A picture of profitability
By David Greenfield

From The RedHerring

June 25, 2000
It is just too easy to lift digital content, like pictures, from an online source for one's own purposes. This has kept a lot of great content off the Web; many artists and publishers don't post full-resolution images because they are so easy to steal.

But practically, it is possible to protect visual assets online. Digimarc (which I also covered yesterday) embeds digital watermarks within images; these watermarks can then be tracked down through a search engine.

Alchemedia takes a technically more difficult route that actually prevents images from being copied off the originating server in the first place. "Clever Content" images require a plug-in to view (available for PC and Mac) and prevent not just copying to a clipboard but also taking screen captures of the display. (Nothing can prevent somebody from photographing the video display.)

Alchemedia's new focus is on commercialization -- instead of simply blocking copying, the company allows publishers to link their images to anything (say, a sales form), which potentially converts all those high-resolution photos from liabilities to profit opportunities. Technically it is a minor change, but it's an example of how some pre-April concepts can be made into profitable business models with only minor tweaking.

- Rafe Needleman, [email protected]
Editor

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