Preventing photo "theft" from our SM accounts.

[MichaelKirk]

Is this just the cost of doing business or can it be prevented?
I know the best deterant would be to use a watermark - but I really think this detracts from the images...and my customers do not like them (and yes, these are the paying ones)

This question was raised in another forum where somone was asking about what photo hosting serivce they should use - I of course recommended SM. It was noted by a few that theft of photos was pretty easy from SM (and some other sites). I asked the poster to try and "steal" one of my photos and not minutes later he sent me a copy of one of my proteced photos - I have not checked, buy I think the resolution was from a "large" file size. This person sent me the details of how he did it which I am only going to post a portion of that description here (below), but will send it to a SM authorized employee if they want to take a look.

I know the average person will not be able to steal photos, but again is this just the cost we pay for trying to sell photos on line....or is there a way to beter protect our images from theft??

Thoughts?
The Violated Michael :thwak


"Ok, now to your question about how I got your picture. There are several methods I used.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Here is the url of your medium sized format of a picture that smugmug shows.
"http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/1990401/1/81316806/Medium"

Now here is the url to the actual picture.
"http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/photos/81316806-M.jpg"

Take notice of the keywords in the actual url img vs the smugmug url. Not only yours, but others as well can be easily deciphered once you understand how smugmug works.

These are but a couple of methods that can be used. Netscape and Firefox have their own methods, but I think you get the idea.

Regards,"

[Andy]

Your friend is not breaking any new ground. It's a common misconception, I'm afraid.

If you deliver an image over the internets, to a person's computer, that image is in their hard drive. Period, full-stop.

If you are a pro account holder on SmugMug, what you should be doing is three things:

1) block larges if you are concerned about people making small prints
2) block originals
3) right-click protect
4) add a watermark
5) block external links to your images

See that in action here: http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/2144279/18/111442318 that's my pro site

You can make a non-intrusive custom watermark, and use that. More here:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/image-protection
http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-watermark-protection

If you have a non-pro account, you should block originals, for sure :)

I hope this helps!

[Andy]

PS, may I have the thread link in the other forum please? :ear

Thanks!

[MichaelKirk]

I have been doing everything - except the watermark (and I do allow access to large images, not originals). I originally used a watermark but then removed it. I think it is time to create a new smaller type watermark and begin using it again.

Thanks again,
Michael



Your friend is not breaking any new ground. It's a common misconception, I'm afraid.

If you deliver an image over the internets, to a person's computer, that image is in their hard drive. Period, full-stop.

If you are a pro account holder on SmugMug, what you should be doing is three things:

1) block larges if you are concerned about people making small prints
2) block originals
3) right-click protect
4) add a watermark
5) block external links to your images

See that in action here: http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/2144279/18/111442318 that's my pro site

You can make a non-intrusive custom watermark, and use that. More here:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/image-protection
http://www.smugmug.com/help/custom-watermark-protection

If you have a non-pro account, you should block originals, for sure :)

I hope this helps!

[Andy]

I have been doing everything - except the watermark (and I do allow access to large images, not originals). I originally used a watermark but then removed it. I think it is time to create a new smaller type watermark and begin using it again.

Thanks again,
Michael
So where's this forum posting? :ear

[BeachBill]

It was noted by a few that theft of photos was pretty easy from SM (and some other sites). I asked the poster to try and "steal" one of my photos and not minutes later he sent me a copy of one of my proteced photos

As Andy mentioned, the person who thinks he stole your photo really didn't. He only got a copy of the displayed low-res image that was in his web browser cache. He can do the same from *any* web based site that displays stored images as jpg or any number of image formats. The images have to be downloaded to the local PC in order to display on the local PC. Based on his description, it sounds like he isn't aware of all of these files that are downloaded to his PC everytime he views a web page.

Your "protected" high-res photo would be the "original" image (ends in "-O.jpg" in his example). Can he get that image? The original is the only image with EXIF meta data embedded in it. Hopefully you have originals turned off.

Also note that many "clueless" people just hit the Print Screen key on their Windows keyboard and then just paste that image into any image or word processing program on their computer.