[STOCKPHOTO] Re: Comp question to photographers in general.

[Ed Verkaik]

You can't stop people from getting access to the images they see on the
screen. Their browser caches these images on their hard drives, and all
they need to know is how to open the cache with an image browser. They
can use these to compose a page. Or steal an image.

I am getting a little tired of hearing this old line. You CAN do things to
stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We just bought HTML Guardian
Enterprise, which has a number of protection schemes built in. Besides
disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and text copying, it breaks images up
into cryptically-named file bits so your cache becomes useless as a source
of usable material. There is no simple way to recombine the bits. Our site
will have iron-clad access prevention, and anyone who wants a watermarked
comp or a thumbnail will have to ask, and give us their company info.
Welcome to the 21st century, where your IP will only have value if you guard
access closely. To get an unwatermarked comp will require an invoice.

So it's a good thing to get users to digitally sign a formal agreement
before they use an image for composition. IMHO, you do this by making it
easier to get the image, and giving them a somewhat better copy.

I agree with your intention but not your method. Everything comes down to
trust, and as far as I'm concerned you can't trust users to respect your IP
rights. They will have to prove they deserve to be trusted with our images!
The law provides no protection unless you are rich enough to hire lawyers to
fight court cases- an impractical solution to the vast majority of image
theft, And that only works when the abuser is within your jurisdiction. So
the only real protection is limiting access.

Anyone have the guts to join me in a race to the TOP for a change?

Ed Verkaik





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[Jim Hargan]

Humm. I prefer to do business with people I trust, and to treat them as
trustworthy. And yes, this means that I won't do business with someone
whose honesty I suspect; it has saved me more than it has cost me.

As for casual stealing of web site thumbs, I think there is a point
where protecting yourself from minor thievery isn't worth the cost. HTML
Guardian Enterprise seems to be a case in point. I mean, they don't use
their own technology to protect their own website! I couldn't open their
FAQ page -- not very confidence building for a web site program peddler.
But I suspect that their solemn silence on the subject of searchability
is because a Guardianized page will remain invisible to Google as well
as to thieves. And what happens to alt tags when you Guardianize an
image? Search engines use alt tags very heavily.

I would also like to point out that disabling the right click will also
disable "Open in New Tab". This is the sort of interference with your
client's web experience that drives them from your site, into the far
more open arms of your competitors.

I am not happy with my current approach, so I have no recommendations of
my own. I am looking, however, at the following steps:
a. No images bigger than 400 pixels on the long dimensions;
b. Jpeg at 40
c. Copyright and contact info in IPTC and EXIF
d. Seganographic marking.
None of this should interfere with web access, searchability, or client
experience.


Jim Hargan

Post by Ed Verkaik

You can't stop people from getting access to the images they see on the
screen. Their browser caches these images on their hard drives, and all
they need to know is how to open the cache with an image browser. They
can use these to compose a page. Or steal an image.

I am getting a little tired of hearing this old line. You CAN do things to
stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We just bought HTML Guardian
Enterprise, which has a number of protection schemes built in. Besides
disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and text copying, it breaks images up
into cryptically-named file bits so your cache becomes useless as a source
of usable material. There is no simple way to recombine the bits. Our site
will have iron-clad access prevention, and anyone who wants a watermarked
comp or a thumbnail will have to ask, and give us their company info.
Welcome to the 21st century, where your IP will only have value if you guard
access closely. To get an unwatermarked comp will require an invoice.

So it's a good thing to get users to digitally sign a formal agreement
before they use an image for composition. IMHO, you do this by making it
easier to get the image, and giving them a somewhat better copy.

I agree with your intention but not your method. Everything comes down to
trust, and as far as I'm concerned you can't trust users to respect your IP
rights. They will have to prove they deserve to be trusted with our images!
The law provides no protection unless you are rich enough to hire lawyers to
fight court cases- an impractical solution to the vast majority of image
theft, And that only works when the abuser is within your jurisdiction. So
the only real protection is limiting access.
Anyone have the guts to join me in a race to the TOP for a change?
Ed Verkaik

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[Shaughn Clements]

Jim

Showing my lack of computer knowledge but what is Seganographic
marking?

Shaughn

Post by Jim Hargan
Humm. I prefer to do business with people I trust, and to treat them as
trustworthy. And yes, this means that I won't do business with

someone

Post by Jim Hargan
whose honesty I suspect; it has saved me more than it has cost me.
As for casual stealing of web site thumbs, I think there is a point
where protecting yourself from minor thievery isn't worth the cost. HTML
Guardian Enterprise seems to be a case in point. I mean, they don't use
their own technology to protect their own website! I couldn't open their
FAQ page -- not very confidence building for a web site program peddler.
But I suspect that their solemn silence on the subject of

searchability

Post by Jim Hargan
is because a Guardianized page will remain invisible to Google as well
as to thieves. And what happens to alt tags when you Guardianize an
image? Search engines use alt tags very heavily.
I would also like to point out that disabling the right click will also
disable "Open in New Tab". This is the sort of interference with your
client's web experience that drives them from your site, into the far
more open arms of your competitors.
I am not happy with my current approach, so I have no

recommendations of

Post by Jim Hargan
a. No images bigger than 400 pixels on the long dimensions;
b. Jpeg at 40
c. Copyright and contact info in IPTC and EXIF
d. Seganographic marking.
None of this should interfere with web access, searchability, or client
experience.
Jim Hargan

snipped

[Jim Hargan]

Post by Shaughn Clements
Showing my lack of computer knowledge but what is Seganographic
marking?

Post by Jim Hargan
a. No images bigger than 400 pixels on the long dimensions;
b. Jpeg at 40
c. Copyright and contact info in IPTC and EXIF
d. Seganographic marking.

I meant "steganographic marking". David Riecks talked about this in his
Dec 21st posting. Software from Digimarc or Signum embeds a unique
digital signature hidden within the bits and bytes of your image, and
you can then pay them to search the web for images with this signature.
They call this "digital watermarking", but it is more properly a type of
cryptography involving hiding the message, called "steganography".

The signature cannot be removed directly, but it can be removed by
recompressing the jpeg image (or so I've been told). My thought is
this: if you start with a 400 x 280 pixel image that has a 40
compression, anyone who tries to remove its steganographic signature
through additional compressing will end up with a useless image. And
anyone who tries to use it without recompression will be caught. Legit
clients will never know it's there. I don't know enough about this to
know if this will work, but it sounds good.


Jim Hargan
Images of North Carolina
nc.HarganOnline.com
www.HarganOnline.com

[Sean Locke]

Post by Jim Hargan

Post by Shaughn Clements
Showing my lack of computer knowledge but what is Seganographic
marking?

Post by Jim Hargan
a. No images bigger than 400 pixels on the long dimensions;
b. Jpeg at 40
c. Copyright and contact info in IPTC and EXIF
d. Seganographic marking.

I meant "steganographic marking". David Riecks talked about this in his
Dec 21st posting. Software from Digimarc or Signum embeds a unique
digital signature hidden within the bits and bytes of your image, and
you can then pay them to search the web for images with this signature.
They call this "digital watermarking", but it is more properly a type of
cryptography involving hiding the message, called "steganography".
The signature cannot be removed directly, but it can be removed by
recompressing the jpeg image (or so I've been told). My thought is
this: if you start with a 400 x 280 pixel image that has a 40
compression, anyone who tries to remove its steganographic signature
through additional compressing will end up with a useless image. And
anyone who tries to use it without recompression will be caught. Legit
clients will never know it's there. I don't know enough about this to
know if this will work, but it sounds good.

I believe you can also just resize the image.

Sean L.

Post by Jim Hargan
Jim Hargan
Images of North Carolina
nc.HarganOnline.com
www.HarganOnline.com

[reimargaertner]

You may want to check that software, Ed. Most of your images on
your site are blank with a red X. That would certainly stop theft.
Not very enticing though.

Reimar Gaertner

Post by Ed Verkaik
I am getting a little tired of hearing this old line. You CAN do things to
stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We just bought HTML Guardian
Enterprise, which has a number of protection schemes built in.

Besides

Post by Ed Verkaik
disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and text copying, it breaks images up
into cryptically-named file bits so your cache becomes useless as a source
of usable material. There is no simple way to recombine the bits.

Our site

Post by Ed Verkaik
will have iron-clad access prevention, and anyone who wants a

watermarked

Post by Ed Verkaik
comp or a thumbnail will have to ask, and give us their company info.
Welcome to the 21st century, where your IP will only have value if you guard
access closely. To get an unwatermarked comp will require an

invoice.

Post by Ed Verkaik

So it's a good thing to get users to digitally sign a formal

agreement

Post by Ed Verkaik

before they use an image for composition. IMHO, you do this by making it
easier to get the image, and giving them a somewhat better copy.

I agree with your intention but not your method. Everything comes down to
trust, and as far as I'm concerned you can't trust users to

respect your IP

Post by Ed Verkaik
rights. They will have to prove they deserve to be trusted with our images!
The law provides no protection unless you are rich enough to hire lawyers to
fight court cases- an impractical solution to the vast majority of image
theft, And that only works when the abuser is within your

jurisdiction. So

Post by Ed Verkaik
the only real protection is limiting access.
Anyone have the guts to join me in a race to the TOP for a change?
Ed Verkaik

[Singh, Shangara]

Besides disabling screen grabs,

This is something to die for. Can we see an example?

Just went to the developers site, first thing it did was to hide my
desktop by enlarging my browser window. You have to be dickhead to do
that. NEVER mess with the user's settings: ask first. Now I have to
resize my browser window or all new windows will open in full screen
mode! Dopes.

No examples of image protection that I can find on their site...

After a rummage, I found the following statement: HTML Guardian can
protect your entire website, with one exception - it can not fully
protect images.

Shangara.

[Brian Yarvin]

You CAN do things to stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We
just bought HTML Guardian Enterprise, which has a number of protection
schemes built in. Besides disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and
text copying, it breaks images up into cryptically-named file bits so
your cache becomes useless as a source of usable material.

Ed:

Thank you for this great reccomendation. Guardian Enterprise sounds
like it's just what I'm looking for too.

It always saddens me when people just resign themselves to failure
instead of seeking out solutions or offering alternatives.

Happy holidays and best of luck in the new year.

[Rubens Abboud]

Post by Brian Yarvin
Thank you for this great reccomendation. Guardian Enterprise

sounds

Post by Brian Yarvin
like it's just what I'm looking for too.
It always saddens me when people just resign themselves to failure
instead of seeking out solutions or offering alternatives.

Brian,

...and it saddens me when companies with weak technology are
presented as "solutions". :-) As has been previously discussed here
(search for "protware"), Protware's product will not "protect" your
images. It will just make it barely harder to get to them.

1. Print Screen will defeat image slicing. They disable the Print
Screen key on IE5+ browsers only. All other browsers can still use
PrScrn. Not to mention that anyone can download one of the hundreds
of widely available specialized screen capture utilities like SnagIt
and capture screens even with IE5+ browsers.

2. Strictly speaking, Protware does not "encrypt" anything since the
decryption code is included right there with every page downloaded.
They obfuscate the source -- that's it. They make code harder to
read and images barely harder to steal.

3. Their core "technology" (they're really just exploiting
a "feature" with IE browsers) is very browser-dependent. While
their obfuscation of source code is weak on IE browsers, it is even
weaker on non-IE browsers. And portions of their "protection", like
their "referrer check" (to ensure that your pages are only shown
within your own domain) will break with some browsers (some browsers
do not send the referrer with each request). Just about
every "protection feature" they offer has an easy way to defeat.

Happy holidays and...

Best regards,

Rubens.
http://www.TheImageNation.com
Travel stock photography

[Brian Yarvin]

Post by Rubens Abboud
...and it saddens me when companies with weak technology are
presented as "solutions". :-) As has been previously discussed here
(search for "protware"), Protware's product will not "protect" your
images. It will just make it barely harder to get to them.

Rubens and Fellow Listreaders:

I haven't been able to check my mail too frequently and was certainly
a bit surprised to find out what the list has been saying. At least
my comment was good for a laugh.

On the other hand though, Ed seems to be very interested in web
security and could well come up with something of interest. I hope he
keeps us posted.

[David Osborne]

You CAN do things to stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We
just bought HTML Guardian Enterprise, which has a number of protection
schemes built in. Besides disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and
text copying, it breaks images up into cryptically-named file bits so
your cache becomes useless as a source of usable material.

I think it's also important to know what you CAN'T protect against...
Image Guardian, doesn't, and doesn't claim to protect against someone
doing a PrintScreen and paste except when the potential thief is
obligingly using Internet Explorer (about 50% of users do currently
and this number is dropping).

It certainly makes it harder to steal images by by no means impossible.

Does anyone know of a site that successfully protects against
PrintScreen use? I've never heard of one but would very much like to
be corrected in that aspect. My understanding and experience is, if
you can view the image on-screen you can screen-grab it - no
exceptions... anyone know of any?

David Osborne

[Picture Partners]

David wrote -

You My understanding and experience is, if
you can view the image on-screen you can screen-grab it - no
exceptions... anyone know of any?

My idea David. Same as sound: if you can hear it - you can steal it.


Frans Rombout
www.picturepartners.nl



----- Original Message -----
From: David Osborne
To: ***@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:05 PM
Subject: [STOCKPHOTO] Re: Comp question to photographers in general.

You CAN do things to stop image theft, IF it really matters to you. We
just bought HTML Guardian Enterprise, which has a number of protection
schemes built in. Besides disabling screen grabs, right clicks, and
text copying, it breaks images up into cryptically-named file bits so
your cache becomes useless as a source of usable material.

I think it's also important to know what you CAN'T protect against...
Image Guardian, doesn't, and doesn't claim to protect against someone
doing a PrintScreen and paste except when the potential thief is
obligingly using Internet Explorer (about 50% of users do currently
and this number is dropping).

It certainly makes it harder to steal images by by no means impossible.

Does anyone know of a site that successfully protects against
PrintScreen use? I've never heard of one but would very much like to
be corrected in that aspect. My understanding and experience is, if
you can view the image on-screen you can screen-grab it - no
exceptions... anyone know of any?

David Osborne





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[David Riecks]

Post by David Osborne
My understanding and experience is, if
you can view the image on-screen you can screen-grab it - no
exceptions... anyone know of any?

David:

Yes, and if screen capture software outside of the operating system
(snag-it, SnapZ, etc.) doesn't do it, remote capture utilities run
from another machine (like IT tech's use all the time to see servers
located in another room or building) will easily defeat it. There is
no easy way to prevent a determined thief from "stealing" your images
that are placed online, just as there is no silver bullet, and most
certainly there is no free lunch.

David

----
David Riecks (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
http://www.riecks.com , Chicago Midwest ASMP member
See the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines at
http://www.updig.org
Chairman, SAA Imaging Technology Standards Committee
Creating an image database? visit (http://ControlledVocabulary.com/)
and join the discussion.

[Ian Murray]

There is

Post by David Riecks
no easy way to prevent a determined thief from "stealing" your images
that are placed online, just as there is no silver bullet, and most
certainly there is no free lunch.

Dear all,

I can undestand Ed's concern over this since he sells RM and will know
who should and should not be using his images on a website or wherever
and wants to control useage.

I'm puzzled that people who sell RF should be concerned as about this -
a question of trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Regards,

Ian Murray

[Sean Locke]

Post by Ed Verkaik
There is

Post by David Riecks
no easy way to prevent a determined thief from "stealing" your images
that are placed online, just as there is no silver bullet, and most
certainly there is no free lunch.

Dear all,
I can undestand Ed's concern over this since he sells RM and will know
who should and should not be using his images on a website or wherever
and wants to control useage.
I'm puzzled that people who sell RF should be concerned as about this -
a question of trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted?
Regards,
Ian Murray

Ian, as you know, RF is licensed to a certain user for certain uses,
defined by the license. It is not a free for all to distribute said
imagery to the entire world. The RF seller just as concerned with who
is creating and using their image, and wanting to be sure it was
procured properly.

ie, you think just because an image is sold RF, it's ok to take a comp
and use it on your website?

Sean L.

[Ian Murray]

Post by Sean Locke
Ian, as you know, RF is licensed to a certain user for certain uses,
defined by the license. It is not a free for all to distribute said
imagery to the entire world. The RF seller just as concerned with who
is creating and using their image, and wanting to be sure it was
procured properly.
ie, you think just because an image is sold RF, it's ok to take a comp
and use it on your website?
Sean L.

Dear Sean,

With your type of micro RF, and all RF to some extent, you sell
perpetual rights for pretty much all uses, to a usually unknown buyer
such as an ad agency or designer, to use on multiple projects with
multiple clinets. There is very little if any follow up or policing by
agencies. If you spotted one of your iStock images on a website how
could you possibly know if it was there legally or not? I'm not saying,
as you suggest, that it is okay to take an image from an RF
photographers website. It is still theft. I am saying that if theft
happens from an RM site it is much easier, and actually possible, to
know if the useage is legitimate or not. I suppose that I'm also
suggesting some surprise that RF photographers claim to care that much
about protecting their website images when they will willingly sell off
their rights so readily on a daily basis. With Orphan Works legislation
very much on the horizon this lack of control over image rights and
useage should worry all of us. Having images 'sloshing around' without
proper control or ownership potentially weakens the position of all us
in the eyes of image users does it not?

Regards,
Ian Murray