According to social critic and philosopher
The system of the public sphere is extremely complex, consisting of spatial and communicational publics of different sizes, which can overlap, exclude and cover, but also mutually influence each other. Public sphere is not something that just happens, but also produced through social norms and rules, and channeled via the construction of spaces and the media. In the ideal situation the public sphere is transparent and accessible for all citizens, issues and opinions. For democratic societies the public sphere constitutes an extremely important element within the process of public opinion formation.
TEXTBLOCK 1/3 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611734/100438658403
Ciphers as well as codes are transmitted openly. Everyone can see that they exist. Not so with steganograms.
Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the secret part in that communication. During the Italian Renaissance and the time of the Elizabethan Age in England cryptography was very popular, for political reasons as well as for amusements (see John Dee).
In literature steganography played an important role. Many steganographs of that period have only been deciphered recently like some of the Shakespearean sonnets, which now seem to proof that the actor William Shakespeare was not the author of the famous poems and dramas, but that the latter' name was, and Francis Bacon, or even Francis Tudor, as some ciphers and other sources talk of him as Queen Elisabeth I.'s secret son.
for further details see:
One kind of steganogram is digital watermarking:
Watermarks protect digital images, videos, but also audio and multimedia products. They are made out of digital signals, put into other digital signals. They try to be invisible on first sight and should be nearly impossible to remove. The process of producing watermarks is to overlay some sort of identifying image over the original image (non-digital watermarks, like on money can be seen by holding the paper against light). Copying the image destroys the watermark, which cannot be copied. Any alteration of the original destroys the watermark, too.
Watermarking is one of the typical inventions of cryptography to assist the biggest content owners, but advertised as something necessary and helpful for everybody. Who in fact gets any advantage out of watermarking? The private user most of the time will not really need it except for small entities of pictures maybe.
But the big enterprises do. There is a tendency to watermark more and more information in the Internet, which until now was considered as free and as a cheap method to receive information. Watermarking could stop this democratic development.
for further information see:
TEXTBLOCK 2/3 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438659021
Copyright protection generally means that certain uses of a work are lawful only if they are done with the authorization of the owner of the copyright. The most typical are the following:
- copying or reproducing a work
- performing a work in public
- making a sound recording of a work
- making a motion picture of a work
- broadcasting a work
- translating a work
- adapting a work
Under certain national laws, some of these rights, which are referred to, as "economic rights'" are not exclusive rights of authorization but in specific cases, merely rights to remuneration. Some strictly determined uses (for example quotations or the use of works by way of illustration for teaching) are completely free, that is, they require neither authorization of, nor remuneration for, the owner of the copyright. This practice is described as
In addition to economic rights, authors enjoy "moral rights" on the basis of which they have the right to claim their authorship and require that their names be indicated on the copies of the work and in connection with other uses thereof. They also have the right to oppose the mutilation or deformation of their creations.
The owner of a copyright may usually transfer his right or may license certain uses of his work. Moral rights are generally inalienable and remain with the creator even after he has transferred his economic rights, although the author may waive their exercise.
Furthermore there exist rights related to copyright that are referred to as "neighboring rights". In general there are three kinds of neighboring rights: 1) the rights of performing artists in their performances, 2) the rights of producers of phonograms in their phonograms, and 3) the rights of broadcasting organizations in their radio and television programs. Neighboring rights attempt to protect those who assist intellectual creators to communicate their message and to disseminate their works to the public at large.
TEXTBLOCK 3/3 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611725/100438659584
The economic rights (besides