Watermark-based traceability now feeds directly into legal recovery, giving stock agencies, news wires, and brands a single path from detection to compensation

RENNES, France & BOSTON, MA — July 21, 2026 — IMATAG, the invisible watermarking and content traceability company, and ImageRights International, Inc., one of the longest-established copyright enforcement services for the visual industry, today announced that ImageRights has joined the IMATAG Copyright Enforcement Partner Program.

The partnership pairs a recognized traceability technology with an established enforcement practice. Images watermarked with IMATAG carry a persistent, invisible identifier that survives cropping, resizing, compression, re-encoding, and screenshots. When those images surface online without authorization, ImageRights' license compliance team and its global network of legal partners take the case forward — negotiating, recovering fees, and pursuing court proceedings where required.

For rights holders, the result is a seamless experience: integrate IMATAG's proven traceability technology once, and see tangible results through cases handled by legal experts at ImageRights.

A single workflow, end-to-end

1. Mark. IMATAG embeds an invisible, indelible identifier at the point of distribution, tied to the asset, its owner, its license, and its recipient.

2. Find. IMATAG's crawlers and visual search detect watermarked assets in the wild, returning verified matches rather than probabilistic look-alikes.

3. Recover. Confirmed unauthorized uses are routed to ImageRights, where copyright experts and a worldwide network of law firms handle resolution — with no upfront cost or financial risk to the rights holder.

Coverage that scales to difficult collections

Because the identifier travels inside the pixels, the partnership extends protection to categories that have historically been hard to enforce, including non-exclusive content and large volumes of visually similar images. Two near-identical frames from the same shoot, licensed to different clients under different terms, remain individually distinguishable — which turns an ambiguous sighting into an actionable, evidence-backed claim.

The combined offer is designed for:

• Stock photo collections, where similar imagery and multi-licensee distribution are the norm.

• News wires and agencies, where syndication chains make attribution and license expiry difficult to reconstruct.

• Brands enforcing their IP, where campaign visuals, product shots, and embargoed assets circulate far beyond the intended channels.

More than a referral relationship

Under the Copyright Enforcement Partner Program, the two companies will pursue joint go-to-market activity across three tracks:

• Co-marketing, joint campaigns, industry events, and shared presence in the photo, media, and brand-protection communities.

• Co-education, webinars, guides, and practical material helping rights holders understand what makes a claim defensible.

• Co-selling, coordinated commercial motion so customers reach a working, integrated setup quickly.

Quotes

"We have built IMATAG on one conviction: an image should carry its origin with it, everywhere it travels. That conviction is becoming infrastructure for the entire visual economy — for copyright, for provenance, for trust in what we see. Partnering with ImageRights turns that infrastructure into outcomes our customers can measure." Mathieu Desoubeaux, CEO IMATAG

"The next chapter of copyright enforcement belongs to rights holders who can prove ownership instantly and at scale. IMATAG gives them that proof; our legal network across four continents turns it into recovered revenue. Together we are making enforcement a routine, predictable part of running a visual business."  Joe Naylor, CEO, ImageRights International

Availability

The joint offer is available now. Rights holders can request a walkthrough at imatag.com/contact or imagerights.com/contact

About IMATAG

IMATAG provides invisible watermarking and visual content traceability for media companies, photo agencies, and brands. Founded in 2015 in Rennes, France, by researchers from INRIA, IMATAG's patented technology embeds a hidden, robust identifier into images and video that persists through cropping, resizing, compression, and screenshots, enabling reliable identification of content and its source online. IMATAG is an active contributor to content authenticity and provenance standards, including C2PA. More at www.imatag.com.

About ImageRights International, Inc.

ImageRights International, Inc. provides AI-driven image search and copyright enforcement services to photo agencies, image archives, professional photographers, media companies, and brands worldwide. Through its in-house license compliance team and global network of legal partners, ImageRights negotiates and collects fees for unauthorized use — directly or through court proceedings — without clients bearing upfront costs or financial risk. ImageRights also operates a fully automated U.S. Copyright Office registration service. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. More at www.imagerights.com.

Media Contacts

IMATAG Paul Melcher, Strategic Partnerships. paul@imatag.com

ImageRights International Joe G. Naylor, President & CEO. joe.naylor@imagerights.com