A new tamper-proof digital watermark that has been developed in Australia is promising to capture information about people who have downloaded and distributed copyright-protected material. Researchers from Deakin’s School of Information Technology, together with peers at Japan’s Aizu University, developed the technology which embeds metadata - such as a user's credit card and bank details, internet protocol (IP) address, transmission time, and received format - directly into a song or movie. "ISPs and search engines ... represent the entirety of the opportunity to access digital content," he said. "Until they fundamentally change their business practices, pirate content is largely going to continue unabated."

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/tamperproof-watermark-threatens-to-put-digital-pirates-out-to-sea-20140717-zti0s.html