[thelist] Staving Off Photo Thieves

Tony Page zamba at zamba.com
Fri Apr 27 03:57:35 CDT 2001


I've been following this thread with interest as I am about to face putting
around 700 award winning photo images on a pro photographer organisation's
site in gallery format. In Australia photographers only got automatic
copyright in 1998, so our organisation is very keen on pushing it. Currently
I've simply brought up a popup window with copyright notices on a right
click, not so much to stop people saving the shot (though I suppose it stops
the uninitiated) but to make the point.
Since there is the intention to use large versions of the shots
(950x565max)in a new window as an option for the benefit of art directors,
etc., the low-resolution-rendering-useless-for-print argument doesn't look
so good anymore. Especially with the Genuine Fractal option available (quite
effective, to my surprise). And that doesn't deal with web use.
So when we come down to it, there is no way that does not involve a plug-in
(eg copysafe) to stop a printscreen grab of an image. Options involving
image defacement serve only to delay the inevitable unless they are so
obtrusive they really destroy the purpose of displaying the image in the
first place. And unless, as was suggested on evolt, the images are in a safe
directory with no direct links they can be ripped by Black Widow or whatever
anyway.
Well, I feel like going and quietly slashing my wrists in the corner behind
the lightbox, but maybe I'll just face reality and tell them that any
publicity is good publicity, and the best security is to make their work as
widely known as possible to reduce the risk that someone else can claim the
credit...

Oh well.

Tony Page

       [ZambaGrafix]
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tel: +61 2 9953 4425
fax: +61 2 9909 8534
email: ajp at zambagrafix.com
http://www.zambagrafix.com






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