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January 09, 2006
The Watermarking of the Web
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn
The news business is going to try cracking down on the Web this year.
Already, I'm seeing all news pictures, even common mug shots of celebrities, given labels. They're small, usually in a corner. They read AP or AFP or Reuters. But they mark these pictures as property, and allow the rights-owners to track them as they're used on other Web sites.
The next step, of course, is to send out RIAA letters to Web sites, demanding that the pictures be taken down or (more likely) that the news agencies be paid cash money for their use.
Personally, I'm avoiding the issue by avoiding the pictures, but that's not likely to be viable over the long run. Because just about every image file out there is owned by someone, and most don't have Creative Commons logos on them.
It is possible, of course, to prevent the downloading of images from any Web site. It's simple to visibly watermark downloads to they can't be used.
Rather than doing either of these things, the news agencies are going with the mini-logos, much like TV networks that keep their "bugs" in a corner throughout a show, so that they can be tracked and re-sale can be prevented.
How far will this go? I'm just bringing up the issue. Time will tell.
Comments (2)
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Russell Shaw on January 9, 2006 04:46 PM writes...
As someone who has written extensive documentation for the leading photo watermarking company, I feel I should point out that watermarking is not an anti-copying technology- it is a trust technology. There is nothing in watermarking schemes that physically prevents an image from being copied.
And as to the visible watermark itself, someone wishing to bypass it would only need to use a screen capture utility such as Snag-It to take a grab of the photo, then use any one of several Photoshop Commands to create a new image area that could be layered on top of the portion of the image where the watermark is shown. This would render the watermark invisible.
Plus, lots of watermarks are invisible, and would only be understandable to watermark readers sold by companies like Digimarc for trust purposes.
Permalink to Comment2. mungojelly on January 9, 2006 10:46 PM writes...
OK here's a solution: We can start editing out the little boxes that say Reuters, and replacing them with a little box that says Public Domain. That's plausible deniability, baby. <3
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