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How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

patrick-wied.at

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Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#101

Post by cookiecaper »

stevekemp wrote: post #89
jobu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obscurity is a far more common problem than plagiarism. The best solution for this is to put a signature in the image. Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked.

> Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked. As an amateur photographer you'd be amazed how many people think nothing of taking an image and slapping it on their website, or in their print media. People routinely use services like imgur.com to rehost images they have no permission to use, and can and will strip watermarks and be silent when asked for…

Get a good C&D template. In this day and age, it's the only protection IP holders have. If someone isn't worth pursuing legally, it's not worth worrying about whether they're providing proper attribution or cutting out your watermarks, just let those people go. If you get ripped off by a commercial publisher, send some letters and get the remuneration you deserve.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#103

Post by drdaeman »

ZoFreX wrote: post #80

I think maybe you could do this. What about the new, controversial DRM extensions? They're for video, but you could just show a 1 frame video on loop as an image, right? If those support HDCP then it's encrypted all the way to the display, and it would be challenging to screenshot it. (Of course, you could take a photo of the screen, but that's a substantial degradation).

Isn't HDCP broken?

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#104

Post by shmerl »

stcredzero wrote: post #94
shmerl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are reasons to believe that DRM, if used to protect the data and privacy of individuals would be very valuable, with the caveat that it would have to be implemented in a trustworthy way. DRM can not be trustworthy by its mere definition (because trust is a mutual thing, and those who deploy DRM don't trust you - the user. So you have every reason not to trust them in return). And it never can be valuable…

tl;dr - Let's please think about the economics! Let's not just believe emotionally charged Internet aphorisms, but examine things thoughtfully. Authentication and information security has nothing to do with DRM, even though both can have features like encryption. Let's not mix unrelated subjects. What is the limiting of who can have my personal data and when, but Digital Rights Management, or DRM? One cannot stop at…

Let me repeat it again. Authentication is OK. DRM is not. If you don't get the difference, let's explain. Authentication is simply ensuring that you are you. Normal security mechanism, nothing wrong with it.

DRM can employ authentication in itself, sure. But DRM is not about ensuring that you are you. DRM is about limiting what you can do with your own system in various ways and / or spying on you (even when it already knows that you are you). Simply because DRM is preemptive policing.

I have no problem with authentication, same way I have no problems with you using a lock on your door (normal security). I have problems with DRM, same way I'd have problems with police putting their camera in someone's house (overreaching preemptive policing).

Hopefully this makes it more clear. I often see people confuse DRM with merely security / authentication / encryption etc. That's plain wrong.

> The key is to realize that DRM as practiced by corporations is evil and unworkable because the economics were utterly unrealistic.

No. It's evil because it's using police state methodology of treating everyone as potential criminal and employing presumption of guilt, which results in overreaching policing measures which violate one's privacy and security.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#105

Post by Scalar »

I found this fairly clever but pretty impractical. If you put an image online you must assume that it is public domain. The only real way to prevent true theft is to offer a lower quality image but this defeats the purpose of putting your image online in the first place.

Nonetheless there are pretty smart ways to monetize content like this and any professional source will pay to use it.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#106

Post by shmerl »

stcredzero wrote: post #96
shmerl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is fundamentally broken What is fundamentally broken is the idea of overreaching preemptive policing (DRM). I.e. the one expressed by Sony execs in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit#Background > "The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams... It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to st…

Evidently you either simply didn't read or understand my proposal, and you mistakenly believe I am writing in support of corporations using DRM against individuals. That is the complete opposite of the truth. What is fundamentally broken is the idea of overreaching preemptive policing (DRM). The record clearly shows that applied to individuals, DRM becomes "fundamentally broken overreaching preemptive policing." The…

I think you simply use the term DRM incorrectly. You think DRM means information security. It doesn't. "Turning it around" makes it not DRM anymore.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#107

Post by paulhauggis »

paulhauggis wrote: post #28
dsr_ wrote: post #12

How to drive away customers: prioritize your unproven loss of income over making an attractive product. Accuse all your users of copyright infringement.

I really dislike this attitude on HN. You can have great products that make no money because cracks get popular (I have done testing with my own software and know for sure this is the case) and get higher results than the original product listing on google, Adblock, and many other methods thought to be "rights". Even look at music piracy. Pirates did the big labels a favor: small, independent artists can't make a liv…

So why again was I down voted? I have a valid point and I wasn't a troll.

This community is slowly becoming a circle-jerk of the same exact opinions.

Down voting should be there for trolls. However, it is now being used to silence any and all opinions different than your own.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#108

Post by metacorrector »

stevekemp wrote: post #89
jobu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obscurity is a far more common problem than plagiarism. The best solution for this is to put a signature in the image. Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked.

> Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked. As an amateur photographer you'd be amazed how many people think nothing of taking an image and slapping it on their website, or in their print media. People routinely use services like imgur.com to rehost images they have no permission to use, and can and will strip watermarks and be silent when asked for…

I just can't sympathize, at all. I would prefer (I realize this is not the law) an internet that was considered public domain. If you don't want you picture copied, don't put it in the public domain.

I do understand hard work, and skill, and putting in the time that made you the great photographer that you are, and I understand the need to earn a living, and I understand capitalism, economic profits, and accounting profits and economic profits.

But a large number of highly trained and skilled people put a lot of hard work and effort into writing the open source software that is running the internet and the webservers that your images are on.

I understand your perspective: you'd rather buy a proprietary microsoft operating system and a proprietary microsoft webserver so you could run a proprietary Oracle database to keep track of your DRMed photos.

But understand that I wouldn't, I'd rather have a public domain web where photographers share their work like artists do and computer programmers and graphic designers and bloggers and everybody else.

I'm just not that excited by your great photo, there are a lot of great photos.

full disclosure: I took a significant news photo once and made money selling it. I enjoyed spending the money. I don't chase around the internet stopping people from duplicating it.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#109

Post by stevekemp »

metacorrector wrote: post #108
stevekemp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked. As an amateur photographer you'd be amazed how many people think nothing of taking an image and slapping it on their website, or in their print media. People routinely use services like imgur.com to rehost images they have no permission to use, and can and will strip watermarks and be silent when asked for…

I just can't sympathize, at all. I would prefer (I realize this is not the law) an internet that was considered public domain. If you don't want you picture copied, don't put it in the public domain. I do understand hard work, and skill, and putting in the time that made you the great photographer that you are, and I understand the need to earn a living, and I understand capitalism, economic profits, and accounting p…

> If you don't want you picture copied, don't put it in the public domain.

Most of my pictures are prints, hanging on walls. But you need a portfolio to attract (paying) clients, so images have to exist!

> I understand your perspective: you'd rather buy a proprietary microsoft operating system and a proprietary microsoft webserver so you could run a proprietary Oracle database to keep track of your DRMed photos.

So if I said I'm an ex-Debian developer who's released a pile of open-source software, for free? And does so regularly?

Seriously you're getting too personal there, and just wrong. Photography started as a hobby because I love people - in the same way that woodworking is a hobby because I like doing things with my hands that are "real".

But there are costs involved, I've probably spent close to 10,000 in camera-equipment, to have people steal your work, means that stuff doesn't pay for itself any more.

You mention proprietary software? How would you feel if you wrote open-source software and people abused the licenses? That's copyright infringement, and the same thing is a huge deal in the photography world.

Sure everybody has a camera, and fly-by-night people will take money for pictures. But that's like hiring a self-taught PHP-programmer instead of a kernel developer. There are skills, styles, niches, and similar involved that clearly differentiate photographers.

Re: How to prevent screenshots in a web browser

#110

Post by stevekemp »

cookiecaper wrote: post #101
stevekemp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people aren't trying to steal an image without attribution, they just want to share something they liked. As an amateur photographer you'd be amazed how many people think nothing of taking an image and slapping it on their website, or in their print media. People routinely use services like imgur.com to rehost images they have no permission to use, and can and will strip watermarks and be silent when asked for…

Get a good C&D template. In this day and age, it's the only protection IP holders have. If someone isn't worth pursuing legally, it's not worth worrying about whether they're providing proper attribution or cutting out your watermarks, just let those people go. If you get ripped off by a commercial publisher, send some letters and get the remuneration you deserve.

It used to be the former, now it is the latter.

Newspapers, big online sites that should know better. They take pictures and half the time you never even know unless you use tineye, or a friend/colleague will share a link with you "Hey nice work getting included in the New York Times", etc.

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