i do not say this to scare people, or to make them feel hopeless; what is hopeless is watching people start cheering for the idea that banging their head into a wall will solve things. here are two pixels of gaussian blur applied to a photo of mine, enough to smudge over any secret invisible pixel pattern
those university students in Chicago, probably quite skilled researchers! but they cannot comprehend that not only is their approach useless for protecting every "Artistic Soul" that already existed in the public, but that it relies on enforcing copyright and property laws. and the reason this happened in the first place is that the rulers of the Internet do not need to follow those laws. it is liberal naivety at best, and a dangerous scam at worst
capitalists hold power, but it doesn't have to be like this!