[Leica] RE: ADOBE PhotoShop CS is playing Big Brother... [OFFTOPIC]

[Tim Atherton <tim@KairosPhoto.com>]

Forward

Adobe's response (and a link to a source for openable images), as posted at
the Adobe forums by Kevin Connor:

As someone at Adobe who was involved in the decision to include counterfeit
deterrence in Photoshop CS, let me finally provide you with a response to
all
of these concerns and questions. Sorry for the delay!:

Photoshop CS does indeed include a counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) to
prevent the illegal duplication of banknotes. The CDS was created by a
consortium of central banks from around the world. We, along with other
hardware and software manufacturers, have included CDS in our products at
their request to address the threat posed by the use of digital technologies
in
the counterfeiting of banknotes. There are other software products from
other
companies that already use this same technology. There are also hardware
products that use the same or similar technology. For example, most color
copiers sold today will not allow you to copy currency.

As digital imaging technology advances, becoming more broadly available
and user friendly, the old barriers to currency reproduction are becoming
less
effective. The unscrupulous are taking advantage of the functionality that
is
being provided to the vast majority of honest users for the purposes of
counterfeiting currency. In the US and around the world, counterfeiting
through digital means is increasing exponentially, and retailers and the
general public--including our own customers--are at risk.

Counterfeit currency is essentially a hot potato. Whoever holds it last,
loses.
The person who loses isn't necessarily the counterfeiter. There's no
government body in place to "reimburse" people who, through no fault of
their
own, get paid with currency that turns out to be counterfeit. In our
implementation of CDS, we've worked very hard to balance the need to
protect these unsuspecting victims of counterfeiting along with the need to
continue to provide a product that efficiently does what honest customers
need it to do.

There appear to be several major concerns and objections repeated
throughout this message thread, so I'll try to address each one
individually:

1. Performance: CDS does not cause any noticeable slowdown in Photoshop
performance. During most operations performed in Photoshop, CDS is not
used at all. When it is used, the performance impact often is just a
fraction of a
second.

2. Legal use of notes: It is true that the current implementation of CDS
will
prevent you from scanning in your own banknotes even if your usage intent is
entirely within legal boundaries. Regulations for using banknote images vary
by country. It is the responsibility of the central bank in each country to
provide
images that can be used within the legal guidelines of that country. In
other
words, if you want to legally reproduce images of the new $20US bills on a
Web site or in a marketing brochure, you can contact the U.S. Bureau of
Engraving and Printing for legal images that can be opened and manipulated
in Photoshop CS. (You can visit them at www.moneyfactory.com.) Similar
solutions should be available in other countries. If you find that your
central
bank is not providing adequate support to permit legal uses of their
banknote
images, then you should let them know.

3. Adobe's intentions: Please be assured that this implementation of CDS is
not a step down the road towards Adobe becoming "Big Brother." We know
that one of the reasons people love Photoshop is because it's an incredibly
flexible tool that can be used for so many different things. That's also one
of
the reasons we at Adobe enjoy working on new versions. Finding ways to
prevent you from doing things in Photoshop really doesn't interest us!

Moreover, the CDS is not Adobe technology, but was provided by the central
banks, who would have no reason to want to restrict anything other than bank
notes. Counterfeiting is really a special case in which we could see how our
own technology advances were making it easier to commit crimes and we
were asked to implement a solution that would have minimal impact on
honest customers. Yes, there is some impact, in that you need to contact
your
central bank for images, but our hope is that it's not a huge inconvenience
for
that small group of customers who do need to reproduce these images in their
graphic design work. It also provides the central banks with an opportunity
to
better educate customers on exactly what is and isn't legal usage.

Of course, CDS in Photoshop CS is essentially a 1.0 implementation of a
feature, analogous to the state of the layers palette in Photoshop 3.0. We
realize that there may be room for improvement, particularly if there are
corner
usage cases that weren't taken into account in our current designs. We do
want to hear about your concerns, and we definitely want to hear if there's
a
specific problem that this implementation has created for you. As with any
Photoshop feature, we depend on hearing from customers so that we can
make continual improvements release after release.>

- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html