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DRM In JPEGs? (eff.org)
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Adding DRM to JPEG files is being considered by the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG), which oversees the JPEG format. The JPEG met in Brussels today to discuss adding DRM to its format, so there would be images that could force your computer to stop you from uploading pictures to Pinterest or social media. The EFF attended the group's meeting to tell JPEG committee members why that would be a bad idea. Their presentation(PDF) explains why cryptographers don't believe that DRM works, points out how DRM can infringe on the user's legal rights over a copyright work (such as fair use and quotation), and warns how it places security researchers at legal risk as well as making standardization more difficult. It doesn't even help to preserve the value of copyright works, since DRM-protected works and devices are less valued by users.
So what's to stop me from taking a high def screen shot of the jpeg and uploading it anyway ?
All this nonsense, defeated by a simple screenshot.
And I'm sure someone will quickly write a DRM-stripper to clean up these DRM-infected files.
Let me be as succinct as I can regarding DRM in .jpg files: No. No, no, no.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
From TFS:
While I fully agree that DRM isn't foolproof, I disagree that DRM doesn't work. The reason DRM is being implemented is not to prevent all piracy ever - simply put, that's impossible - but rather to prevent common, casual piracy among low-skilled users. And to that end DRM works very well.
Any DRM system that's built half-way decently won't be possible to trivially bypass, and that's enough to deter casual infringement. You don't see people going Napster with iOS apps, you don't see everyone and their mother pirating DirecTV like they once did, and you can't pick up pirated PS4 games off of your local shady games shop. Why? Because the DRM systems that are in place are good enough that it's no longer easy and convenient to pirate this material. So casual piracy stops.
DRM shouldn't be implemented for a whole other host of reasons, least of all because it prevents users from fully controlling works they've purchased. But to argue that it doesn't work is disingenuous. It works to stop the most threatening form of piracy, casual piracy, and with every generation the underlying technology gets harder and harder to break.
It won't stop uploading. Tools like wput and Curl don't read the contents of files before uploading, and wouldn't be modified to support one closed-source feature for one specific file format.
It won't affect Web sites. Web servers don't read the contents of files before serving them, files are just blobs of bytes to the server. The sites of interest to the DRM people are running open-source Web server software too, and I seriously doubt Apache or nginx are going to add closed-source code for one specific file format. IIS would, but it's at best the third-place player in the large-volume-site space.
And finally, it'll be cracked. My bet is that before it becomes widely implemented someone'll crack the system and there'll be browser extensions easily available that simply strip the DRM off the JPEG before uploading, displaying or saving it. Those extensions'll be widely used too, it won't be long before anyone having problems viewing images on Pinterest/Tumblr/Twitter/etc. will just get told to install the extension and it'll fix the problem. Users won't know or care how it fixed it, just that it fixes it.
Joint Photographic Expert Group trying to think of things to justify their relevance.
JPEG can add this to the standard, but nobody will implement it. Think about it, why would Google or Mozilla decide to make these images work in their browsers? Why would Microsoft or Apple implement it?
DRM on video (and to a lesser degree music) only worked because there was a captive market. Blu-ray players, DVD players, and iPods would implement whatever DRM the movie/music industry specified. Browsers and smartphones won't. Without them the audience is so small that it won't matter.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
They don't have to make it impossible, just illegal. And guess what, TPP and its ilk are trying to spread anti DRM circumvention laws to other countries.
Most JPEGs are created by ordinary people, with their digital cameras and phones. So will Joe Public who has taken a photo be able to define the rights on the image? Will he be able change the rights depending on where he sends or stores the image? Or will it only be the media conglomerates who are able to manage the rights to their images?
They don't have to make it impossible, just illegal. And guess what, TPP and its ilk are trying to spread anti DRM circumvention laws to other countries
And you know what? It won't matter. Just like always, any method of locking something down will be broken in a week or less, and spread like wildfire. The tighter they squeeze, the more will slip through their fingers, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!