You ask much, dear engine!

I might reply that I support such a move as I am an artist and photographer and damn weary of having the fruits of my labor assimilated in "fair use" at the same resolution of images I try to market for dollars. I might reply that if it's on the web it's fair game by gum, and that's still wrong to the creator, of course.

The problem with the argument offered in OP is LEGACY images. Who determines that? That said, if there is a future way to DRM images that does not break the web or piss off the user I'm for it. I'm also for providing a reasonable better than thumbnail of same content while protecting the dollar image in larger size.

After all, web wise, we all want pics, but we also want our pages to load quick and lean. Let the creator determine the "fair use image size" and protect his money side and let's get on with doing the web and not profit unfairly from the image creator. That kind of DRM I am in favor of. Sadly, it won't work that way as the next thing out of the gate is "DRM KILLER HERE" "IMAGES FOR FREE" "ILLUSTRATIONS FOR YOUR SITE" will be the next round of hacks.

tangor -- Aparently there is already a way to stop people from copying your images, because occasionally I come across a website that prevents me from doing it. I don't know how it's done myself, but there must be some script or code of some kind that can be used. So you might want to look into it.

There are lots of ways..none of them defeat print screen / or screen capture..

@aristotle: I'm not a newbie. :)

My money images have been protected for years, however, as Leosghost remarked, there are just some things that can't be dealt with it. WORSE there's always that user who ignores the sales contract and shares the image anyway. That's usually the problem I have to deal with.

HOWEVER, I hope/see that DRM for jpg might have a very useful side effect for webmasters as regards copyright and "who's image is it" and "who did it first" as far as search engines, et al are concerned.

If a creator can RELIABLY stamp and protect their image upon jpg file creation, then copyright can be protected and infringers can be pursued. It would also provide a way to identify and locate those who ignore sales contracts and use/share that image for a purpose other than contracted. That would be a game changer in more ways than one. Something like that would be damn beneficial to the image creators.

It might even put Getty out of business. :)

Bad idea, means one vendor will have a hold over all these images, will cause huge interoperability problems....

Stupid idea, will not work, just suits some people's interest.

@tangor, which you want would be better achieved by a non-visible, hard to remove, watermarking system.

@graeme_p: With all respect, some of us live in the real world. :)

Bad idea, means one vendor will have a hold over all these images, will cause huge interoperability problems...

As it should be, the VENDOR (I assume mfg) will part out to distros/customers/sites as needed ... and that gets rid of the "duplicate" krapola seen all too often on our favorite se. Best part, the vendor/holder provides the BEST IMAGE for all to use and that levels the playing field in a flash (and I don't mean player). As for interoperability, not sure what that means because anyone would be free to take their own pic of somethingwhatever and post that AS THEIR OWN CREATION.

As for CREATORS of images it might mean they finally control their own work and can develop a revenue, just like all of us want our sites to do the same (and are losing it as G in particular puts our good stuff in Knowledge Graph and all that other suck the life out of you since it does not have DRM).

Me daydreaming... sounds nice and I hope something really good and practical comes out of this. Some pictures are difficult, some a extreme journey to capture! and it's very sad to see your own work posted somewhere else, not only without your credits (free but as: stolen) but even worse with someone else name.

It's been possible for years to put your copyright on the image, even to set a digital mark/sign that it's invisible while keeping your credits. Scripts to block people downloading it are just half mile away (it's actually pretty easy to get around) and other scripts to implement hot linking are also just half a mile away (too easy) not to forget the screen capture and cropping the images in a diff way.

But I don't have doubts it could be done with technology on the reader side (browsers), some sort of true hotlinking helper. Why? well, the image shouldn't appear on the screen unless is called from X domain or perhaps IP, and the image shouldn't allow screen capture, it should appear blank or just lots of noise. It's funny, I have my cellphone with an app to record all my calls (too many tech details I cannot miss when someone tells me on the line) so, one day I discovered something interesting while talking to X embassy: it doesn't matter if they call me or if I call them, that app never records a single noise! ok is too much to ask something like that but it's worth to add to the wishlist.

Aparently there is already a way to stop people from copying your images

There is various tricks, for example you use the image as background in a <div> and then overlay it with transparent .gif. The user right clicks and saves the the transparent .gif.... In the end they are all tricks and will only slow down or stop Joe Blow. They will not stop me. :) ... nor will they stop anyone else that is determined even if they have no technical skill.

I will predict this will fail also, I don't know how many billions was spent on developing the protection for Blu Ray but it failed almost immediately. It was actually very interesting to follow, the story starts out with a guy that did not have a HDCP compliant computer and wanted to watch his Blu Ray disc on it. He found a minor flaw in one piece of software, posted it on a video forum that had hundreds of very knowledgeable people and it ballooned from there. It's very difficult to compete against the collective knowledge and intelligence of hundreds or even thousands of people if they are determined to break into your copyright protection.

@tangor thanks for keeping the discussion polite (not). Being rude and adding a smiley does not change anything.

Can you tell me who this mythical absolutely trustworthy DRM vendor is who will always do the right thing?

No creators of images will not control the system. DRM systems need to be centralised, whoever has that central control will control the system. DRM requires control of the client and the generation of the content.

DRM really on serves the purposes of big businesses able to make deals with each other.

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