If I had a time machine, I would go back in time to find the father of whoever came up with the idea of adding copy protections to JPEG images, and kick that man in the nuts so hard that he would be rendered sterile:
So much for hopes that the tech industry would back away from copyright protection any time soon. The Joint Photographic Experts Group recently launched a Privacy & Security initiative that potentially brings digital rights management (DRM) to regular JPEG images, not just the specialized JPEG 2000 format. The proposal could protect your privacy by encrypting metadata (such as where you took a photo), but it could also prevent you from copying or opening some pictures. Needless to say, that opens up a can of worms when it comes to fair use rights. If someone slapped DRM on a photo, you couldn’t use it for news, research or remixed art — many of the internet memes you know wouldn’t be possible.
This is so unbelievably stupid.