How is embedded digital watermarking is different from fingerprinting?
An embedded watermark is a “proactive” solution that begins tracking your content from the moment you’ve watermarked it and made it accessible on the Web. Embedded watermarking communicates ownership from day one in a way that is persistent and stays with the image through copying, manipulation, editing, cropping, compression and decompression, encryption and decryption — all without affecting the quality of the image — or the enjoyment of consumers. A digital fingerprint is a “reactive” solution that analyzes and then creates a unique ID of your images. It can then track your content across the Web based on that unique ID. It does not proactively communicate your ownership rather it locates content across the Web. Both solutions can complement one another to effectively protect and track your content.
