News organizations, camera makers, and tech companies create a web tool called Verify for checking the authenticity of images for free. It's being adopted by Nikon, Sony, and Canon.
Camera Companies Fight AI-Generated Images With ‘Verify’ Watermark Tech::undefined
It’s not DRM. It’s like EXIF metadata. You can strip it anytime you want, and it will often get stripped in practice even if you don’t want (e.g. screenshots, naive conversions, metadata-stripping upload services, etc.). It’s entirely optional and does not require any new software to view the images, only to view and manipulate the metadata.
On its own, it doesn’t tell you much about the image except that specific people/organizations edited and approved it, with specific tools. If you don’t trust those people/orgs, then you shouldn’t trust the photo. I mean, even if it says it came straight from a Nikon camera…so what? People can lie with cameras, too.
I wrote a bit more about this in another thread at https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/5812616 about a month ago, if you’re interested. I haven’t really played with it yet, but there’s open-source software out there you can try.
You could implement it like that but I’m not convinced that’s the way this will go. The only way this will have mass adoption, I’m afraid, is if the tech giants can fleece us one way or another.
It’s not DRM. It’s like EXIF metadata. You can strip it anytime you want, and it will often get stripped in practice even if you don’t want (e.g. screenshots, naive conversions, metadata-stripping upload services, etc.). It’s entirely optional and does not require any new software to view the images, only to view and manipulate the metadata.
On its own, it doesn’t tell you much about the image except that specific people/organizations edited and approved it, with specific tools. If you don’t trust those people/orgs, then you shouldn’t trust the photo. I mean, even if it says it came straight from a Nikon camera…so what? People can lie with cameras, too.
I wrote a bit more about this in another thread at https://lemmy.sdf.org/comment/5812616 about a month ago, if you’re interested. I haven’t really played with it yet, but there’s open-source software out there you can try.
You could implement it like that but I’m not convinced that’s the way this will go. The only way this will have mass adoption, I’m afraid, is if the tech giants can fleece us one way or another.
I think the only risk is if this somehow becomes legally mandated. I just don’t see how that’s possible.
Adoption has a clear path because professional photographers, journalists, and publishers have motivation to prove the authenticity of their images.
For consumers…meh. I don’t enable GPS on my phone camera, and I wouldn’t enable this either. I don’t need to prove anything.
Profitability, not user interest, is the deciding factor. We’ll see how it plays out. I don’t think this one will last