If I took a picture with a digital camera and then shared that picture online, all anonymously, could you figure out it was me that took the picture?

This question came up recently when someone who got an early copy of the new Harry Potter book — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows — took a picture of every page and then posted those pictures to the web.

It turns out that digital cameras not only take photos. They also embed those digital images with metadata, information that you can’t see with the naked eye, but that you can read with a computer. The idea behind including other data in the photograph is that it can be useful. For example, imagine if photos had built-in geocoding (GPS) data that showed where exactly a photo was taken. With geocoding, your online photo album could list the location photos were taken automatically, and you could even connect to other people’s photos taken in the same location, for example. That would be pretty cool and you can expect it soon.

The person who took the pictures of the Harry Potter book probably didn’t realize that it left digital fingerprints behind. The information that digital cameras now capture is known as Exchangeable Image File Format (Exif) data. With some special reading software we know that the Harry Potter spoiler used a Canon Rebel 350. We know that camera was only sold in the US and Canada. And we actually know the serial number of that specific camera. So, if this person registered the camera online or took it in for service, their name is probably attached to the serial number in some database, easily accessible by the Canon and likely made available to the publisher of Harry Potter upon presentation of a subpoena.

As the TimesOnline (of London) wrote:

Every image that is taken on a digital camera contains Exif data, which holds information about the picture such as zoom, contrast, focus and ‘distance to subject’ measurements. It is typically used for ‘trouble-shooting’, so an owner can ascertain why a picture may not have worked, but it also enables a court, for instance, to establish whether a picture has been digitally altered.

“The Exif data is like the picture’s DNA; you can’t switch it off. Every image has it. Some software can be used to strip or edit the information, but you can’t edit every field,”
Experimentation with meta data

For the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of this has serious implications for personal privacy. EFF points out that it isn’t only camera that are tracking our every move. Did you know your color laser printer is also spying on you?

Of course, digital cameras aren’t the only devices that may keep a record that could track a document back to its creator. We’ve extensively discussed how most color laser printers invisibly embed the printer serial number and date and time of printing on every page, in a pattern of tiny yellow dots. Although customers have been complaining, printer manufacturers have so far refused to let customers disable the tracking. (HP, for example, recently wrote to update one customer that it was wrong to say initially that it was unable to disable the tracking; instead, it now says it “will not” do so.)

Most computer users are unaware that CD burners in their PCs also contain a similar tracking mechanism that embeds a unique serial number, called a Recorder Identification Code, on every CD they burn.

Does it all smell of Big Brother? Or is this just the world we live in where data is everywhere all the time and we should just relax?

An interesting issue about whether embedding a YouTube video that violates copyright could make the person who embeds the video also in violation of copyright. This is an important concern in a world of portable media:

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation

YouTube Embedding and Copyright

There seems to be a considerable amount of interest in and confusion about the copyright law consequences of embedding a YouTube video in your blog. In fact, the Blog Herald recently ran a story suggesting that bloggers could be on the hook for copyright infringement if they embed a video that turns out to be infringing.

Well, the news really isn’t that dire. In fact, we believe that bloggers are generally pretty safe on this score, at least until someone notifies them that an embedded video is infringing.

First, it’s important to understand what an embedded YouTube video is — it’s a link. No copy of the YouTube video is being stored on your server (only the HTML code for the embed). The video stays on, and is streamed from, YouTube’s servers.

That makes the embedded YouTube video essentially indistinguishable from the in-line image links that are used all over the Web, including in Google’s Image Search.
In the recent Perfect 10 v. Amazon ruling, the Ninth Circuit made it very clear that where in-line links are concerned, there is absolutely no direct copyright infringement liability. So, for purposes of direct infringement, the answer to one question will generally resolve the issue: where is the copy hosted?

That leaves contributory infringement. If you link to a video that you know is infringing, or that any reasonable person would have known is infringing, and if your link materially contributes to the infringement, then you could be liable for contributory infringement — a kind of “aiding and abetting” liability.

The contributory infringement test should leave plenty of breathing room for most bloggers. Two rules of thumb should avoid most issues — (1) don’t embed videos that are obviously infringing, and (2) consider removing embedded videos once you’ve been notified by a copyright owner that they are infringing.

If you want even more protection, you can register yourself as the “Copyright Agent” for your blog (requires a form and $80 payment to the U.S. Copyright Office), familiarize yourself with the requirements of the DMCA’s online service provider “safe harbors” (the chief one for most bloggers will be notice-and-takedown), and take advantage of the same protections that shield Yahoo! and Google when they link to sites that may include infringing materials.

In short, embedding YouTube videos isn’t that scary from a copyright POV, at least until a copyright owner takes the trouble to notify you.

For this post and related links:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005350.php