found 2 new tracks on Spotify where I definetly notice them. It's the new abba single, I still have faith in you / don't shut me down. Definetly noticing fluttering, especially where I hear strings.
pjd
/ November 23, 2021 QuoteDid the watermarking included files, cd's or records? Thanks. pjd
Watermarker
/ June 9, 2022 QuoteAudible watermarks might be fading.
But actual watermarking is definitely happening, especially on the lossless streaming services - Apple Music etc. Although becoming less audible.
They have ways now to watermark the lower 'bits' so it is masked by music.