Fraunhofer Institute has developed prototype technology to help curb the sharp rise in online music piracy, which, ironically, has been enabled through another invention of the renowned German research group: MP3 audio compression.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute have successfully tested a software system, based on the group's own digital watermarking technology, for tracking pirated audio files in P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing networks, said Michael Kip, a spokesman for the institute.

The system lets content providers, such as music studios, embed a watermark in their downloadable MP3 files. Watermark technology makes slight changes to data in both sound and image files. For instance, the change could be a higher volume intensity in a tiny part of a song or a brighter color in a minuscule part of a picture.

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