Prevent Image Piracy

[rabbie]

Hey Gary,

I think I see what you are trying to say. Basically that is true that once something has been downloaded, it cannot be "un-downloaded".. With torrents, the same holds true. Yes, once a person downloads a torrent they can "chose" to continue to seed the download so no, you cant really shut down the torrent sites. You could block the tcp ports that torrents use on any particular network but these can also be changed..

You are not actually FORCED to seed any torrent file, its a choice. The most popular torrent clients give you the option and even after you have completed the download, you can actually stop the client from seeding the file that you have downloaded. Some popular website browsers such as opera and firefox also have torrent plugins (Opera does it by default) that allow you to download torrents and again with these, you are not forced to seed the download.

As sledger mentioned, the torrent file is not really the result, it is a link to a result, just like a url (www.google.com) is merely a pointer to the website.

And just like downloading an Mp3, once it has been downloaded, that user who has the file can distribute the file to any number of services and websites and pass that file on to everyone who has not paid for it.

Rabbie
Common Cents Solutions
Website Hosting That Makes Sense. . .
http://www.commoncents.net.au

[AndFarr]

Perhaps the only way to discourage image theft is to obscure the image with a complex

overlay. Here I have covered the original photo with a semi-transparent pattern gif.

I think these patterns would be very hard to remove from a screen captured image.

Although, it would probably ( maybe? ) disable the stereogram effect.

However,it would mean that all viewers have to suffer because of the actions of a few.

But perhaps the image theft problem is so bad that it has come to this.

These patterns can be found in the fill gallery in the "two color pattern" file.

- Andy

[gwpriester]

I have knuckled under. This is the page people are directed to from my Graphics.com stereogram gallery. It is a feeble attempt at best.

And yes, Andy, a pattern like that would conflict with the repeating pattern of a stereogram and would cause all kinds of eyeball havoc.

[covoxer]

There are few types of overlays that don't kill stereogram effect:
- horizontal lines;
- horizontaly repeating objects.

Here I have illustrated both. You may make them smaller or biger, more or less obtrusive.

PS I have used your image as I have no other stereograms here to illustrate my point.

[steve.ledger]

Very good John. Your overlays appeared to float as well.

[RedWombat]

All good points.

Most efforts are futile against someone up to a challenge or worse, determined to get your work.

I can get around most ways of protecting images. They aren't very good measures to protect what is yours.

I would say to the best I've found uses Flash. With the right coding, it can be extremely difficult to take an image from a well designed Flash site.

There are decoders out there that will open an swf file and allow you to grab content from them. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Flash, being a binary format, needs a decoder of some sort just to look at the code. But I've seen some very good ActionScript coding, call it slight of hand, using Flash that make it near impossible to take an asset. If I can round up an example I'll share it.

I would also watermark your images.

Combine those two and I think you would deter most would be thieves.

You do have the issue of a screen capture. You could keep your images small in that case.

You might also be able to have a small thumbnail image, with a rollover enlarge, but using Flash, disable the right click menu, and have the large image disappear if they press the Alt key to do a typical screen capture.

Just some ideas to share. I know this subject is close to each of us creative type.

Best of luck Gary!