A digital watermark is a commonly used security measure by content publishers to deter copyright infringement and prevent unauthorized sharing or copying. It is also one of over 20 content protection and digital rights management controls that Vitrium offers with its suite of products.
In Vitrium Security, customers have the choice of using two distinct types of watermarks:
Both types of watermarks can be used on documents, PDFs, images, and videos. These allow content creators to add their copyright disclaimer and the authorized use or licensing details to prevent copyright infringement of their intellectual property. With the dynamic watermark, they can also include user-identifying information about the person unlocking or accessing the content, information such as the user name, user ID, the date and time that the person opened the content, their IP address, and other custom information that may be added in Vitrium.
Although watermarks are not restrictive enough on their own, by applying them along with Vitrium’s other defense measures, they are part of the overall process to protect an organization’s intellectual property and they can be extremely helpful to trace the source of any possible infringement through the identifiable information, but they also remind users of the content’s copyright and usage rights.
Stamp all the pages of a PDF, document, image, or frames of a video with a text-only watermark such as:
Embed user-specific information in your watermarks such as user ID, user name, IP address, time and date, company name, content expiry date and more. You can also include text in these watermarks to expand upon a plain-text watermark with additional user-identifying details such as:
Or you can simply include more obscure user-identifying details that don’t mean anything to the user but do mean something to the content provider:
Many content providers earn revenue from their content based on a subscription or membership model. Access to content is granted at different levels, and a clients’ right to access can be revoked on a specific date based on the type of subscription they hold. One of the dynamic variables you can add to a Vitrium watermark is the “expiry date” which will show the client the date when their access will expire:
Vitrium allows content publishers to add multiple watermarks, both dynamic and static, to their documents, images and video content. Watermarks can be single line or multi-lined and placed in different locations. In fact, placing multiple watermarks in different locations (along the bottom, top, horizontally across the page, or along the vertical left or right edges) ensures the content is more thoroughly protected against fraudulent activities.
Vitrium’s watermarks can be fully customized with different options:
A robust watermark application is to embed customized watermarks in various parts of your content. For example, a diagonal light grey “Copyright Company Name” with 20% opacity in the center of your content impedes infringers from cropping or removing the watermark and allows your brand name to be embedded in the file.
Content publishers cab choose whether their watermarks are displayed solely on printed files or on both digital and printed versions.
Vitrium includes a ‘hidden’ watermark in its web viewer documents that cannot be seen by the reader. In the event of unauthorized sharing or posting on social media or another website, the hidden watermark can be decoded in Vitrium, allowing content owners to identify the reader who is responsible for illegally sharing or disseminating the content.