Digital Watermarking Alliance Publishes White Paper Proposing Solution to Orphan Works Issue

Encourages policy makers to embrace digital watermarking to enable content owners and users to identify copyrighted works and address the challenge of orphan works

Washington DC, Feb. 5, 2007 — The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA), an international group of industry leading companies involved in commercializing digital watermarking solutions, today announced a new white paper that discusses the key role digital watermarking can play in addressing the issue of orphan works.

Today, a large number of “orphan works” — presumably copyrighted works whose owners cannot be identified or located-exists. Typically, such works are excerpts or newly digitized versions of books, movies, photos, and music whose ownership information has been stripped away or lost during distribution, re-formatting or editing. Unfortunately for those individuals and organizations seeking permission to use such works, much of this rich material ends up left untouched due to liability issues surrounding unspecified ownership.

Published by the DWA, the white paper proposes that policymakers consider facilitating the adoption of technologies, such as digital watermarking, to address the challenge of orphan works and copyright owner identification. Digital watermarks are available and widely deployed today and can help speed and facilitate deployment of online digital content by enabling identification of copyrighted content, facilitating rights management policy, and enhancing consumer experiences.

The Digital Watermarking Alliance white paper is available at www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org

Representatives of the DWA will discuss these policy recommendations, as well provide an overview of how digital watermarking can address many of the digital content distribution issues currently facing the entertainment industry at two events this week:

• U.S. House Entertainment Industries Caucus luncheon, today (Monday, Feb. 5, 2007) in Washington DC
• DCIA P2P Media Summit LA, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007, in New York City (http://www.dcia.info/)

The Digital Watermarking Alliance was launched in September 2006 to promote the value of digital watermarking to content owners, industry, policy makers and consumers.

CONTACT: For media inquiries, please contact Jeremy Bartram (Bartram@itstrategies.com or +206-264-1999).

About the Digital Watermarking Alliance
The Digital Watermarking Alliance (DWA) is an international alliance of industry leading companies that deliver valuable digital watermarking technologies and solutions to a broad range of customers and markets around the world. Member companies include Cinea, Inc., a Dolby company (NYSE: DLB – News), Digimarc (Nasdaq: DMRC – News), GCS Research, Gibson, Jura, MediaGrid, Media Science International, Philips Electronics, Signum, Teletrax (Nasdaq: MDLK – News), Thomson (Euronext 18453; NYSE: TMS), Verance, Verimatrix, and Widevine Technologies. For more information, please visit www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org.