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Walzmyn [soylentnews.org] writes:

Saw this article on Reddit. Apparently the JPEG is considering blockchain to insert DRM [davidgerard.co.uk]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 [jpeg.org] 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".

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