Say you found a funny photo on the internet and you download it to your computer and share it on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. That’s pretty much what a lot of people do these days, but apparently it is not something the JPEG Committee isn’t too thrilled about, especially since reposting images you do not own without the proper credit or permission is essentially piracy.
So much so that the committee is now considering employing DRMs to the JPEG format on a broader scale. As it stands, the JPEG 2000 format already features DRMs although that format is typically used for medical imaging and other industries, so like we said the committee is now deciding if they should put the DRM feature on a broader level.
No doubt this is being done with good intentions since DRMs will basically protect the rights of photographers and news agencies who rely on exclusive photos for revenue, but at the same time it would seem kind of strict. We have seen how DRMs used for movies and music and video games have backfired, so we’re not sure how this will be any different.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has acknowledged this and has proposed an alternative, such as encrypting and signing JPEG metadata, thus keeping information about the image intact against sites such as Facebook and Twitter who typically strip away metadata when they are uploaded online.
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