Pixel Bunneh

Copyright infringement is big news in all virtual world circles as more and more people try their hand at virtual commerce. The basics of safeguarding your digital content begins with a watermark. Your digital creations are considered yours, you hold the copyright the minute you save them to your hard drive – but when it comes to proving they’re yours – a watermark makes it that much easier.

I’ve spoken about Digimarc before, the only mainstream digital watermarking system available at this time. They offer a great system for a subscription, but what about the casual creator?

Photoshop comes with a Digimarc filter built in. Don’t let that Demo label fool you – it has what you need until you decided to go full bore with a subscription. Here’s what I suggest:

Choose a number for your graphic or set of graphics, a random number with at least 5 characters and use it as your Image ID:

Digimarc Filter Dialog

Go ahead and add that watermark to your graphic or your set of graphics. In your .psd file, add a layer with that number on it, so you always have a record of what number is on what image. It works, you can go back and check the watermark with the Watermark reader, it’s there.

So now, even though you don’t have a subscription, you have a number that only you know to prove that the image was created by you.

Older Digimarc info is here.