American technology giant IBM wants to patent a technology that when it ends up in commercial printers, it could stop regular consumers from printing copyright protected content. The company has filed a patent with the US Patent Office describing a printer that is able to determine whether content is copyrighted or not.
The content is matched against a database that contains images and text and includes information on who owns the content, the license of the content, whether it's allowed to print the content and how many prints are allowed. If no printing is allowed, the printer won't print.
The technology is designed prevent unauthorized reproduction, according to the patent that was submitted a year ago but published a couple of days ago.
IBM not only wants to prevent copyright violations but also wants to contribute to fair use of copyrighted works, where there is a balance between the interests of the rights holder and the public.
