Chinese authorities issued guidelines on Friday requiring labels on all artificial intelligence-generated content circulated online, aiming to combat the misuse of AI and the spread of false information.
The regulations, jointly issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Radio and Television Administration, will take effect on Sept 1.
A spokesperson for the Cyberspace Administration said the move aims to “put an end to the misuse of AI generative technologies and the spread of false information.”
According to China Daily, “[t]he guidelines stipulate that content generated or synthesized using AI technologies, including texts, images, audios, videos and virtual scenes, must be labeled both visibly and invisibly” (emphasis added by IPTC). This potentially means that IPTC or another form of embedded metadata must be used, in addition to a visible watermark.
“Content identification numbers”
The article goes on to state that “[t]he guideline requires that implicit labels be added to the metadata of generated content files. These labels should include details about the content’s attributes, the service provider’s name or code, and content identification numbers.”
It is not clear from this article which particular identifiers should be used. There is currently no globally-recognised mechanism to identify individual pieces of content by identification numbers, although IPTC Photo Metadata does allow for image identifiers to be included via the Digital Image GUID property and the Video Metadata Hub Video Identifier field, which is based on Dublin Core’s generic dc:identifier property.
According to the article, “Service providers that disseminate content online must verify that the metadata of the content files contain implicit AIGC labels, and that users have declared the content as AI-generated or synthesized. Prominent labels should also be added around the content to inform users.”
Spain’s equivalent legislation on labelling AI-generated content
The Spanish proposal has been approved by the upper house of parliament but must still be approved by the lower house. The legislation will be enforced by the newly-created Spanish AI supervisory agency AESIA.
If companies do not comply with the proposed Spanish legislation, they could incur fines of up to 35 million euros ($38.2 million) or 7% of their global annual turnover.
On behalf of our memberships, IPTC and PLUS respectfully suggest that existing copyright law is sufficient to enable licensing of content to AI platforms. A “fair use” provision does not cover commercial AI training. Existing United States copyright law should be enforced.
IPTC and PLUS Photo Metadata provide a technical means for expressing the creator’s intent as to whether their creations may be used in generative AI training data sets. This takes the form of metadata embedded in image and video files. This solution, in combination with other solutions such as the Text and Data Mining Reservation Protocol, could take the place of a formal licence agreement between parties, making an opt-in approach technically feasible and scalable.
It is true that our technical solutions would also be relevant if the US government chose to implement an opt-out based approach. However, this does not currently protect owners’ rights well due to the routine activity of “metadata stripping” – removing important rights and accessibility metadata that is embedded in media files, in the misguided belief that it will improve site performance. Metadata stripping is performed by many publishers and publishing systems – often inadvertently.
As a result, we can only recommend that the US adopts an opt-in approach. We request that the US government ensures that metadata embedded in media files be declared as a core part of any technical mechanism to declare content owner’s desire for content to be included or excluded from training data sets.
Content creators are a core part of the US economy and have a strong voice. We agree with their position, but we don’t simply come with another voice of complaint: we bring a viable, ready-made technical solution that can be used today to implement true opt-in data mining permissions and reservations.
Close-up screenshot of Pinterest’s label for AI-generated content.
As reported in Social Media Today, Pinterest has started using IPTC embedded Photo Metadata to signal when content in “Image Pins” has been generated by AI.
Reports started in February that Pinterest had started labelling AI-generated images. Now it has been confirmed via an official update to Pinterest’s user documentation.
In the Pinterest documentation, a new section has recently been added that describes how it works:
Screenshot of Pinterest’s help pages showing how IPTC metadata is used to signal AI-generated content.
“Pinterest may display a label in the foreground of an image Pin when we detect that it has been generated or modified with AI. This is in accordance with IPTC standard for photo metadata. We’re working on ways to expand our capabilities to better identify GenAI content in the future through additional technologies.”
On behalf of our memberships, IPTC and PLUS respectfully suggest that existing UK copyright law is sufficient to enable licensing of content to AI platforms. There is no “fair use” provision in UK copyright law, and “fair dealing” does not cover commercial AI training. Existing copyright law should be enforced.
IPTC and PLUS Photo Metadata provide a technical means for expressing the creator’s intent as to whether their creations may be used in generative AI training data sets. This takes the form of metadata embedded in image and video files. This solution, in combination with other solutions such as the Text and Data Mining Reservation Protocol, could take the place of a formal licence agreement between parties, making an opt-in approach technically feasible and scalable.
It is true that our technical solutions would also be relevant if the UK government chooses to implement an “opt-out” approach similar to that adopted in the EU. However, an opt-out-based approach does not currently protect owners’ rights well, due to the routine activity of “metadata stripping” – removing important rights and accessibility metadata that is embedded in media files, in the misguided belief that it will improve site performance. Metadata stripping is performed by many publishers and publishing systems – often inadvertently. (See our research on metadata stripping by social media platforms from 2019; very little has changed since then)
As a result, we can only recommend that the UK adopts an opt-in approach. We request that the UK ensures metadata embedded in media files be declared as a core part of any technical mechanism to declare content owner’s desire for content to be included or excluded from training data sets.
During the course of this consultation, it has become clear that content creators are a core part of the UK economy and have a strong voice. We agree with their position, but we don’t simply come with another voice of complaint: we bring a viable, ready-made technical solution that can be used today to implement true opt-in data mining permissions and reservations.
The IPTC is happy to announce that EIDR and IPTC have signed a liaison agreement, committing to work together on projects of mutual interest including media metadata, content distribution technologies and work on provenance and authenticity for media.
The Entertainment Identifier Registry Association (EIDR) was established to provide a universal identifier registry that supports the full range of asset types and relationships between assets. Members of EIDR include Apple, Amazon MGM Studios, Fox, the Library of Congress, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and many more.
EIDR’s primary focus is managing globally unique, curated, and resolvable content identification (which applies equally to news and entertainment media), via the Emmy Award-winning EIDR Content ID, and content delivery services, via the EIDR Video Service ID. In support of this, EIDR is built upon and helps promulgate the MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework (MDDF), a suite of standards and specifications that address core aspects of digital distribution, including identification, metadata, avails, asset delivery, and reporting.
IPTC’s Video Metadata Hub standard already provides a mapping to EIDR’s Data Fields and the MDDF fields from related organisation MovieLabs. The organisations will work together to keep these mappings up-to-date and to work on future initiatives including making C2PA metadata work for both the news and the entertainment sides of the media industry. IPTC members have already started working in this area via IPTC’s Media Provenance Committee.
“In the Venn diagram of media, there is significant overlap between news and entertainment interests in descriptive metadata standards, globally-unique content identification, and media provenance and authenticity,” said Richard W. Kroon, EIDR’s director of technical operations. “By working together, we each benefit from the other’s efforts and can bring forth useful standards and practices that span the entire commercial media industry.
“Our hope here is to find common ground that can align our respective metadata standards to support seamless metadata management across the commercial media landscape.”
Helge, Judy, Bruce and Charlie speaking at the Origin Media Provenance Summit in October 2024.
In October 2024, 70 people representing 30 organisations from 15 countries across four continents gathered at the BBC building in Salford to join the Origin Media Provenance Seminar. The seminar was organised by BBC R&D with partners from Media Cluster Norway(MCN) in Bergen.
Media provenance is a way to record digitally signed information about the provenance of imagery, video and audio – information (or signals) that shows where a piece of media has come from and how it’s been edited. Like an audit trail or a history, these signals are called ‘content credentials’, and are developed as an open standard by the C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity). Content credentials have just been selected by Time magazine as one of their ‘Best Inventions of 2024’.
Attendees came from all over the world, including the US, Japan, all over Europe, and also sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the BBC blog post:
In order for news organisations to show their consumers that they really are looking at some content from the real “BBC”, content credentials use the same technology as websites – digital certificates – to prove who signed it. The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) has created a programme called “Origin Verified News Publishers”, which allows news organisations to register to get their identity checked. Once their ID has been verified, they can get a certificate, which gives consumers assurance that the content certifiably comes from the organisation they have chosen to trust.
An image created with Google’s Gemini model. The image contains values for the IPTC Photo Metadata properties Digital Source type (trainedAlgorithmnicMedia) and Credit (“Made with Google AI”).
On Thursday, Google announced that it will be extending its usage of AI content labelled using the IPTC Digital Source Type vocabulary.
In a blog post published on Friday, John Fisher, Engineering Director for Google Photos and Google One posted that “[n]ow we’re taking it a step further, making this information visible alongside information like the file name, location and backup status in the Photos app.”
Go Ohtake of NHK in Japan presents their prototype C2PA viewer on a Web TV platform at the EBU stand, IBC 2024.
Over a weekend in mid-September every year, Europe’s (and increasingly the world’s) broadcast media industry gets together at IBC, the International Broadcasting Convention.
IPTC members were well represented at this year’s event:
IPTC Startup Members Factiverse were out in full force promoting their automated fact-checking solution, which can now be integrated into any media asset management tool via an API.
Fellow Startup Members HAND – Human & Digital presented their work on an IBC Accelerator project looking at called “Digital Replicas and Talent ID: Provenance, Verification and New Automated Workflows” along with Paramount, ITV, EZDRM and The Scan Truck.
Moments Lab (previously known as Newsbridge) presented their video segmentation and annotation systems on a very well attended stand.
The BBC featured in many sessions. Judy Parnall, lead of IPTC’s Media Provenance Committee’s Advocacy and Education Working Group, presented two papers, both concerning the BBC’s work with C2PA, leading to the BBC’s work with Project Origin and the IPTC Media Provenance Committee. One was presented along with new IPTC Individual Member, John Simmons.
Newly upgraded to IPTC Voting Members, he European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had a very popular stand demonstrating several accelerator projects, including the best demonstrator of C2PA we have yet seen: an end-to-end workflow from a Content Credential-enabled Leica camera, along with AI-generated content from Adobe Firefly, edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, and published using WDR’s publisher certificate which is on the new IPTC Verified News Publisher list. IPTC Managing Director Brendan Quinn gave a short presentation at the EBU stand’s C2PA meet-up event, explaining the IPTC’s recently-announced work on the Verified News Publisher List. Other speakers at the meet-up were Kenneth from WDR, Andy Parsons from Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative, Go Ohtake of NHK (who demonstrated a prototype C2PA application running on a Web TV platform), and project lead Lucille Verbaere of the EBU.
Media Cluster Norway (previously known as Media City Bergen) ran an awesome breakfast event about Project Reynir, their project to make Norway’s media ecosystem a pathfinder for C2PA technology from one end of the production workflow to the other, including vendors such as VizRT and Wolftech, Norwegian news agency NTB and more.
Liaison partner The DPP had a great reception where the industry came together to discuss future projects including the Live Production Exchange project on which IPTC is assisting via our News in JSON (ninjs) Working Group.
Of course Adobe and Google both had enormous and well attended stands, Associated Press and Reuters were receiving a lot of attention (particular after Reuters’ acquisition of digital content management company Imagen last year). Arqiva and Broadcast Solutions were also represented with well-attended stands.
From what we could see, all IPTC members who attended the convention had a very successful time, and we look forward to many future successful events.
Screenshot of the IPTC Origin Verifier tool showing the content sample from German broadcaster WDR.
AMSTERDAM, 13 September 2024 — The International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) has announced Phase 1 of the IPTC Verified News Publishers List at the International Broadcast Convention (IBC).
The list uses C2PA technology to enable verified provenance for the news media industry. News outlets apply for a certificate from a partner Certificate Authority (currently Truepic), with the IPTC verifying the identity of the publisher. The certificate is then used by the news outlet to sign content, in accordance with the C2PA specification’s handling of “additional trust anchor stores”. This means that the news publisher is the signer of the content. This is a key requirement for many media outlets.
Currently the BBC (UK), CBC / Radio Canada (Canada) and broadcaster WDR (Germany) have certificates on the Verified News Publishers List. Many more publishers and broadcasters are currently in the process of obtaining a certificate. To register your interest as a news publisher, please fill out the Verified News Publisher expression of interest form.
To make the process of verifying and approving certificate requests transparent and accountable, the IPTC has released a set of policies for issuing Verified News Publisher certificates covering Phase 1 of the project. The process includes a “fast track” process for media organisations that are already well known to IPTC, and also a self-certification track. The policies were approved by the IPTC membership at a recent meeting of the IPTC Media Provenance Committee.
Verifying publisher identity, not trustworthiness
Note: as we have always made clear, the IPTC is making no claims about the truth or trustworthiness of content published by news publishers on the IPTC Verified News Publisher List. We simply verify that the publisher is “who they say they are”, and then the signature will verify that the content was published by that publisher, and has not been tampered with since the point of publishing.
We make it clear in the governance policies that a certificate can be revoked if the certificate’s private key has been compromised in some way, but we will not revoke certificates for editorial reasons.
Online verifier tool
The IPTC has worked with the BBC to launch a simple Verified News Publisher content verifier tool hosted at https://originverify.iptc.org. The tool displays a special indicator when content has been signed by an organisation whose certificate is on the Verified News Publisher list. The IPTC has also published a set of Verified News Publisher sample content that can be used with the verifier to demonstrate the process in action.
Sharing best practices, resources and knowledge among news publishers
For IPTC members, the Media Provenance Committee has created an internal members-only wiki detailing best practices and lessons learned while implementing C2PA and the Verified News Publisher List at broadcasters and publishers. Information on the wiki includes technical details on how to generate a certificate signing request to obtain a certificate, how to sign content with open-source and commercial tools, how to deal with publishing and distribution technology such as streaming servers and content delivery networks, and how to add metadata to C2PA assertions embedded in media content.
Other IPTC and Media Provenance-related events at IBC this weekend:
Judy Parnall (BBC), Lead of the IPTC Media Provenance Advocacy Working Group, spoke on a panel on “Content Tracing and Provenance” this morning (Friday) at the AI Zone.
Judy is also presenting a paper at the IBC Conference on Saturday 14 September: Provenance: What can we Trust?, along with IPTC Individual Member John Simmons.
On Sunday 15 September, Judy presents IBC’s Accelerator Project “Design Your Weapons in Fight Against Disinformation” on the IBC Innovation Stage, along with tech leaders from CBS, Associated Press and ITN.
Screenshot of the English version of cipa.jp, the home page of the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA), a consortium of camera manufacturers mostly based in Japan.
The IPTC has signed a liaison agreement with the Japanese camera-makers organisation and creators of the Exif metadata standard, CIPA.
CIPA members include all of the major camera manufacturers, including Nikon, Canon, Sony, Panasonic, FUJIFILM and more. Several software vendors who work with imaging are also members, including Adobe, Apple and Microsoft.
CIPA publishes guidelines and standards for camera manufacturers and imaging software developers. The most important of these from an IPTC point of view is the Exif standard for photographic metadata.
The IPTC and CIPA have had an informal relationship for many years, staying in touch regularly regarding developments in the world of image metadata. Given that the two organisations manage two of the most important standards for embedding metadata into image and video files, it’s important that we keep each other up to date.
Now the relationship has been formalised, meaning that the organisations can request to observe each other’s meetings, exchange members-only information when needed, and share information about forthcoming developments and industry requirements for new work in the field of media metadata and in related areas.
The news has also been announced by CIPA. According to the news post on CIPA’s website, “CIPA has signed a liaison agreement regarding the development of technical standards for metadata attached to captured image with International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), the international organization consists of the world’s leading news agencies, publishers and industry vendors.”
