With images traveling at lightning speed across the Internet, photographers, graphic artists, media companies and other content producers seek more ways to open their content for business on the Web in a way that protects it and maximizes its value. There’s a lot of buzz lately about technologies for tracking and finding copies of images on the Web. Specifically, we’re seeing a lot of interest in watermarking and digital fingerprinting. So what is the difference between these two methods and which approach is best for you?
To help you understand the difference, here’s a look at how each of these image detection technologies address the problem of protecting your content on the Web in a way that allows you to manage, monitor and maximize its value.
What is an embedded digital watermark?
If you’re a photographer or any other type of content creator, ideally you want to be sure your ownership and contact information remains permanently attached regardless of where they may end up.
An embedded digital watermark does exactly that and provides a sure-fire way of identifying an image as yours. It is a persistent, yet imperceptible digital identifier added to your images to communicate your copyright ownership and help locate where they are used online. Because it communicates your ownership upfront, an embedded digital watermark can turn your catalog of content – wherever it resides on the Internet – into multiple marketing agents that point traffic back to your website.
Like a nightclub handstamp that is visible only under an ultraviolet light, an imbedded digital watermark can be detected by a digital watermark reader but is generally imperceptible to the human eye.
It also is like metadata that is invisible and attached to an image. However, it is much more difficult to remove than metadata and it stays with the image even through copying, manipulation, editing, cropping, compression and decompression, encryption and decryption — all without affecting the quality of the image — or the enjoyment of consumers.
Since an embedded digital watermark allows additional information about the creator to be hidden, it can alleviate some of the tension and concerns tied to potential orphan works legislation. (Orphan works bills have proposed that certain uses be allowed if an author cannot be found after a reasonable search.)
How is watermarking different from fingerprinting?
An embedded watermark is a “proactive” solution that begins tracking your content from the moment you watermark it and make it accessible on the Web.
A digital fingerprint is a “reactive” solution that analyzes image content and then creates a unique image fingerprint. Very much as human fingerprints rely on the patterns of unique arches and swirls found on an individual’s thumb or forefinger, digital media fingerprints rely on a unique ID to track your content across the Web. Both types of fingerprints require the maintenance of a large database against which to match image fingerprints found on the Web. They also both require technology to quickly match fingerprints found in the wild against those in the database.
Like embedded digital watermarking, digital fingerprinting remains effective even if the image has been altered. However, there are instances where changes to an image will cause a fingerprinting system to miss it (though the technology is advancing and some now need only a few pixels to identify an image). Also unlike an embedded watermark, fingerprinting does not proactively communicate your ownership. Instead, it locates usages of your content wherever it may travel on the Web.
So the biggest advantage of fingerprinting is that it can track any image, including those already published to the Web. There’s also no need to watermark or prime an image in any way before publishing it online.
The advantages to embedded digital watermarking is that it ensures ownership is established up-front and, like indelible ink, and stays with the image no matter how much the image is manipulated, altered or distorted.
Which solution offers the best protection?
The answer to that question is “both.” Watermarking and fingerprinting can complement one another to protect and track your content effectively as it travels across the Web. And since either solution can identify unauthorized uses of content, both can provide the intelligence you need to identify new markets and pursue untapped opportunities for licensing, advertising and distribution.
To see how LicenseStream is leveraging content tracking technologies to help content owners monitor and monetize their valuable assets, just click on Content Tracker.
