TOKYO (June 25, 2001) - ITX Corporation (http://www.itx-corp.co.jp/), a Nissho Iwai affiliated information technology company, has made an investment of six million US dollars in the digital watermarking technology development company, MarkAny Inc. (http://www.markany.com), of South Korea while having jointly established MarkAny Japan Inc., on June 21, which is to cultivate Japanese customers through distributors and provide maintenance and management services for digitally watermarked contents via web site. 

The digital watermarking is the technology for having such digital contents as music, photos, and animations embedded with signals to prevent copying and with copyright data to manage contents so that such contents may not be destroyed or altered. Besides the digital watermarking technology for sound, images, animations, and text files, MarkAny IncDhas also successfully commercialized a watermarking system for medial use, the Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS).

The watermarking technology of MarkAny Inc. enjoys a high reputation from STEP2000 sponsored by Japan Copyright Council and from the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) sponsored by the U.S. Records Association. Watermarking by this technology does not affect the quality of the image or sound at all, with the resulting watermarked data extremely hard to delete. As the volumes of information transmitted increase with the increasing shifting of networks to broadband, needs for copyright protection & management will likely go up, helping make the digital watermarking technology increasingly important to ensure security. 

Also made available by MarkAny Inc. are the customer key, of course, that is made using the hardware information obtained from his or her computer terminal and the security solution, called "DRM", which makes it possible to prevent illegal copying or transmitting of contents by users who share IDs or passwords. 

Capitalized at250million yen (66% and 34% owned by MarkAnyInc. and ITX Corporation respectively, the newly created MarkAny Japan IncDwill work to expand its clients beyond the companies with existing alliance relationships, making a nationwide marketing effort for all the services MarkAny Inc. can offer to respond timely to customer needs. 

ITX and MarkAny are also planning to set up a joint U.S. operation within this year.