In short
- You can't stop a paying customer capturing what your app shows them, but you can make the leak attributable.
- Forensic watermarking gives every customer an invisibly different copy; a leaked copy names its source.
- Good marks survive copying, compression and partial leaks, and resist several leakers comparing copies.
- Pramaan marks text, images and compiled programs, per licence, automatically.
Why leaks happen anyway
Encryption and hardware-bound licences stop a copied app from opening elsewhere. They can't stop a customer who is entitled to open it from screenshotting, exporting or dumping what's inside. Every serious content business, from film studios to financial data, deals with this the same way: not by preventing the copy, but by knowing whose copy it was.
Forensic watermarking
Forensic watermarking (also called digital fingerprinting) makes each customer's copy slightly different in ways nobody notices in normal use: a choice of equivalent instructions in a program, imperceptible changes to an image, invisible variations in text. The pattern of differences encodes the licence. When a copy turns up on a forum or a competitor's desk, you read the pattern and know which licence it came from.
What makes marks trustworthy
- Invisible in normal use, and no change to how the app behaves.
- Robust: survives copying, recompression and partial leaks.
- Collusion-resistant: several leakers comparing their copies can't produce a "clean" one or frame someone else. Pramaan uses Tardos codes, designed for exactly this (traitor tracing).
- Automatic: every licence gets its own copy without the publisher building variants by hand.
How it works in Pramaan
When you release with leak tracing on, Pramaan ships the protected part as two encrypted variants per block, and each licence holds keys for exactly one sequence of them. Each customer's copy decrypts to a different combination; the publisher keeps the secret that maps combinations to licences. To trace a leak, drop the leaked file into the console's Trace page and it names the licence, the computer it was sealed to and, for licences sold on the Marketplace, the wallet that bought it. Leak tracing is included from the Studio plan; tracing inside compiled programs from Business. See pricing.
Questions
How do I find out who leaked my software?
Give every customer a uniquely marked copy using forensic watermarking. When a copy leaks, reading its marks names the licence it came from. Pramaan does this automatically for every licence it issues.
Can watermarks be removed?
Not without knowing where they are. Pramaan's marks are spread across the content and resist several leakers comparing their copies, so stripping them or blaming someone else isn't practical.
Does watermarking slow down the app?
No. The marks are part of how each copy is encrypted and decrypted; the app runs exactly the same.
Related guides
- How to Protect Software From Piracy (2026 Guide)Practical ways to stop software piracy: why licence keys and checks get cracked, how hardware-bound licences and leak tracing work, and what works offline.
- How to Protect Android and iPhone Apps From PiracyStop APK piracy and cracked iOS apps: seal licences to the Android Keystore or Secure Enclave, encrypt what you sell, and check licences offline on the phone.
- Prove Your Idea Came First, Without a PatentHow to timestamp an invention, keep a provable research record, and use defensive publication and prior art so nobody can patent your idea first.
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