Leica, one of the world’s leading camera manufacturers, has launched the M11-P camera, what the first camera with Content Credentials built-in.
“This camera will usher in a powerful new way for photojournalists and creatives to combat misinformation and bring authenticity to their work and consumers, while pioneering widespread adoption of Content Credentials,” says the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), an organization co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to help combat the threat of misinformation and help creators get credit for their work.
Authentication Means Attribution
Tools for authenticating and tracking digital content and ownership are becoming more widely available and can be used by other creators who rely on copyright, including illustrators, writers and videographers. Some businesses do not want to employ these resources, especially if they may be forced to pay licensing fees.
For creators, these tools represent a way to validate and track the evolution of their work by making the process and use more transparent. Verifiable content can take creative expression to a new level that is difficult for distribution sources to ignore.
Similarly, the technology is evolving for identifying which patent claims read on products being sold. It is only a matter of time until patent owners can monitor and authenticate the source and role of inventions that help comprise a product. A streamlined system can then be established to effect inevitable, and hopefully less contentious, licensing deals.
2,000 Members
CAI is a coalition of nearly 2,000 members, including Leica Camera, AFP, the Associated Press, the BBC, Getty Images, Microsoft, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, “all working together to add a verifiable layer of transparency and trust to content online – via secure metadata called Content Credentials.”
It is only a matter of time until patent owners can
monitor and authenticate the source and role of inventions
that help comprise a product.
How Content Credentials Works:
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Transparency at the point of capture: Leica believes the chain of authenticity [provenance] is strongest at the moment a piece of media is created — being able to verify the circumstances of an image’s origin is the foundation for knowing whether to trust it.
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Get credit for photography work: Content Credentials enable photojournalists and creatives to assert credit for their work, ensuring that wherever one of their images goes, their identity travels indelibly with it.
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Bring trust to digital content with a “digital nutrition label”: Content Credentials are the “digital nutrition label” and most widely adopted industry standard for content of all kinds, and the foundation for increased trust and transparency online.
The photograph above was significantly altered using the Sky Replacement tool in Adobe Photoshop. This edit becomes part of the file’s Content Credentials.
The edited image is exported from Adobe Photoshop and inspected using Verify (contentcredentials.org/verify), a CAI website that reads and sources Content Credentials so that consumers can inspect changes made.
Image source: CAI/Leica