Who can download our photos ....

[John Peri]

I came across a page on a Yahoo Photo Site (see text below) that

allows the contributor the option of deciding who can download his

photos. This is something that is missing from Photo net and that

would inspire a great deal more confidence in its members, were it to

be included.

Only yesterday, I was informed that several PN members incuding

myself had their photos pirated by an individual who posted them as

his own on Flickr.

John

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Configure who can see the option to download larger versions of your

photos.

 

Allowing downloads

Your Account /

 

This is a global setting. It applies to all of your photos, except

photos you have licensed with Creative Commons, (because doing that

means you're OK with people using it).

 

When people are looking at a photo page (e.g.), they will see a

button labelled "all sizes" underneath the photo title. From there,

they can download any of the different photo sizes available,

including the original file, unless you choose to prevent it.

 

Preventing people from downloading a photo also means that a

transparent image will be positioned over the photo on the photo

page, which is intended to discourage* people from right-clicking to

save the photo, or dragging the photo to their desktop.

 

If people are unable to access a photo of yours -- for example if

you've marked it as private -- they won't be allowed to download the

original photo either.

 

People with free accounts aren't able to offer their original image

files for download.

 

 

Who can download your photos?

Only You

Your Friends and/or Family

Your Contacts

Any Flickr User

Anyone (Recommended)

 

 

 

Or, return to your account page.

[m_t4]

I'd have thought that both the original image and this transparent image would be cached ?

[pmj]

Of course, the blank overlay isn't any real protection from downloading. They make this

quite clear in the footnote:

 

<p>

 

<i>By "discourage" we do mean simply "discourage". Please understand that if a photo can

be viewed in a web browser, it can be saved. The transparent image overlaid on the photo

will not keep your images safe from theft, and is intended only as a slight hindrance to

downloading.</i>

 

<p>

 

Now, it might actually be a nice idea to limit access to certain folders to a specific group of

people. Perhaps marking fellow members as friends to grant them access. Or setting up a

password, which you could then send to clients, family, friends (who may not all be

photo.net members).

 

<p>

 

Folders could then be marked

 

<ul>

<li> "public" -- all images available to everyone, all sizes

<li> "large for friends only" -- all images available in small and medium to everyone, large

size only to photo.net friends

<li> "large with password only" -- similar to previous one

<li> "for friends only" -- no access unless the photographer marked you as a friend

<br>

or

<li> "with password only" -- no access unless you have the folder's password.

</ul>

 

Well, just thinking out loud here. Perhaps Brian has spent more time thinking about this

already.

[John Peri]

Apologies, I must have misunderstood. However, if you click on a photo at ONE.MODEL.PLACE, you get a sign saying that copy is not possible, so surely there must exist a way of doing this ....

http://www.onemodelplace.com/showcase.cfm?ist=6

[Landrum Kelly]

If anybody wants to download my photos for non-commercial uses, they are welcome to them. If I were a better photographer, perhaps I would feel differently. I would hope that, if my photos are used, that attribution would be given.

 

If I print my photos from a much larger file, by contrast, then that printed image cannot easily be copied. I do not routinely make huge files available on the web.

 

--Lannie

[John Peri]

Hy Lannie,

If photos are posted, then they are put at disposal for public view. The issue (for me) is not to have them associated with another author or, worse still, with a site that offers work of a disreputable kind. I am particularly concerned in this respect with the younger models that I photograph even if the photos that I show are selected very carefully.

[mottershead]

ONE.MODEL.PLACE is just pulling the wool over your eyes. If you can see the image on your computer monitor, obviously your computer already has the bits for that image, and you can get at them if you want. When flickr says "discourage" they mean discourage. But this is discouraging people like leaving the keys in your car and putting a big sign on the window that says "Kindly don't steal this car" is "discouraging" people. The only people will be deterred are the ones that weren't going to steal it anyway.

[bobatkins]

John - we've had this discussion MANY times here. The fact is that you cannot prevent images being copied. You can be discouraged, and if you don't know anything about computers, that may be enough, but anyone with the computer skills of the average teenager can still copy them.

 

If you think the OneModelPlace scheme works, think again...<div></div>

[John Peri]

I see that it was very naive of me to start this discussion. Thank you for clarifying the issue. John

[will king]

John, just as a FYI, you can hit the Print Screen key on your keyboard, it copies any active window on your monitor and you can paste it into photoshop. I think the legal disclaimer photo.net has is sufficient. Any other mechanism is superfluous.

[keith turrill]

There are a few websites that use a combination of frames and Shockwave SWF files for images. While not as straight forward as HTML pages with JPG and GIF files, it is a simple matter to pull the SWF files out of "Temporary Internet Files" and save them.

 

As with all of the other comments above, if you are looking at an image on your screen, it is already somewhere on your computer.

[neild]

It comes back to the 'old' adage, <i>"If you do not want anyone to copy your digital images then do not upload them to the internet."</i>

[lex_jenkins]

Naw, it's not naive, John. But with the current technology it's just impractical to impose any sort of practical copy protection scheme. Several years ago I read some claims that publishing photos in PDF documents would prevent theft. It doesn't. Screen captures still work.

 

The only workable methods are posting JPEGs or GIFs too small to be worth reusing - which still won't work if the goal is to use 'em online rather than for making paper prints - or superimposing visible "watermarks".

 

BTW, a potential problem with sites like Flickr is that the site owners usually reserve the right to reuse anything posted to their site for advertising or in any way they see fit, with or without the permission of the photographer. If I was concerned about reserving the rights to my photos for myself, I'd use only a site that guaranteed full rights to me (which probably equals subscription fee) or would upload photos only to my own domain.

[sidbolden]

Perhaps there should be limitations for those that are non contributing members

[John Peri]

But then, even contributing ones can download them ....

[yianni]

I think that it is not difficult for photo.net to disable the right click option and I can't understand why it has not been implemented already. I agree it won't completely solve the problem because of the print screen option but IMO it will deter at least some users from just easily right clicking the "save image as" which is fast, easy and much more tempting to do. There are actually some who would not put themselves into all that trouble of print screen, copy, paste, crop in photoshop for an image. If there was no value in this at all then why some other sites like onemodelplace have disabled right clicking? Are they unaware of the print screen option? I really can't explain this logic "we can't completely cure the patient so we may as well let him die...". Just some thoughts...

Regards,

Yianni

[John Peri]

I absolutely agree with Yianni. It would discourage many people who simply do not know how to or cannot be bothered to go further. It may also encourage us to show some work that we do not want to for that reason.

 

I like your paradigma with the sick patient! But first, you must be able to recognize the disease.

[deniznyc]

I had read somewhere that there is a way to impose an invisible water mark... kind of like a black light mark it is only present in the code so when someone reposts, you can make the pirating blow up in their face like a dye bag laced bag of cash. Of course you can always register your images with the national archive I dont know about how much it costs but... AND you can always sue for stealing provided that you have evidence such as the invisible water mark or the fact that YOU posted the image here before they did. They can always claim that they took the image but if its blatant like they live in Michigan, you live in NYC the pic was taken in NYC and they have never been there, they are caught. Hell you might even let them sell your work FOR YOU until they build up a name on other peoples work and then expose them, you ruin their name, you get the money and they go to jail. Theft of a large enough scale is grand larceny and punishable by jail.

[ernestosancliments]

The Problem with onemodelplace.com restriction on the image saving is that it is just a javascript script that can be easily disabled in your browser settings. I have done my bit of web dev. So if someone really wants your picture, they'll have it. Never heard of anyone impersonating another artist though, sounds creepy! and I don't even think the phrase 'Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery' exactly applies. It is definitely the nastiest form of imitation and although it may not make you feel better, I know that no one ever tried to impersonate me or my talent! congratulations!...kind of.

[paul_r8]

I think that watermarking the whole image is the best way to go in this situation. Its time consuming to remove the watermarks and still make the pic look like it never had any.

[John Peri]

I think that's probbly the only answer, you are right. Thank you ..

[robertvarga]

The comments about people being able to download despite protections being in place is true. If they want to get around it they can. While some protection would be useful to stop the casual thief I think that a useful measure would definitely be to allow only members to view larger versions of the images as Patrick states with different levels of access for different people.

 

Landrum, I think the problem is that while it would be fine for people to download an image to use as wallpaper I think it's another matter for them to download an image to pass-off or sell as their own.

 

Personally I would only upload an image no larger than 1024x768 (with frame - 800x600 without frame) with high compression (60-70%) watermarked and with a tag. And based upon what Vrindavan has said I would include an email address or URL as well so if it is published or used elsewhere people can contact you. I'm just amazed they would not only steal your work but then print it with the your logo as well.

 

Yes, any thief can remove these but it will make it more difficult for them and recompressing a highly compressed file will also add to this.