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[connie fisher]

I do portrait photos, how can I keep customers from copying the photo's?  Is there some kind of program that will let me put in an invisible mark that will show up if they try to get reprints made of them?

[M. Arthur Auslander]

Dear Connie Fisher'

Written agreements, statutory Copyright notices are a start. The big trick is to catch them.

[eric stasik]

Dear Ms. Fisher,

The technique to which you refer is called digital watermarking. Essentially, a "secret code" is embedded into the image file in a way that it is not obvious from looking at the binary file or visible in the image.

Watermarking is easily defeated by printing out the image and re-scanning it, but of course with a loss of image quality compared to making an exact digital copy.

Mr. Auslander is 100% correct, the trick is catching copiers. Watermarking will help you make your case when you do. Just knowing an image is watermarked might however dissuade customers from distributing copies in the same way that locks keep honest people honest.

There are dozens of companies offering digital watermarking software such as:

http://www.digimarc.com/

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Kind regards,

Eric Stasik

[nobody]

It might be more productive to put your effort into educating customers, and seeing that those customers come back for more business as well as telling others about you rather than worrying about someone copying something for another family member. What are you going to do, follow everybody around? I can tell you from experience with software, even honest people don't like "copy protection."

[eric stasik]

Dear Nobody,

Honest people have no problem with copy protection. It is a necessary inconvenience.

Honest people have no problem with locks on doors, or passwords for computers. Again, these are necessary inconveniences.

Honest people understand that they share this world with dishonest people who have no respect for them or their property.

Honest people are "honest" about the reality of human nature.

It is dishonest (or staggeringly naïve) people who believe that a world without locks and bars is possible.

If you do not like copy protection,  may I suggest that you set an example and remove all locks from your doors, leave your keys in your car, write your PIN code on the back of your bankcard, and be as trusting as you expect other people to be.

Kind Regards,

Eric Stasik

[nobody]

"Honest people have no problem with copy protection."

You might want to broaden your sample population. I have known many honest people who were insulted by the guilty until proven innocent nature of copy protection.

Sombody (an officer from a reputable company) once brought to me a CAD program they paid over $1000 for, and asked me to remove the copy protection. The "key" had stopped working and the warranty/service contract had apparently run out. I removed it without hesitation. (This was way before the silly DMCA)

Companies will abuse the DMCA/copy protection to build guaranteed obsolesence into song and art. (opposed to technology and hardware) Maybe artists can start using pigments designed to go blank after 5 years :-)

"If you do not like copy protection,  may I suggest that you set an example and remove all locks from your doors, leave your keys in your car, write your PIN code on the back of your bankcard, and be as trusting as you expect other people to be."

Not a perfect analogy. And the Supreme court doesn't seem to equate copyright infringement to theft.

[eric stasik]

Dear Nobody,

I challenged you to:

"If you do not like copy protection,  may I suggest that you set an example and remove all locks from your doors, leave your keys in your car, write your PIN code on the back of your bankcard, and be as trusting as you expect other people to be."

And you replied:

"Not a perfect analogy. And the Supreme court doesn't seem to equate copyright infringement to theft."

I assume you are making the Slashdot argument that since the copyright owner still has the original, that it's not technically theft. (And since it's not theft, you're not really doing anything wrong.)

Please allow me to correct this misconception.

Copyright means that the owner of an image (in this case Ms Connie Fisher) owns ALL copies of her image. Not just the original, not just the copy she sells you, she also owns any copy you make. This is the essence of copyright. "Fair use" is in effect a license granted to you by the copyright owner to make copies for limited personal and educational use.

When you make a copy without her permission, you are permanently depriving her of her property. Full stop.

Copyright infringement IS theft. No ifs, ands, or buts.

And if I could go duck hunting just once with Justice Scalia I'd be happy to explain this for him!

Regards,

Eric Stasik

[Isaac]

I think honest people often do have problems with copy protection.

Lots of copy protection schemes are a pain in the butt for honest users who have no intention of ripping off copyrighted materials.  Software protection schemes involving dongles, having to keep a CD or floppy in the drive, typing in keywords from a manual all come to mind as schemes that really bugged me.

Other protection schemes may seem less onerous to some people, but they do restrict some legitimate uses of material that do not constitute infringement like making backups, fair use quoting, etc.  Protection schemes on CDs and DVDs fall into this area.

I understand the vendors side of things, but I think it's wrong to say that copy protection only bothers thieves.  It irks me, and I avoid it whenever I have a choice.  

As far as the question of whether copyright infringement is theft are not, I consider the question irrelevant.  Infringement is wrong and it feels just like theft to the person getting ripped off.   Who cares exactly how it's labelled.

Murder isn't theft either, but its still evil.

[Isaac]

One more comment.

Fair use is not granted by the copyright holder.  Fair use is provided by law as a limit to the copyright holder's exclusive rights.  It does not rely on the copyright holder's permission.  If you have permission, you don't need fair use.

[nobody]

Dear Eric,

I am definitely NOT a sport hunter myself, but Scalia is a good man and a thoughtful justice. I wouldn't wait around your phone for his invitation though ;-)

As for theft issues, please let me remind you of this...

"A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked."
- http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/175

[nobody]

"Murder isn't theft either, but its still evil."

Dear Isaac,

If you are saying that copyright infringement is "evil" I'd say that characterization is a little harsh, particularly if done out of ignorance.

[m]

Forced obsolence is an entirely separate issue to copyright, and relevant to many other areas. However, it is an issue that anti-circumvention measures now provides an enabling step for obsolence measures into copyright works.

Copy protection has proved itself necessary ipso facto by the levels of piracy that occur in the world: consumers display an inability to uphold their fair share of the social bargain. Thus, the arms war must escalate or the consumers continue to deprive the creators of their livelihood.

Copyright while largely a civil matter does become a criminal issue when infringement becomes substative in size, and thus distorts society and thus needs to be addressed by the state, rather than the citizens.  It is a measure of degree.

Terms like "theft" may - to an outsider - seem easily transportable, but such terms have a long history of legal precedent and meaning: to give a term a new scope opens up large numbers of issues. This is true of terminology in all areas of society.

Ultimately, society is a free market. If consumers do not like restrictive content, they should not choose it, and thus producers will be forced to adopt. Unfortunately, the vast majority of consumers are laxidasicial and do not care.

Copy protection does cause problems, but then, society has many other regulations, partitions and other forms of organisation that also impose certain barriers and costs. These are necessary to retain order, especially in the case that people either willingly or innocently don't uphold the order themselves.

We are now in an "information society" where information is central to livelihood. Thus, it is neccesary to improve the measures that protect and regulation information. History reveals that en masse, people cannot do it themselves.

[Isaac]

"Murder isn't theft either, but its still evil."

Dear Isaac,

If you are saying that copyright infringement is "evil" I'd say that characterization is a little harsh, particularly if done out of ignorance.

The point was that worrying about whether copyright infringement is theft or not is a purely rhetorical exercise.  

Back in the old common law days, people accused of larceny used to escape punishment if they were improperly charged as an embezzler.  In some cases the distinction was very hard to make.  These days most jurisdictions have theft statutes that cover both offenses.

Arguing that infringement is not theft strikes me as akin to worrying about the difference between larceny and embezzlement.

I agree that intentions matter, and certainly it is possible to commit copyright infringement unintentionally.   But the infringement isn't theft argument is usually made by people who know what they are doing and who are trying to justify what they do.

Of course neither side is above hyperbolic rhethoric.  Labelling infringers as pirates is equally a valid technique of short circuiting rational discussion.

[eric stasik]

Dear Eric,

I am definitely NOT a sport hunter myself, but Scalia is a good man and a thoughtful justice. I wouldn't wait around your phone for his invitation though ;-)

As for theft issues, please let me remind you of this...

"A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked."
- http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/175

Dear Nobody,

You are of course entitled to your opinion of Justice Scalia which I do not share. Killing living creatures for  fun and preaching compassionate fascisim from the bench does not fall into my definition of good.

I am aware of the legal distinction between copyright infringement and theft, what I argue is that there is absolutely no MORAL distinction.

My opinion about copyright equating with theft remains unchanged. My point is that everyone agrees that theft is wrong, but there are people who stubbornly refuse to accept that copyright infringement is wrong because it is not technically "theft." I disagree. Whatever you want to call it, I believe the law should deal with them equally.

By using the term theft I do not wish to shut down the debate, rather my desire is to sharpen it and focus it.

Fair Use has never included the right to make EXACT copies of a published work. This is a new right claimed by freeloaders and file sharers.

There is a huge difference between making a real time analog tape copy of a vinyl record or a TV broadcast (or photocopies of a book) and an exact digital duplicates of the same.

Digital copy protection is a necessary inconvenience which IN NO WAY limits existing Fair Use rights. You can still make analog recordings of CDs and DVDs, you can still make photocopies. What you cannot do is make an EXACT copy.

No one ever asserted that Fair Use gave them the right to play vinyl albums on their IBM PC, yet because digital technology now makes it possible some people believe they have the right to rip CDs and DVDs so that they can have them on their hard disks.

The risk to the copyright owner is vastly different between 1970's technology and 1990's technology. All that DRM attempts to do is restore a sensible balance.

Honest people - who understand this - should not mind the inconvenience of copy protection any more than they mind the inconvenience of car keys and PIN codes.

As m said "We are now in an "information society" where information is central to livelihood. Thus, it is neccesary to improve the measures that protect and regulation information. History reveals that en masse, people cannot do it themselves."

Bravo m. This is exactly right.

My desire here is to educate honest people so that they do not in their ignorance place themselves on the same side as dishonest people.

Regards,

Eric Stasik

[M. Arthur Auslander]

Dear connie fisher,

There is no way to stop unless you catch them. The chances are that any copying is just a local use. You as I understand the law you own the right to the pictures. You can use copyright notices and register copyrights.

The advice you have been given on this forum is exemplary.