Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/10/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]A bit of photoshopping and you can remove any copyright notice that's been inserted into an image. The bigger you make the notice the more it detracts from the final image. Ultimately, if you can see an image on your screen you can make a copy of it, pixel for pixel on your computer either using the native utilities in the machine or a piece of 3rd party software to evade any protection mechanisms. You CAN (or used to be able to) add a digital watermark to your image that wasn't visible but which provided a unique fingerprint so you could point to an image, even when it was seriously manipulated, scaled etc, and demonstrate that it was yours. I think this process also degraded the image. In the digital world once you've put something on the web and made it visible it's like tossing it out into the winds. Like music, people feel totally free to take anything they want since we all know that "intellectual property" is of no value: art belongs to everyone for free!. Now what value an image of, say 800 x 560 pixels might have isn't clear -- but it would be at least annoying to have it purloined without asking permission. In the United States if someone is using your copyrighted images without your permission you can invoke the DMCA. Out of the United States...good luck. If they're in China they are probably national heros for snarfing them. Adam