Protecting on-line Images

[wendyg]

How do the copyright laws work, and what can be done to preserve the copyright on image posted on-line?

I've seen pics with a huge great (C) stamp across them, really hideous.
Pic with a fairly subtle watermark, which could with effort be cloned out


I've heard that it's possible to prevent an image being downloaded or copied, how do you do that?

[4hero]

Hello, if the photo is online then it can be copied, regardless of what you do to your site to prevent this. The print screen button is always on

Upload a low resolution copy of the image, and keep it as small as you are happy with. Also, feel free to add a watermark, but it does spoil the shot to be honest.

It's impossible to prevent people from stealing your images. If you are that concerned, do not upload any.

[wendyg]

Ok so the key is low-res images, thanks

The basic problem is setting up a website for a fairly small local camera club. The older members particularly, are worried about their pics being taken and used without their permission, and clearly we cannot deny that it's possible, however unlikey.

What do other sites do?

w

[4hero]

I could advise on simple things (build websites for a living). There's some simple steps you could do to prevent people right clicking and saving the image (and no, it's nothing to do with javascript )

You could make it difficult for the general user who doesn't know about disabling css and the likes, but the key really is to keep the images low res (72 dpi, 800px max width), and if the older members want watermarks then add them!

Edited to say, you could make the images creative commons on the site, at least it's something to protect from commercial use.

http://creativecommons.org/international/uk/

Edited by 4hero on Wednesday 15th April 23:26

[RobDickinson]

Never put anything online your not prepaird to lose.

So low quality/low resolution.

You can add subtle hard to remove copyright watermarks if you want.

[wendyg]

Not understanding the Creative Commons stuff, but really appreciating the general advice Hero. So a posted image of 800px at 72 dpi would generate a usable print at what size? (This is the stuff they're asking!) 4X6 inch, or smaller!?

[wendyg]

RobDickinson said:

You can add subtle hard to remove copyright watermarks if you want.

How do you do this? Advice appreciated.

[beanbag]

It's pricey, but it works:

www.digimarc.com

[wendyg]

beanbag said:

It's pricey, but it works:

www.digimarc.com

Just looked at their site. Took me a while to penetrate their business/wkspeak. Blimey

I'm sure they do this corporate stuff very well, possibly overkill for my needs

[jazzybee]

beanbag said:

It's pricey, but it works:

www.digimarc.com

Thats an invisible watermark you can track, or you use a visible watermark. Another simple alternative is to call the image within a flash viewer and embed the viewer in the page. Makes it a little more difficult - and a little slower to load the page, but should work.

[wendyg]

jazzybee said:

Another simple alternative is to call the image within a flash viewer and embed the viewer in the page. Makes it a little more difficult - and a little slower to load the page, but should work.

Of course, why didn't I think of that!!

(OK that means nothing to me!)

[4hero]

not everyone has flash installed, ignore that option

[Carfolio]

No technological solution will magically prevent unauthorised use of digital works. A combination of managing expectations of the photographers and clever licensing will be your best bet.

[stigmundfreud]

hi wendy take a quick peek at my site if you like

www.clicketyclicks.co.uk

it uses files linked from flickr which, if I wanted, I could make private on there (not viewable, searchable) but for my site to display them. I display random small images on the sides and then a scalable flash slideshow on the portraits page which is default 500x500 pixels. This means I only have to upload small res files to flickr but as I am not arsed I upload the full size images the movie just brings them pack and scales as I want.

Site took 10 minutes to create too

[RobDickinson]

wendyg said:

RobDickinson said:

You can add subtle hard to remove copyright watermarks if you want.

How do you do this? Advice appreciated.

Cheap but slow way is in photoshop add text to a new layer ( I prefer a lot of small text) then set colour etc and set that layer to 20-40% opaque etc.

I have saved out a few layers with copyright text on and just cipy those across to images if I require, you can see the results on www.bigskyart.co.nz

[miniman]

jazzybee said:

Another simple alternative is to call the image within a flash viewer and embed the viewer in the page. Makes it a little more difficult - and a little slower to load the page, but should work.

How does that stop Print Screen + Paste?

[VxDuncan]

In addition to the above (though again doesn't actually stop people stealing your images and can be removed) you could add a copyright legend to the EXIF data on the jpeg. I have my D300 set up by default to do this (may not be available on other cameras however). Also means if the camera is stolen or you lose a memeroy card then it is always linked back to you. (Until they notice the exif legend that is)

[mikee boy]

If you post it on the internet people can use it.

Personally I don't have a problem with people using my photos because I don't try to make a living out of it. I give photos to people who are in them or may be interested in them and it's nice to get appreciated for helping people out. If somebody likes one of my photos enough to want to steal it then that's actually quite flattering, I just wish they'd asked for a better quality version to do the picture justice.

I think a lot of people ruin average photos with watermarks, while at the same time there's a lot of excellent photography on the internet without such copyright hang-ups.

[4hero]

miniman said:

jazzybee said:

Another simple alternative is to call the image within a flash viewer and embed the viewer in the page. Makes it a little more difficult - and a little slower to load the page, but should work.

How does that stop Print Screen + Paste?

It doesn't. You are easier doing this, try right clicking on the image and saving. Savvy people can still view the source, and get the path to the images, but the same can be done with flash if people know what they are doing

Edited by 4hero on Thursday 16th April 10:43

[miniman]

4hero said:

You are easier doing this, try right clicking on the image and saving.

Wow, that works a treat I wonder why people bother. Bottom line is this: if your image is on the web, someone will be able to steal it if they want to. A "solution" that doesn't even stand up to View... Source is pretty pathetic isn't it? At very least they could add it as a background image on a div so one would need the FF dev toolbar to really get into the code enough to find it.