Fratelli Alinari will protect images with SureSign fingerprinting Fratelli Alinari will protect images with SureSign fingerprinting
SEYBOLD CONFERENCE, NEW YORK - 25 April 1997. Fratelli Alinari, the world's oldest photographic archive, has today announced that they will license Signum's advanced SureSign digital fingerprinting technology.
Under the terms of the agreement Signum will license the SureSign fingerprinting technology to Fratelli Alinari for use with all visual material managed by them. These include valuable historic collections - such as the Alinari, MacPherson, Brogi, Anderson and Villani collections Ð a total of 3 million digitised images.
During 1997, Florence-based Fratelli Alinari, will incorporate Signum's SureSign fingerprinting technology into image management systems to help protect, identify and track high value digital images supplied via CD-ROMs and the Fratelli Alinari Web site. Fratelli Alinari's new on-line services will also be similarly protected when they come on stream later this year.
"We are very happy to have the security that SureSign brings to our valuable images," commented Andrea de Polo, Fratelli Alinari's Head of Technical Development, "With Alinari's long experience, we know that it is very difficult to stop copyright theft completely. Our trials of currently available watermarking systems have shown that SureSign fingerprinting is the most effective solution available to us right now."
"Naturally, we are very pleased that after extensive trials of all the competing systems, Fratelli Alinari have chosen our technology "Alan Bartlett, Signum's Marketing Manager commented." He continued, "As they make their collections more accessible, any archive as valuable as Fratelli Alinari must protect their images with the most effective means possible."
As principal beta tester, Alinari have chosen to use Signum's fingerprinting technology in their work for the European Union funded IMPRIMATUR intellectual property protection project which aims to set international industry standards for the 21st century.
SureSign technology, was devised by English mathematician and data compression expert, Dr David Hilton. The SureSign method is controlled by precisely calculated algorithms that do not degrade like alternative random noise based systems. Additionally, the SureSign fingerprint carries both a creator ID as well as an image or transaction reference which helps users track and monitor the use of their creative output.
The SureSign fingerprint is remarkably robust and is impractical to remove once embedded, being designed to withstand the effects of editing and manipulation. Attempts to extract or modify the embedded fingerprint code will simply result in the material being destroyed or rendered unusable.
Fratelli Alinari is the world's oldest photographic archive consisting of a number of historical and contemporary collections from around the world. It was founded in 1852.
Fratelli Alinari also manages a photographic museum, an exhibition gallery and a fine-art publishing operation.
Fratelli Alinari is located in Florence, Italy.
For more information, please contact:
Alan Bartlett, Signum Technologies Limited,
2-6 St George's Business Park, Alstone Lane,
Cheltenham, GL51 8HF, UK.
Telephone: +44 (0)1242 221390 - Fax: +44 (0)1242 251600
E-Mail: signum@signumtech.com
or
Andrea de Polo
Fratelli Alinari
15 Largo Alinari
50123 Firenze
Italy
Telephone: +39 (0)55 23 95-201
Fax: +39 (0)55 23 82 857
E-Mail: info-more@alinari.it