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One of the premier concerns amongst visual artists exposing their creative work over the Internet is the fear of privacy and unauthorized duplication and reuse. The concern is both justified and very timely. The Napster phenomena sounded a wake-up alarm to the music industry over the long-term financial perils of unregulated distribution. The lesson: consumers feel minimal guilt over stealing or "trading" creative output without compensating the creating artist. Should visual artists be likewise concerned that their unique images are prey to commercial pirates? In case you hadn't noticed, the barn door is already wide open. Ask any commercially licensed screenprinter or visit any weekend flea market worldwide. Unauthorized Image duplication and reproduction is a multi-billion dollar business and in these quasi-recessionary times, a growth industry. For every high profile Napster or Kaaza style website, numerous imitators are emerging on the Internet regularly in a cross section of creative industries including publishing, video, software and yes, visual arts. Thinly veiled as Peer-To-Peer (P2P) websites, they trade compressed formatted data to "peers" without the direct involvement of manufacturers, wholesalers or any middle level of distribution. A code of ethics imposed on Napster by a Court of Law has yet to be integrated into most of these enterprises, which translates into a complete bypass of financial royalties and compensation for the original creator. These websites have raised a fresh debate over the issue of copyright and intellectual property rights involving such questions as who actually owns a new design or innovation and for how long a period. The enhanced state of digital technology is likewise assisting the process of simplified reproduction. Over the past few years, significant advancements and improvements in digital scanners (priced under $100), high resolution large scale printers and plotters (new model pricing from under $3000 and used appreciably less) and imaging software (Adobe Photoshop) make reproductions often superior in quality to original work. A new breed of publisher is emerging, technologically enabled to print orders on demand (when paid in advance), in innumerable quantities and operating in gray areas with or without an artist's participation or cooperation Policing such abuse on an unregulated and international domain such as the Internet is the equivalent of damning the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season. Since few websites protect their visual images, most can be easily downloaded in their exact state within seconds using a standard browser such as Explorer or Netscape. So what's an artist to do? Cloister their images away from public Internet viewing? There exists a few preventative strategies which artists can employ and in many instances, without a substantial monetary investment. The first, which requires no additional financial outlay except common sense, involves limiting your displayed images to low resolution 72 dpi (dots per square inch) and minimal sizing (no more than 4-5 inches in any dimensional direction). While a smaller image may compromise detailed viewing, it does protect the artist from enabling a larger expansion of the image for pirated reprinting purposes. Besides, images on the Internet can only be viewed on a computer monitor at 72 dpi, so a high-resolution image display is of little value for your viewer anyway. If a web user downloads a smaller formatted low-resolution image, there is minimal commercial value to them, as the process of enlargement will result in poor detail, jagged and distorted resolution. From time to time, I have been approached by licensing ventures that have requested me to posting high-resolution images online for purposes of reprinting novelty or screenprinted images of my art. I've been very suspect of these enterprises for several reasons including: 1) their lack of accountability as to how the images are used and how often 2) the required enormous drain of storage space on my site (most of these images would need to be accessed through one of the large memory storage websites which at one time were free and now are starting to charge for their space) and 3) the potential access to these images by other sources who do not have my permission. This is not to advocate avoiding these commercial opportunities, but it is imperative that you know whom you're dealing with. Once an image is available in a high-resolution format, the reprinting possibilities are endless and varied. A second form of protection is a process called Digital Watermarking. In short, a pattern of bits (binary digits) are inserted into a digital image, audio or video file that identifies the file's copyright information (author, rights, etc.). The name comes from the faintly visible watermarks imprinted on stationery that identify the manufacturer of the stationery. The purpose of digital watermarks is to provide copyright protection for intellectual property that's in digital format. Unlike printed watermarks, which are intended to be somewhat visible, digital watermarks are designed to be completely invisible, or in the case of audio clips, inaudible. Moreover, the actual bits representing the watermark must be scattered throughout the file in such a way that they cannot be identified and manipulated. Anyone who licenses or publishes images, or uses them in marketing campaigns can benefit from watermarking. Several museums currently use them to communicate ownership of its often-copied artwork. A record company tracks the use of its musicians' photographs throughout the Internet. A major stock photo agency embeds watermarks that link to their company name and contact information into all their digital photos. Another important function of watermarks is that they may enable you find locate your images, wherever they go and are reused on the net. Watermarked images become "homing beacons" on the net by using search tools such as MarcSpider (operated by Digimarc.com), where you can track where and when your images have been moved or copied on the publicly indexible Web. While these tracking mechanisms cannot prevent image theft, they at least provide you with a source for locating their uses and potential misuses. The integrating of digital watermarks are sound preventative tactics, but hardly foolproof. According to text on the Stealthencrypt.com website (an image encryption software manufacturer), "if you are an artist currently using digital watermarking, you should know that readily available software like StirMark can instantly remove watermarks, putting your creative works at risk from digital pirates". These are hardly words very reassuring to the security of your images. With encryption software coupling digital watermarks, computer artists can protect creative works by encrypting and hiding copyright information right into bmps or tiffs (industry image formats). The encrypted data is invisible and uncrackable without special passwords.
What precisely is encryption and steganography? Encryption is a way of scrambling data. The two main components of encryption are the algorithm and the key. Algorithms are complex mathematical formulae (remember that advanced high school math class you loathed) and keys are strings of bits, such as a word, phrase, numbers, or combination of numbers and letters. Steganography is a way of hiding data, so that it cannot be detected. Encryption programs marketed by Stealth Encrypt.com and Away32.com use both encryption and/or steganography to secure data (similar to most Internet credit card acceptance programs). In a larger context, image theft is neither unique to our culture nor entirely preventable as computer hackers have proven with even the most fortified and high profile websites such as Yahoo, EBay, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Just as no car is entirely theft resistant, you increase your preventative odds by locking the door and adding supplemental theft protective devices. The following web based companies offer software that accommodates any artist's budget range and computer literacy skills at implementing. -Alpha Technology Limited-a Greek company developing EIKONAmark, software for casting "invisible" watermarks (signatures) on digital images and detecting these watermarks. -Central Research Laboratories-a global business with major blue chip customers in Europe, Asia and North America. Here the 'VEC Visually Embedded Code' system for image and video watermarking is presented. -Digimarc-a developer of digital watermarking technologies. Its patented technologies can allow digital data to be embedded in visual content and valuable documents such as financial instruments, passports, to deter counterfeiting, piracy and other unauthorized uses. -Signum Technologies-a British company developing the watermarking system 'SureSign' for copyright protection and the 'VeriData' system for integrity verification of digital images. -MediaSec Technologies-produces the tool SysCoP (System for Copyright Protection) to embed copyright labels in still images. -Digital Copyright Technologies-a start-up company having close research cooperation with the University of Geneva and the EPFL-Lausanne. -XAT-offering advanced digital compression technology and digital watermarking capabilities -Stealth Encryption-offers website and image encryption software using both encryption and/or steganography to secure data -Away32-offers website and image encryption software using both encryption and/or steganography to secure data Digital Encryption and Watermark Technology http://www.Alphatecltd.com http://www.Away32.com Central Research Laboratories (http://www.crl.co.uk) http://www.Digimarc.com Digital Copyright Technologies (http://www.dct-group.com) http://www.Mediasec.com http://www.Signumtech.com http://www.Stealthencrypt.com http://www.Xat.com |
Protecting Your Images Online|
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