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Originally Posted by David
Before we all start uploading detailed images of our collection up to any website we should all think about how to make the images secure. Your actual weapons are not going to walk out this virtual door, but unless you want to see all of our nice toys ending up as fake auctions on eBay we must be sure that software is in place that prevents the images from being easily lifted off the site or we will see someone trying to take advantage of our good work somewhere. The image below was a simple click-and-drag off Miguel's site.
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David, many thanks also for your comments
For sure that's everybody's concern (but on second thoughts, wouldn't that be the greatest compliment, one's piece being peddled by somebody else on eBay, assuming of course the scammer has good taste ... just kidding).
Seriously speaking, it's actually a very tough issue and I think there'll be no 100% safe solution.
I googled the subject. And one
article after rattling through the (technical) solutions concluded with this --
"If your image is so valuable that you want to be sure no one ever steals it, then don't post it online. That is the securest and safest method of protecting your digital images."
On the other hand, one must keep on trying of course (see options below).
The best solution so far is via a subscription service with
Digimarc.
The service allows one to invisibly put a signature on the images. And then the most expensive option will give one a periodic report of where the image is being used elsewhere in the Internet.
Obviously the main disadvantage of this service is that it's very expen$ive!
PixID is a similar service and I'm sure it will also cost an arm and a leg.
So where does this leave us?
I think the good old watermark will still be it. And we can add to that our own respective style when we take pics. Like Oriental Arms always has that blue background, on top of watermark. Erik's Edge would have that brown background always.
In my case, I always use as backdrop that ethnic weaving (though I'm struggling with this, as I know that the background I use is a distraction, as you also pointed out earlier).
And I guess more importantly, the "community" will just have to be vigilant.
That's all I can think of at the moment ...