providers have the tools available to label, tag, or add a digital watermark to the work at the beginning of a transmission's "food chain," before it is sent out onto the Internet. Depending on the perceived value or importance of the work, the copyright holder can "wrap" the package with various levels of protection. These protections can restrict reproduction, use, re-transmission, and provide the means necessary to identify, locate, impede or take down unauthorized reproductions. This technology approach maintains the value of copyrighted material.For those not familiar with the concept of the "digital watermark" and other such innovations, there is at the end of the article I have been quoting a list of copyright-protection products and the companies which make them. One of the more well-known firms in the digital watermark business is Digimarc *http://www.digimarc.com/*. Here is the description of Digimarc's product, PictureMarc: PictureMarc embeds an imperceptible digital watermark within an image. The watermark carries copyright information and links to the image creator, enabling copyright communication, authorship attribution and electronic commerce. Coupled with Digimarc's aggressive distribution strategy, PictureMarc promises to yield a viable solution to the long-standing problem of how to communicate copyright in a digital setting. A Digimarc watermark is durable, able to survive across file formats and most transformations of the image such as copying and editing, and can be read even when the image is cropped. The watermark is embedded digitally within the image, remaining a part of the image even when printed, and can be read by scanning the printed image into a computer. This durability ensures that the watermark stays with the image wherever it may travel.First, of course, one might ask the same questions that consumers should ask about anything when it is just coming onto the market: will this product work completely ...
