FC: Hollywood wants to plug "analog hole," regulate A-D converters

[Pete Chown]

David G. Koontz wrote:

> Can you imagine watermarks on billboard advertisements?  How subliminal.

Actually this would be weird.  Suppose digital cameras had to be fitted
with a watermark detection system.  Suddenly, we have lost a much more
fundamental fair use right -- the right to include copyright material as
an incidental part of a photograph.

If I took a photograph of a street scene, there would be huge amounts of
copyright material in it.  The design of people's clothes would be
copyright, the architects would have rights in the design of the
buildings, billboard images would be copyright, and so on.

I can't think how you could embed a watermark in the design of a
building, but in theory it could be possible to do so with a billboard
image.  What happens then, will the camera refuse to take the
photograph?

-- 
Pete


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