In photography and the digital world, creator often adds a watermark to their artwork in order to protect their work from being used without their permission. But In most circumstances, you are likely doing more harm than good watermarking your images.
Watermarking your art does not protect your creations in any significant way. People still be able to steal and save your work without your permission and it’s hard for you to trace the copyright infringement.
Stolen artworks or NFTs can be minted and sold with relative ease, ergo you, the customer, if not cautious, can come into possession of some questionable NFTs. As a new industry, there have not yet been any appropriate solutions.
Whilst, Content Credential has many similarities to steganography in terms of embedding data, the intent of creating the credential is not to make it difficult to detect that embedded data, but rather make it difficult to remove the embedded data so as to prevent the unauthorized reuse of the file. Technically, it is used for detecting artwork piracy at greater length. It helps maintain the ownership and authenticity of digital media and the trust of your creators and buyers through the originality of the designs.
Can people still steal your work?
Yup, they still can. It sucks. But.. It’s hard for them to re-sell the artwork as the potential buyer will tend to verify the originality of the artwork before purchasing it. The longer-lasting the value of digital goods is, the more time pirates have to break the protection methods. Therefore, a scalable system is required that renews itself over time. (I believe Adobe is working hard towards wide adoption of digital provenance. As a creator myself, I look forward to a future where attribution is table stakes in all digital content shared online.)
What is Content Credentials?
Is a feature in Photoshop is part of a broader project called the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI). Technically, it gathers the edits, activity, and attribution information associated with the in-progress content. These details are captured as tamper-evident attribution and history data (called content credentials) that creators attach to final content when exported.
In layman’s terms, to provide digital provenance across the internet OR, to build trust with your audience, proving that, “hey I made this content and you can verify it yourself for its authenticity.” It can be defined as the hiding of data within the digital content and are invisible when the content is viewed, unless verifyied using particular software or website such as https://contentauthenticity.org/
Has an artwork to verify? Verify here: https://verify.contentauthenticity.org/
The Benefit
For digital content, Content Credentials can be used to indicate recipients or modifiers without the administrative burden of keeping the associated information and links separate from the digital content itself. It can add value for different legitimate uses while increasing barriers to pirates.
Here is how you can setup the feature in Photoshop:
- Go to Edit > Preferences > Technology Previews
2. Tick “Enable Content Credentials” > Restart the Photoshop application
3. Go to Window > Content Credentials (Beta) to open the panel
4. You can connect your social media accounts to navigate your audience to the producer of the artwork and also add a crypto wallet (web3), (OpenSea, Foundation, etc)
5. When you’re ready to export your content, go to File > Export > Export As
6. Make sure you turn on “Copyright and Contact Info” together with “Attach to Image”.
It captures their editing process and add edits and attribution to their work to share with their viewers. Your information will travel with your particular image and take advantage of this Content Credential feature when you are posting online.
When to use it?
When the creator wants to track attribution and provide a layer of transparency for their audience.
for NFTs
Creator can use Content Credentials (Beta) to see the history and attribution of a piece of artwork before it enters the blockchain.
Creators can include their public crypto wallet addresses with their work’s content credentials by adding it to Content Credentials (Beta).
NFT marketplaces can then match the attribution details from Photoshop to the NFTs transaction details. Audiences and potential buyers will then have more insight into whether the seller of the art is the same as the Photoshop user who exported the artwork.
Supported File Types
Content Credentials (Beta) only supports exporting JPG and PNG files during this beta.
Known Issues
Content Credentials (Beta) is still in development, so these features in Photoshop aren’t fully supported yet
- Script runs
- Placing Smart Object on page
- Loading Photoshop with third-party plugins
- Multiple device workflows
- PSDs created before activating Content Credentials (Beta)
If you find your image’s content credentials are missing after publishing online, it’s likely because that application doesn’t yet support Content Credentials (Beta).
Final Thoughts..
Content Credential not only benefits creative ownership, but it also allows viewers to understand more about what they’re seeing on the internet and make more informed decisions. We’re providing information about what is real — as opposed to detecting or determining what is fake — and we look forward to a future where everyone expects to see provenance accompanying digital content.
Looking forward..
Creator Credential (Beta) version already provides a technological way to add data that can be used to identify the owners of various rights, looking ahead, I hope Adobe allows to record permissions granted, and to note which rights may be attached to a particular copy or transmission of a work.
Learn more here: https://contentauthenticity.org/
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