Not to be outdone by Apple and EMI's scam (see The Apple iTunes Scam), LaLa and Warner are upping the ante on your personal surveillance even further.

Forget claiming that some third-world hacker impersonated you. Because LaLa and Warner are not only embedding your personal identification on digital proprietary AAC files, they're also incorporating a unique Watermark. Also while LaLa music purchasers can burn their files to a CD, they can't copy them to a PC hard drive.

Poorly thought-out schemes like this drive people to embrace unauthorized copying and P2P, instead of enticing them to legal downloads and attracting sales.