I am currently researching image watermarking (invisibly, encoded inside the image/video) as a part of my degree. The idea is that you mark the image in way that it does not distort it perceptually, but in a way that the mark can be extracted.
I'm trying to make my research applied, and it got me thinking of what it could be used for in this industry.
Some Ideas
---------------
Content producers could include a watermark in their image/video content. If someone wanted to check if an image was being used, they could use a tool to detect the watermark, and perhaps authenticate it against a database which represented the terms of the license (perhaps using the content on X domains for eg). So everyone who bought content from producers using the system, would be able to prove that they had a license for the image (as the license is effectively built invisibly inside each image).
One feature would be the producer could say to the system "check out
www.suspect-site.com", and a spider would search the site for all their images, and analyse them for copyright infringement. It could also be generally spidering the pages, or perhaps constantly spidering submitted pages.
This could also be integrated into TGP/listing sites. The TGP would use the system to check that each gallery submitted had correctly watermarked images.
Could also be extended to sponsor programs, in that they could verify that their affiliates were not using unlicensed content.
I'm keen to take on any feedback you guys have on these ideas.
I think it would be very cool; one could monitor all the big TGPs/listing sites, spidering the galleries and detecting/reporting any content abuse.