San Diego - Verance, a developer of digital watermarking technology, announced on Monday that its audio watermark technology for Blu-ray and HD DVD players and components is now available for licensing. "The Verance watermark technology provides value to all participants in the marketplace by encouraging availability of a broad selection of compelling titles for consumers to experience in new ways while discouraging the use of the emerging formats as a growth platform for piracy," said Verance CEO Nil Shah.

Los Angeles - The Digital Watermarking Alliance, a trade group of companies with commercial digital watermarking technologies that can identify and protect copyrighted works, announced on Thursday that Widevine Technologies has joined the organization. Seattle-based Widevine provides forensic watermarking technologies for telco, Internet, mobile, cable and satellite providers. Formed in September 2006, the Digital Watermarking Alliance's membership also includes Cinea, Digimarc, Philips, Thomson, Verance and Verimatrix.