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Saw this article on Reddit. Apparently the JPEG is considering blockchain to insert DRM in the photo format.
The Joint Photographic Experts Group is a working group of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). They're best known for the JPEG standard for image compression, and for various related image standards.
They had their 78th quarterly meeting from 27 January to 2 February 2018 — with the press release afterwards prominently namedropping "blockchain."
The Twitter reaction was "lol what," and even the cryptocurrency press ignored it — but there's more to this than slapping on a buzzword, and it's not good. They seem to think they can advance the cause of DRMed JPEGs with a bit of applied blockchain.
The Quarterly meeting and official announcement were back in February, so this article is a bit behind, but I had not heard anything of this.
As a photog who routinely plasters watermarks all over photos of my children before releasing them to the wilds of social media I can sympathize with the desire to protect photos, but on the surface this seems an odd way to go about it. For now, though, it's just something they're "exploring".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday August 12 2018, @12:15PM (6 children)
Speaking as the author of three powerful image manipulation packages with many thousands of users and as a photographer with 40 years experience of making good money from my photography:
Would not support.
At this point, in the US (and largely elsewhere), copyright and patent law are absolutely bonkers. Implementation of this sort of thing would just make the situation worse, IMHO. And believe me, it can get worse.
And a little bit of advice:
If you don't want your images shared, don't make them available on the Internet. Because there is no possible way to protect an image from being shared once it's out there. If it is put into the pixels of your monitor, it can ultimately be lifted right from there one way or another, sans protection other than image-damaging watermarks in the pixels (and those can often be defeated anyway.) The only way to keep images "safe" from sharing is to see that said image never reaches anyone's monitor. All else purporting to be "protection" is smoke and mirrors and only serves to make the digital imaging more complex for no actual benefit other than to the purveyors of the supposed "protection."
Also: if you want money for your images, get it up front and call it a day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @01:24PM
But ... but ... blockchain! Blockchain! Not only can it blockcahin, but the jpeg people will make sure it is full of sharding so it can be web scale! Blockchain!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:44PM
Saying that DRM does nothing to enhance images is like saying promoting birth control does nothing to help the baby come out in a less chaotic fashion.
These things ideas do not include the bad examples as part of their overall intent.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 13 2018, @04:34AM (3 children)
Yes, I wonder what it will take to really convince everyone that DRM is stupid, so stupid that it's not worth a thought, like the core idea of alchemy, turning lead into gold. No one takes alchemy seriously today, and I'm supposing the only reason it ever was taken seriously was the seductively simple notion that because lead and gold are both very dense, they might be closely related enough that one could be transformed into the other. Now we know better. Someday, I hope the same will be true of DRM, that everyone except crackpots will understand it is illogical nonsense, and it will join the ranks of pseudoscience, alongside perpetual motion, alchemy, numerology, and astrology. And that it will happen sooner than a century or more from now.
By purporting to protect from a loss, no matter how small, contrived, or illusory, DRM pushes our emotional buttons. Of course we want theft prevented. But DRM does not stop theft nor copying, and copying is not theft, no matter how much copyright propagandists say otherwise.
It's sad how much effort and money has been wasted on copy protection. Every one has been broken, some in a matter of hours. DRM is the pseudoscience of the Age of information.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @09:46AM (1 child)
TFA addresses this point, indirectly, here:
So, to convince everyone one also has to convince the non-technical. And the problem there is the non-techincal. Any argument as to why it does not work has to be somewhat technical, at which point the non-technical will fail to understand it. And then we will go around the loop one more time.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 13 2018, @12:38PM
Yes, I think that explains the MAFIAA's stance. But some big tech companies, such as Microsoft, share this view. Microsoft ought to know better, but they don't. Why? Is it that the leaders of Microsoft are business people more than tech people?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday August 13 2018, @07:55PM
You could turn lead into gold though, given the right circumstances. Not saying it is easy, but it should be possible at some point with technology. Actually, it has already been done, but not at any scale that would make money, or provide useful amounts of gold.
I actually have a lot more faith in alchemy than DRM. Alchemy at its core, is beneficial to humanity. DRM? Will never provide any benefit to humanity, nor to the people attempting to control others with it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.