Later this week Digimarc will be setting up their booth at Photoshop World. We look forward to meeting our customers face to face...

Probably 2-3 times a month I get asked a similar set of questions about images and the web. Someone needs an image for a posting, blog, etc. and they wonder if they can just use an image they found on the web and/or the images they post can be protected. Yes, often the same person who thinks about downloading an image from the web is often the same person worried about posting their own pic to the web.

I just ran across a great blog post about Digimarc for Images, posted by Ed Fritz. Mr. Fritz is a talented photographer, who uses our solution to provide "peace of mind" for protecting his images. We love sharing the news about real-world customers using our product successfully. Thanks, Ed!

I hope everyone took the time to read my previous post "Take Action When You Find Your Content Misused." All that good stuff is about to become reality for Digimarc for Images. That's right, the integration is almost complete. We'll host a webcast on this very topic, September 8th, and you can register here. 

The agenda:

• How Digimarc and LicenseStream's joint enterprise solution for stock photography agencies, media companies, museum and archives will soon benefit freelance photographers and small business owners
• Overview of LicenseStream's integrated key features including automated remedy options: License Content, Request Attribution, Issue Take Down Notice
• View a live demo of the new capabilities within the Digimarc for Images customer dashboard
• Workflow and best practices recommendations
• And more!

Hurry up and register now, its totally free!

Everyone comes across beautiful images and amazing digital art when perusing through the Internet. And many times, professionals run into their own images being used on other websites. I assume that most pros take pride in their work and enjoy showcasing it. Of course, infringement is the inherent danger of putting your prized images out there for all to see. Now, it could be a simple blogger that found your image and used it on a post, but it could also be a commercial website, generating revenue from your property. 

After months of research around this topic, I noticed a common theme regarding what to do when this happens to you. It came down to two key factors: time and money. It is too time consuming and costly to take actions on these infringing folks. So...what can you do?

OK, that headline was a bit sensationalized.  Since the undead are such a hot topic I thought it might help spice up a blog on watermarking and bring in a whole new audience. Maybe. 

So how do vampires and digital watermarking blogs connect? Let's sink out teeth into it...

Layers Magazine recently did a review of Digimarc for Images. It's good to see such a great magazine include us in their review section. You can read the review here. I must make mention the review was written a little while ago, and states there is no 64bit support. But as many of you may know already, we have a 64bit version available now. You can get it free by going to our downloads section. It's also built into the Adobe Photoshop CS5 release, so no need to update if you have CS5. 

For those of you who are users of Adobe products, Layers Magazine, along with the website can be a great resource. They provide videos and tutorials that cover almost everything. Check them out here and sign up for a free digital version of the magazine.

Over here at Digimarc we are always on the lookout for bloggers that comment and provide feedback or reviews of our products and technology. We recently did a promotion with John Batdorff, an award winning landscape and travel photographer. The promotion included a give away of a free Digimarc for Images account as well as discount coupons to all of his readers. You can visit his website and view the promotion by clicking here. Many of his wonderful and amazing images are shared as well.

So for all you photographer bloggers out there, would you like to run a promotion with us too? It's not too hard, just let me know and we can discuss a promotion that is right for you and your readers.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to revisit some older posts and refresh them. My goal is to tie them together so an overview of workflow solutions are provided to make watermarking images easier for you.

When I used to work on designing identity documents we talked about layers of security, because no single solution can do it all. RFID chips, specialty printing inks, substrates and special design features needed to be combined to offer certain levels of security. Additionally, I will toss in some discussions about free image protection solutions. I have to give some credit to Scott Kelby's post where he mentions a lot of available solutions he likes, including a very nice review of Digimarc for Images. I don't want to review other commercial applications, but will discuss some of the free solutions he mentions like metadata and how to incorporate these into your workflow.

If there's an image protection solution you'd like to discuss, let me know. Let's see if we can figure out the best combination of solutions for your time and money.

I've mentioned Plagiarism Today previously as a good source for copyright issues. In fact Digimarc hosted a webcast with Jonathan Bailey who writes at Plagiarism Today where he covered a lot of basics about copyright, it's still available if you missed it.

I've also mentioned I prefer an alternative approach to US copyright know as Creative Commons which I think fits contemporary society and internet usage more realistically.

THEN, I heard about a movie being given away, apparently to avoid copyrights and royalties due to the music sound track. Sita Sings the Blues appears to be turning a blind eye to copyright laws, but it's not quite that simple... The creator of the movie, Nina Paley, is an Artist in Residence of http://questioncopyright.org/, which puts forth some interesting ideas about copyright and the way it can restrict access to copyrighted materials and why we should think about changing the system. Sita Sings the Blues was released with only a Creative Common Attribution-Share Alike License to help make the case that the movie is "not for profit" and maybe not subject to copyright infringement.

It's always interesting to try and understand alternative views, and this one is well beyond what I currently understand about copyright. I’m going to have read through and see how I feel about Nina Paley's approach.

As for Sita Sings the Blues; love the style, it's cute, but not really my cup of tea.