Chroma Shift Steganography Protects Copyrighted Digital Art

SALVADOR, BA, Brazil - It isn't easy to combat online piracy of your valuable digital art, and it has been even harder to trace it back to the offending pirate. Chroma Shift introduces a server side Digital Rights Management system that allows content providers to embed user identification into all their JPEG images using steganography. Steganography provides for a cutting edge Digital Rights Management (DRM) system suitable for every type of artist, and content provider, who displays graphics on the web. Chroma Shift embeds a user defined message, like the member's ID or other identifying information, into all digital images that are downloaded from a website. Unlike a watermark, steganography is virtually imperceptible to the naked eye. "While Chroma Shift doesn't stop theft it will let you know who is leaking your content so you can immediately terminate their user account and slow the bleeding," said Chroma Shift CEO, Alexander Fotios. "You have the user ID of the member who leaked the content to file sharing sites or bit-torrent, embedded in the actual photo or other graphic that they downloaded from your site. "From there it's a simple matter of matching the user ID to your membership logs, terminating their account and logging their copyright infringements for potential prosecution," he added. "The best part is that the embedded information will persist in the JPEG image even if it is scaled, cropped, PhotoShop filtered, recompressed or otherwise manipulated -- you can't get rid of it unless you degrade image quality to the point that it loses most of its value." SexyFur.com and TailHeat.com have embraced Chroma Shift's PHP plug-in as their new DRM system for their member sites. Both sites have implemented the Chroma Shift plug-in, allowing their furry niche anime artists an extra layer of protection in managing their copyrighted images. Jeremy Bernal, founder of Sexy Fur and Tail Heat said, "We had to find a solution in which the embedded data would remain intact to the point the image was undesirable or destroyed if a pirate tried to alter it, and that's where Chroma Shift came in. Not only does it help us stop piracy but it is cost-effective. Filing copyright lawsuits is expensive; even sending out registered cease-and-desist letters is expensive. But cutting off the pirate's access and keeping the evidence on hand should litigation become necessary, is very cost-effective in the long run using Chroma Shift." The Chroma Shift steganographic module is developed in C, for the Linux platform, and compiles into a PHP loadable module. It can therefore be accessed by a site's internal PHP scripts while providing the speed of a natively compiled program. This allows for embedded steg information to be created dynamically, directly through the website. Additionally, there are options to embed a traditional watermark to all images passed through the Chroma Shift plug-in, making the system even more customizable to the content owner. For more information on the Chroma Shift stenography plug-in, and to try out a demonstration, visit the company website.