Watermarking textures?

Actually as Namssor noted earlier, the watermark in the face image is very big. It's hidden in the image. The way to find it, or rather reveal it, is it to manipulate the image itself.
The point is not to make a very small watermark but to make it so it doesn't show but is still there, so that the texture can still be recognised as the creator's work. I'm sure Namssor will correct me if I'm wrong

Apart from the puzzle aspect, I think this is an interesting way of looking at protecting textures from being stolen in SL. From what I understand it's a big problem and it would be great if a solution could be found.

/me goes back to the woodchips

I do understand that it isnt about trapping people.. I do.. what I mean is that super-hard to find watermarks are meant as a total safeguard against image piracy. That...I'm struggling to explain it from my mind to words XD

What I meant is that it does, in effect, trap a pirate who is unknowledgable about things of this nature. That IS it's purpose, actually, to prevent piracy, or to be able to prove that pirated images are, in fact, pirated. I didn't mean that it was meant to entice people into using it, simply that people are probably more likely to use a seemingly clean image for their illegal uses... I'm not saying that it's meant to entice the average joe into just taking it, I don't expect people to.. it's meant to catch those that DO take it, even though they know it's copyrighted.

Thats the best explanation for my thinking I can come up with...

Quite true, nothing is completely safe. (did I interpret that correctly?)

I understand this, and I have no qualms about slapping a stupid or smart pirate across the face with a ©.

Textures can and will be ripped off till the end of days.

We've all ripped them...a good texture artist (heck a mediocre one) can get rid of any watermark (visible or digital).

As long as you aren't completely obvious about it, and don't make it a daily habit, you'll be fine. Stealing a repeatable brick texture usually isn't ever a problem...but if you're stealing matte paintings for a backdrop...you're walking a dangerous line.

My advice...try and learn how to create custom textures. Your happiness with thank you. And nothing beats a custom texture fit specifically for an object (that's what separates the men from the boys).

Not if what you are selling is a texture that people are expected to be able to use to make their products, no.

I make textures that people buy, at TRU, to make buildings and clothes and all manner of merchandise. Every last pixel is potentially visible when used. Most of them are seamless and tilable, and people are expected to be able to set them for multiple repeats. The terms of use under which they are sold say it is fine to use them for making sellable products, by applying them to clothes and prims. But selling the raw textues as-is would be a violation of the agreement.

No one is going to purchase, for example, a texture of blue asphalt shingles for the roof of the house they hope to sell, or even for their own use, if there is a visible "Fox and Ground Construction Company" logo on every fourth shingle in every fifth row...

No one is going to purchase a lovely set of double hung window textures, with curtains in several states of open or closed, if the middle pane of glass is etched with my logo.

An invisible watermark like Namissor is proposing is a way to prove that some rip-off artist is violating the terms of use agreement on my textures by selling the raw textures as if they were his own property. He can't claim that he made that window texture, if I can show that my logo is embedded invisibly in the texture bundles that he is selling. There is only one authorized seller for the textures that I make - and that is a valid TRU store.

Michael, It's really disconcerting to hear someone who promotes one's self as a creator/designer talk like that.

Before you can prove you've erased the watermark (without destroying the texture in the process), don't you think you'd better find it first? And, if you do finally succeed, would it be worth it?

What I meant, was if you are selling a texure, you can watermark the display version, so noone can rip it off. If someone pays you for the texture, for their use, then why would it still need to be watermarked?


And yes, namssor thats what I meant ^^

If I am correct, Ceera and TRU sell full perms textures (MOD, COPY, TRANSFER, download to HD, re-upload to SL). Rip off artists aren't going to care one bit about the display version. They'll go after the real textures. TRU sells textures with the understanding that buyers of those textures are not going to turnaround and start selling the raw textures that TRU has created in direct competition with TRU. That is copyright infringement. Watermarking doesn't stop determined people from infringing on copyrights, it just makes a very strong case for the original creator should they ever need to prove the texture's origin in a court of law.

The thing is Lindens have found way when it comes to their own textures.
If you don't believe me try to find a Linden texture and save it to desktop without taking a snapshot.
Myself I know that I prefer to make my own things because its what I enjoy.
Yet I would have really actually little recourse or even have clue if someone really thought my stuff was worth stealing to re-sell.
The thing is if you spend enough time in art program experimenting its easy to reproduce almost anything. I seen similar things I made I have no clue if they did it same way or actually stole the idea.
But in big picture I don't consider what I have been creating actually that noticeable yet in spite of friends encouraging me to sell stuff.
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when I see similar creations and strive to work harder to be more unique not because I am selling things but because I enjoy creating.
There is plenty of public domain images if I am feeling really lazy. Yet sometimes its fun
to look bit closer at people's work too and tear it a part especially if it's good like Old Master images to understand how they did it.
I study a lot of textures and its amazing how often even texture packs that are going for
real money how I recognize certain textures that have been borrowed or how they used
certain similar effects.
I recently recognized this copyrighted wave texture from this one site that was for sell by someone else.
Personally I would feel bad about that and avoid doing this but there are some who wouldn't.
The (c) by my name tag I would hope others would respect it but their is no real way to enforce it 100 percent of the time.
But I assume this is different for most here, especially those who are making lot of sells.

We have to deal with two kinds of thieves at TRU.

The really cheap ones will hover in one corner of the sim and try to steal what is displayed on the vendors. We're changing over to a lower-resolution, visibly watermarked version of the textures displayed on the vendors, to stop those thefts.

But we also get some thieves who go ahead and *purchase* one copy each of 100 or more textures, and then try to set up their own texture store in direct competition against us, reselling our work for their profit. Sometimes they don't even bother to change the texture names, and they all still start with "TRU" and show one of our artists as the creator! That is completely in violation of our terms of use agreement.

If someone buys a set of my window textures, that I spent a week creating with detailed 3D shading and other rendering work, they can use that texture to make prim windows to put in their own homes, or to make prim windows to put in homes they plan to sell, or they can even add the texture UUID's and a script to a prim and sell it as a building component that changes the open and closed states of the windows when touched. All of those add their own effort and skill to make a different product.

But they can NOT just re-package our work and sell the textures themselves in their own texture store, or give them away in some "Business in a box" ripoff or freebie box. Selling the textures to others as raw textures directly steals our profits, as they steal customers that otherwise would have got those textures at TRU. When we find a store or a freebie box that is selling or giving away TRU textures, we file a DMCA claim against them and get them shut down ASAP. Having an indellible, invisble watermark in the textures would add further proof that what they are selling are textures that they obtained from TRU, and not their own work. Warning people in the Terms of Use agreement (Given to every customer when they enter the store and when they purchase any bundle) that there is an indellible watermark in all textures should reduce theft, since they know we can prove they stole it from us. Like posting signs in a RL store warning would-be shoplifters that there are security guards and cameras watching them.

Michael Bigwig wrote:


Hey Michael...speak for yourself. Just because you've ripped other peoples textures (which i assume you have by your quote) don't try to rationalize it by the old excuse "everyone does it." It's disrespectful to those of us who appreciate other people's hard work and wouldn't want the same done to us. Hard as it might be to believe, there are some of us who have never done it and have enough confidence to create our own. 'Nuff said.

Realistically, I don't see how textures can ever be protected in world, or out for that matter. It's just too easy to copy them using basic SL features. The only roadblock I'm aware of has already been mentioned, watermarking/distorting the display version. That simply makes the thief pay once for the original.

In the end it's the cost of doing business IMO. There have always been crooks and there always will be, both big and small. You do the best you can to protect your interests while realizing at the same time there's only so much you can do, or want to do. You try not to make it too easy for them and you file a TOS complaint when you need to.

Visit the US Copyright Office. You can assemble a whole collection on CD or DVD and submit that as I recall, thereby registering a whole collection of works at once.

Just my two cents. Hope I'm not duplicating an earlier post

Umm...Ok.

I think you misunderstood. I don't rip off textures that aren't public domain. And if it isn't public domain I ask permission. This is the standard I work by. However, what I was saying essentially was that places like Google Images have reference photos which textures can be extracted from--this is what I was referring to.

As far as pre-made textures, who hasn't found a brick texture, a window texture in the time they've been modeling, and used it without consulting whether it's public domain or not. Simple textures created for applying to 3d models are all over the place...and there are so many that are public domain, it's sometimes looked over when using them.

I've worked for many years in design, modeling, and texturing. I don't think any body would ever call me a thief...unless you're looking for a fight. I'm a very respectable artist who takes pride in his custom models and textures...don't misinterpret what I say when I talk about 'stealing someone else's texture'...because the fact is, a lot of us do it whether you know you're doing it or not.

((edit--I want to be clear on something: most of you won't admit it, but the texture you 'claim' to be completely your's was most likely NOT taken from your own digital camera. You've picked up the texture in your travels, and you've packaged it as your own. Now...don't get me wrong, if you get a 'rock' texture from Mayang.com, and you make it repeatable and prep it for texture mapping...then you can call that your own. Or can you? See my point? Truly creating your own texture is going in your back yard, taking a photo of bark, tweaking the settings to make it look good, setting it up for repeat...THEN, and only then can you call it YOUR texture.))

Do you realize how many '3d artists' in SL are using other people's textures--whether they paid or not? Lots...the majority I'd even proclaim. But me? The majority of my work is completely custom...I either create them myself from scratch, or use Mayang.com's textures and prep them for repeat myself. Please don't accuse me of theiving-tactics.

I'm sorry to come off upset...but I"m not. I'm not trying to be an ass. Sorry. It's just...my style. Akuna Matada.

ps. caps isn't for yelling...if I could use italics I would.

back to the OP.... Namssor, while I can extract (not as well as you demonstrated) the watermark from the portrait (now that I realize what I'm looking for) I can't seem for the life of me to estract the watermark from your wood chips...

the method I used for the portrait was to add an HSL adjustment layer, max out the lightness for red and yellow, and add a difference layer of the original image

I'll assume that the wood chips should work on a similar principle? adding to or subtracting from the lightness in a specific color channel?

you hinted that the method used the eye's inability to notice changes in lightness against it (similar to the method used to compress some video, and somewhat similar to the same setup for audio compression)... I've given trying to find it... I have neither the technical expertise nor the time (already blown a few hours on this)... and even if I could extract it I'm not sure I could erase it easily.

so spill already, because I'd love to apply this =)

Hi Void, You're not neccessarily looking for exactly the same watermark, or the exact same method of embedding. I'm going to let this image float as long as it takes for someone to hack the watermark. It is possible, and I know at least one way that takes quite a bit of work. I'm interested in other ways that I don't know about.

Just as I'm not going to write up a step by step on my methods, I would hope that if anyone finds a serious flaw in this image (wood chips) which does reveal the watermark in a recognizeable form, that they would communicate it privately rather than broadcast it here. Posting final extraction results, or describing in detail the nature of what the watermark looks like is sufficient to get the prize. Anyone telling everybody how to hack into it forfeits the L$2000 prize.

well as much as I could use the pocket money, I admit i'm not adept enough to find it.... as for my above mentioned method.... it's only good enough to get a generalized idea of the portrait watermark... not even a good pull.... the top is still hard to see.. and the bottom comes out as a shadow

::bump::

I did a little looking (ok a LOT) and would you believe that I could not find a single public tutorial on invisible watermarks? nada... I did find several interesting tech papers, including some of the various "attacks" to reveal watermarking... oddly I'd already tried many, at least in simple ways.... (de)noising, geometry, color space expansions and contractions...

I seemed to get close a few times (I thought)... something that looked like the japanese charater for water, a skull and cross-bones, some odd marks w/ what looked like a 3 in the bottom right corner, and maybe even the word "Busted" from top left to bottom right... but I wouldn't have bet anything on a bit of it, as I started to see so much in it, that I knew I was losing it....

Namssor you are a very cruel and heartless person to have done this to such an obsessive person... but I'm out of ideas, AND links... and since I can't read the math they use (spread spectrum fast fourier transforms and bears, oh my) I couldn't begin to imitate their techniques for finding your watermark...

you should know, there is an opensource platform for testing the strength of these though... maybe you'd get better results from that instead of asking us poor forum rats to chew on it.....

I am sorry but my brain is too tired and struggling with other things to even seriously ponder how or where to find it.
I am more curious about how to make my own realistic wood chips, other techniques like how do I turn one faced or multi-faced prims into multi-textured pieces of art work while using only one upload. Yet even that I have given up on mastering.

I apologize if this is giving people grief. My initial intention when I started this thread was to get a general sense of how important people thought watermarking was for textures inside SL. I was a little surprised to find out (this in my interpretation of the poll results) that watermarking didn't matter to about 80% of those polled, or so it seems with the "no watermarking" and "pie" crowd.

Void and FD, if you'd like to contact me through email (namssor@secondskinlabs.com), I will send you both the watermark so you can put this to rest.

Also, if I'm sending the answer out to a few people, that means anyone else that finds the watermark without the primer, and wants to claim the L$2000, needs to explain how they got it in a duplicatable manner, not just what it is.

I think the numbers reflect a common problem...

overlay watermarks are ugly, they take away from the value of the work in general, and as far as I've ever been able to find there are no open invisible watermark methods... there are many services out there and softwares which will do this, all which seem to have a very LARGE outlay in cash or recurring fees, using proprietary software that begining or small time artist just can't afford... never mind not knowing about each methods limitations, or failures. and since most artist don't tend to be math majors, designing their own scheme seems hopeless. in effect they just quit worrying about it, and don't bother... I know that's where I stood.

however, since this post my curiousity has been thoroughly piqued, since your method seems to be under YOUR control, and you have a good idea of what limits there are to it...

don't get me wrong, I realize that a method known, is a method that can be attacked, but I also realize that for your average low tech thief, if they can't see it, it just isn't there... and environment like SL that make it easy for low tech thievery also make it easy to profit off others work... this thread has changed my mind about what's doable within SL to protect against that.

EDIT: IIRC I voted Pie.... a regrettable choice

I would like to watermark my textures...but I do not currently have the know-how, nor the time to research methods that would work for me. If someone can take a screen shot of the edit/texture thumbnail, is the watermark preserved? I admit my knowledge on the subject is regrettably limited.

I have photos of my RL artwork on one of my websites and have placed the rather ugly COPYRIGHT across the photos simply to protect those...but I am stumped as to how I would protect the textures I create and use in SL.

And Nam..I give! I have searched for your watermark on the photo of the wood chips, tortured the poor photo until it cried out, to no avail. My eyes have crossed and I will certainly go blind if I look at it any further (it haunts my dreams I tell you!), but there is no way I can find it.

Kudos to you and whomever wins the L$2000!

~Ari

As a consumer and supporter of artist's rights, I really hope all textures are watermarked eventually. I hate getting stolen textures in freebie packs or in classes. I want to feel I can use the textures I buy with confidence.

If the texture can be viewed at full size or larger, yes, the watermark is preserved. A small 32x32 pixel preview window (like what is common for clothing and skin thumbnail textures) is too small to preserve the invisible watermark or be of practical use.

Thanks Nam. That does make sense.

~Ari

There's no sense in watermarking a texture in my honest opinion. Even a Photoshop-Mom(tm) can rubber-stamp them out nowa'days.

Digital watermarks don't work either. You can just take a snapshot of the texture open in PS, and boom...new texture.

And to be honest, you really shouldn't be selling your 'brick' texture anyway--there are a gazillion free ones out there.

If, however, you have some very unique custom (one piece) textures...you're more likely to NOT be hijacked...because it's much more obvious.

On a side note: my studio has RL movie posters hanging on the walls...I got them online from poster sites...I've not notified them of this...am I wrong? Am I a bad person? Not in my eyes I'm not.