{"id":5306,"date":"2018-08-10T22:54:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T22:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=5306"},"modified":"2018-08-12T13:22:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-12T13:22:32","slug":"the-jpeg-committee-is-exploring-blockchain-to-put-drm-into-jpeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/08\/10\/the-jpeg-committee-is-exploring-blockchain-to-put-drm-into-jpeg\/","title":{"rendered":"The JPEG Committee is “exploring Blockchain” \u2014 to put DRM into JPEG"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Joint Photographic Experts Group<\/a> is a working group<\/a> of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO<\/a>). They’re best known for the JPEG standard<\/a> for image compression, and for various related image standards.<\/p>\n

They had their 78th quarterly meeting from 27 January to 2 February 2018\u00a0\u2014 with the press release<\/a> afterwards prominently namedropping “blockchain.”<\/p>\n

The Twitter reaction was “lol what,” and even the cryptocurrency press ignored it \u2014 but there’s more to this than slapping on a buzzword, and it’s not good. They seem to think they can advance the cause of Digital Rights Management (DRM) for JPEG images \u2014 automated copy protection and access control \u2014 with a bit of applied blockchain. And that this will make DRM work \u2014 rather than be an idea that fundamentally doesn’t work, despite sounding interesting and potentially useful to some people.<\/p>\n

The February announcement<\/h3>\n

The press release after the 78th meeting included the following tantalising text:<\/p>\n

JPEG explores blockchain and distributed ledger technologies<\/b><\/p>\n

During the 78th JPEG meeting in Rio de Janeiro, the JPEG committee organized a special session on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies and their impact on JPEG standards. As a result, the committee decided to explore use cases and standardization needs related to blockchain technology in a multimedia context. Use cases will be explored in relation to the recently launched JPEG Privacy and Security, as well as in the broader landscape of imaging and multimedia applications. To that end, the committee created an ad hoc group with the aim to gather input from experts to define these use cases and to explore eventual needs and advantages to support a standardization effort focused on imaging and multimedia applications. To get involved in the discussion, interested parties can register to the ad hoc group\u2019s mailing list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more detail in the List of Ad-Hoc Groups<\/a> from this meeting. The chair is Frederik Temmermans<\/a> (ETRO-VUB) and co-chair is Deepayan Bhowmik<\/a> (Stirling University).<\/p>\n

I emailed both asking about the genesis of the group, and Dr Bhowmik pointed me to his conference proceeding “The multimedia blockchain: A distributed and tamper-proof media transaction framework”<\/a> from 2017.<\/p>\n

The Mandates\/Objectives of the committee are:<\/p>\n