Disable Snapshots?

I am finding people coming to my store and either outright taking snapshots of my art or doing so quietly. I have tried banning people for stealing my art, but they can simply sit outside my land and take pics from there. I even tried putting watermarks on my stuff and heard someone tell their friend they were loading it in Photoshop to remove it.

This makes me want to cry. lol These people are in my business taking photos of my art and I can't seem to do anything about it... or can I?

Is there a way to disable photography on my land? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. What about adding a fourth permission... Photographable? So that if you take a pic, items that dont have that perm will disappear for the taking of the pic, not unlike the "SIMPLE" setting in the Client menu.

Thanks in advance!

-DD

They can get a screenshot, not much that can be done about that.

There's at least one program that will intercept the data given to the video system that will produce files of the textues applied to objects. Also the geometry of the objects as well. There's not much to be done about that either.

I think it's a client based function so if they can see it they can take a picture of it. Why not put a big white 'SAMPLE' text on top of your art?

What Bree said. I would recommend that you not just put one watermark, but coat it with faint watermarks all over the image. Put the actual prim photo in the contents of the sample pic, and set your sample pic to sell "contents." That way, what they see is an art piece with watermarks all over it, but what they get is the art piece without watermarks.

Instead of just putting "sample" though, id say coat it with your shop name.

Maybe if you place an opaque prim over your art at about 2-3 mtrs away, the viewer can view it from an angle, which would not give them the opportunity to view it straight on and take a snap? They would either only get a parallelogram or be too close to frame the whole art? Might be a solution.

One thing you can be assured of, those that steal your art obviously revere it as being something of great value.

... or tightwads who would rather steal than pay someone with talent for something they don't have the talent to do themselves.

Broccoli

thats a great idea!

I suggest that you put no links to your storefront inside your profile or in any in-game directory listing, then it won't matter so much because no one will be able to find your wares for purchase or "theft".

Oh wait, you already did that. Never mind.

How about just showing blank canvases instead, that way if someone should happen accidentally upon your store they won't be tempted to buy *or* copy them.

Oh, were you looking for something less sarcastic? How about: those who value their "art" so much that they are so afraid that someone might copy it that they'd change the world to protect it have little understanding of how the business of art works and often (note: "often" have an overvalued opinion of their portfolio.

The problem with this method is that it also prevents them from reaching the art to buy it. I couldn't possibly double the number of prims just to do this, but thanks for the suggestion.

Design a Certificate of Authentication to put in each prim image. Have a sign saying that each image bought comes with a certificate of authentication and that if you see anyone with your image who can't produce the CoA you'll take appropriate action. Well it may prevent some from stealing???

Not at all. You don't need to be directly in front of an item to buy it. You can do it from any angle.

Exactly, the blocking prim doesn't need to be the same size of the artwork either. It could be approx half the size of the piece of art and have it centered over it....translucent, with "sample" written on it.
That way , if someone did try to take a picture from straight on, they not only would have the "sample" in their pic, they would also have a translucent image that would be "muddying" up the actual picture.


If you're worried about doubling the number of prims, youmay want to consider a vendor for displaying your artwork. Then your "blocking sample" would only be 1 prim.

It may have sounded ambigious, but I meant placing a prim of only a few millimeters thickness, about 2mtrs in front of the the art, leaving a space. If you are worried about prim counts, why not have say 3 (or more) art textures stacked vertically and one prim to cover the lot? The opaque prim can be 'frosted' and have a clearer watermark on them.

Or have 6 tiled and one prim covering about 1/4 of each texture art prim... be creative.. those that steal clearly are.

Thanks again for all of the comments. The person I caught doing this was actually taking an image that DID have a watermark on it and was exporting it to Photoshop to remove the watermark. There really is no winning, is there?

There is always a way. You just have to make it as dificult as possible.

If you place a translucent/frosted prim in front of the art, they will be forced to either take a snapshot of the art from an angle or to import the picture into Photoshop and "touch up" the majority of the picture.

Yes, and thanks again. It's so hard to balance selling art so people can see what they are getting without making the process difficult. lol Our Brave New World has a few kinks!

Here is a suggestion... Use a watermarked 256 x 256 image for the vendor, but if they buy the real thing, they get a higher resolution clean copy, like 512 x 512. No way they can use Photoshop to add a level of detail that isn't there to steal. We're preparing to do that at TRU, where we also occasionally have cheap theives who would rather steal what we cell for a few pennies each. When the new vendors go in, they will all display a lower-resolution watermarked version of the textures.

Oh, and file a DMCA complaint against the person who is stealing your art. If you can show that he has copies in-world that he made by stealing images and removing a watermark in Photoshop, you'll be able to nail him. Your images have an older download date, and will not have any distortions where the watermark was messed with.

You should know that one of the built-in "features" of the official client is to grab the UUID of any texture applied to a prim which can then just be applied to any other prim for a perfect copy. Unlike snapshots, you wouldn't ever see any visible evidence.

If you're really this worried about people coming in and simply getting a copy without buying you should upload two versions (one that you actually sell, and an obscured/mangled one for display, alternatively make it a much lower resolution than the one you sell). Putting prims in front of a perfect original won't stop the method above (and you can just hide the prim before you take a snapshot as well to get it out of the way).

In the end you'll have to accept that no matter how much you try to mess it up, people will copy though. I've seen people walk around with demo skin and demo hair permanently.

Whatever you do, keep an eye on your sales prior and post. If you find your new measures are keeping people from actually buying your work, then you've lost far more than the one or two that would "steal" it without buying.

Congrats on getting anyone to visit and see your art. I think I've had at most ten people visit since July (to look at the art; it was odd for a while there to find vampire pose balls when I'd return to my place). Sorry people are stealing it.

That only works for prims you have perms on. You can't do it to a prim face that is displaying a texture that you don't own. An open-source hacked client could do it though, and some thieves do use that method. The only thing you can do there is if you find them selling your stuff, file a DMCA claim against them and have LL tear down their store.

Well thanks again for all of the replies. It's nice to see the community so willing to help. The 256x256 thing makes good sense. It will dimish the experience at my gallery, but maybe its worth it. And yes a vendor would make my life easier, but I am primarily a gallery for viewing, sales come secondary.

I guess I get to start the task of resizing, watermarking, and uploading about 500 pieces. Ugh!

It works on any prim, regardless of ownership, unfortunately.

So says the RIAA which isn't winning them very high marks with their legitimate customers.

Twain was a little displeased with copyright in 1906 and Player Piano-roll creators got their special dispensation around 1911. The copying of digital creations (which text and piano rolls are) has long been an issue and will never go away.

However I read this thread as saying "my work is so valuable that I'll go to annoying lengths to try to protect it yet simultaneously so valueless that I will accept micropayments for it which makes it infeasible to seek relief under existing copyright mechanisms".

The OP is by far not the first to be bothered by the principle of it. SL clothiers have had problems with it in since forever. Indeed, the no-mod (hence no-easy-copy) of clothing textures was added somewhere around 2004. Until that time, anyone who purchased clothing could freely download the texture from it. Do what the clothiers do, be productive to the point that you leave your copycats in the dust.

Just like all DRM systems, the "watermark prims" posited in this thread can be trivially defeated with a single keystroke which stops rendering of alpha textures. Do yourself a favor and don't piss off your customers, you'll sell more, and theft is part of the price of doing business in a virtual world.

This is a job for...Photoshop Actions! (Cue heroic music).

... There's another way, within the client menu, to completely render any "put a prim in front of it" option pretty useless. I won't detail it here 'cuz we're not sposedta.

Mari