Image Protection! Plea for Advice

I have developed a product to protect digital images from copy theft. My solution makes use of an number of existing technologies, including encryption, but I believe the ensemble to be unique. What's the best way of benefiting from it?

The way I see it, I have two options:

1. I could take my idea to large corporations with an NDA & ask them take up my idea.

or,

2. I could market my own product as shareware, and hope to get some return that way. I have already developed my solution to a near complete & serviceable stage, so this option is tempting me.

Additionally, I could patent the process behind my solution. But this is expensive & do not have the resources to protect my patent in any case.

While option 1 may get me a quick return theoretically, I see this as a potential minefield and my NDA may not be respected. In any case, given the current climate, I don't see many potential suitors.

Option 2 brings me a lot extra work, with the probability of smaller returns. I don't have the skills (or time) to market my product successfully, so I would have to find someone to help me. I would also be demonstrating my solution to everyone in the process. So while my product may remain unsuccessful, another company, with some marketing clout, could copy it & take the rewards.

What should I do?

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Additionally, I could patent the process behind my solution. But this is expensive & do not have the resources to protect my patent in any case.

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Then don't do anything till you can.

>Then don't do anything till you can.

Thanks for the reply.

Any idea in the computer world has a sell by date. Before too long, someone else may hit upon the same idea using the process as I did. So waiting until I have around $20,000 disponsable cash is not an option.

In addition, patenting an idea simply puts it on public view. Patents are for big boys, because there is no point unless you can afford to defend them.

Well tell us your technique.. because many people have already come up with technology to find wheather a image od movie is copied... Some involve digital watermarks... If the image/movie is copied it shows a clear mark... and can be easily be found as copied.... Even if the image is printed and rescaned the watermark stays....(unless ofcource it is edited.. but wont look good..)..

>Well tell us your technique

Oh, OK then. It works like this...

You must be joking!

can you make 2 editions of your software?
A lite edition that shows off commonly used things and gives people a taster for free and a full fledged package that is all singing and all dancing that you could charge a reasonable amount for.
If so then maybe shareware is best.

Yeh that's a good idea. I was thinking about that myself.

Ok do this right now:

1. Write your idea down, how it works ect.
2. Mail it to your self

ok, thats it don't open it.

Now if anyone else claims to have created this technology on there own, you have proff they you came up with the idea first.


Simpley bring the envelope with you to court, and as long is it is dated before the company that stole your idea's dates you invented the idea, and thus deserve royalties.

Can't someone just take a screen capture?

I tinkered with the idea for a long time, back when I was working on a way to protect HTML code; never did get it to work... the way I see it, as long as someone can see the image, it's not safe.

>Ok do this right now:

It's good advice. That's why I did that ages ago. But I appreciate the reply.

>Can't someone just take a screen capture?

No.

Perhaps I have been trapped by trying to decide whether to approach a big player (option 1) OR market it myself (option 2). Maybe the answer is to progress both in parellel. That way if option 1 goes nowhere, I still have option 2.

i wouldnt trya nd market it yourself unless you really know what you are doing, and as for shareware - ask yourself a question - have you ever paid for shareware?

mail it yourself as suggested, get a witness (an independant one) that can verify you posted it and wait until youy can afford to register a patent or copyright.

but remember while you arew waiting your product may be being developed by someone else, so think about approaching some companies and tell them what your product does to generate some interest.

There more than a dozen companies who claim the same thing you do; some have a fee, others don't. None of them claim protection from screen captures without a special plugin :(

If someone has an image that needs to be safe; they shouldn't put it on the WWW.

I'm curious to see an example or proof that you can prevent screen captures; I tried several things a while back, and there was always a way around it.

Anything u got, i'll get around it.....anything, anytime, guaranteed.

(on this topic anyway hehe)

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Originally posted by Ride -or- Die
Anything u got, i'll get around it.....anything, anytime, guaranteed.

(on this topic anyway hehe)

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Wow mister, you must be pretty l33t!
Haha. Whatever.

>None of them claim protection from screen captures without a special plugin

Those special plugins (as offered by www.servesafe.net for example) are there to do the following:

a) Deny Print/Save/Copy function

b) Hook out certain functions from the api related to screen capture. (I'm sure screen capture can be achieved anyway by reading the video buffer).

I won't be drawn anymore. :)

I would patent and then try to sell the patent. However, I have no clue about the costs of a patent. If you really have confidence in your product, that's the route I would go.

I honestly have to say (and you'll agree I'm sure) that 100% protection of anything in the WWW is impossible.

But, what you propse is along the lines of the taped up ping-pong ball metaphor; if you wrap enough layers of tape around a ping-pong ball, you can make it look like a basketball. Now, anyone can unwrap the tape to get to the ping-pong ball, but there is just so frickin much of it that most people don't bother; the computer can, however, unwrap the tape very quickly...

I always just use image condoms (see this example)

:)

Well ideas are taken all the time.

A buddy came up to me and said he had a GREAT idea and a general idea of how to implement it. The technique was, to take a 3D object, and make it 2D, so you could have a 2D object that could be viewed from all angles without having to redraw the object at that angle... and then a month later, a game that used that exact same principal, Jet Grind Radio, came out.

Such is life.

>>I always just use image condoms

no challenge :P

//Edited for BMJ's question: Almost 18

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Originally posted by Ride -or- Die
no challenge :P

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Oh? What's the actual filename of the picture?

Couldn't tell you, i don't have the right program to read the script, notepad gives it to me ina mess, so the only name i got was thebannana.gif. It would be easier without the name generator :P

http://www.tilted.com/~brian/dt3ev.gif
:D

>>i don't have the right program to read the script
:rolleyes: Of course you do ;)

:D
I should use a PHP script to hide the source....

<script src="cloak.php?source"></script> :eek:

hmmm....

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Originally posted by Hammer
>>i don't have the right program to read the script
:rolleyes: Of course you do ;)

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really... :rolleyes:

said i could save the image, doesn't mean it would have the right file name, but i can capture any image i want.

What program would i use then?

Any text editor...

Merely view the source of the page, download the source.js file, open it in a text file, and figure it out from there (scan around until you see ".gif")

dt3ev.gif, right?

//edit: Damn you, FYB - didn't see your post.

i did, and it was rite in front of me. I missed that .gif and went to the next, the fake....DUH me.

PHP Code:

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22dt3ev.gif%22%20height 


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Just a quick quesiton, anyway: How exactly are you planning on stopping printscreen if an image is displayed on the web? Post an example (of a picture that we can't save), and we'll believe you. You need to have people like us test it, anyhow :)

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Originally posted by Ride -or- Die
i did, and it was rite in front of me. I missed that .gif and went to the next, the fake....DUH me.

PHP Code:

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22dt3ev.gif%22%20height 


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You just need to find it, and delete all of the %XX's areound it to make sure you've gotten the right name. Optionally you could find a webpage or program to translate them, but who cares? :)

print screen always works except one thing - animated pictures like the bannana. You don't get animation from a snapshot....

>>who cares anyway?

not me : )

It is theoretically impossible to prevent people from saving a picture.
To show a picture, it must be downloaded.
The same goes for movies, music etc. The only possible way is to make the process a little bit harder, making the average person unable to perform the copy, thus reducing copying substantially.

not necessarily, php can create images on the fly, no image stored anywhere, so on this idea, write a script to read the bitmap stored in a passworded dir and then create it otf, htnl also allows to specify content=nocache in the header to stop files being cached

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Originally posted by iain
not necessarily, php can create images on the fly, no image stored anywhere, so on this idea, write a script to read the bitmap stored in a passworded dir and then create it otf, htnl also allows to specify content=nocache in the header to stop files being cached

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If the picture is downloadable to a client PC, then it's savable. Can you prove me wrong?

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Originally posted by iain
not necessarily, php can create images on the fly, no image stored anywhere, so on this idea, write a script to read the bitmap stored in a passworded dir and then create it otf, htnl also allows to specify content=nocache in the header to stop files being cached

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This doesn't stop me from right-clicking and select Save image...
Neither does it stop me from taking a screenshot.

Here is what needs to be accomplished to make an image safe...

1.) Prevent right-click "Save as..." (can be done)
2.) Prevent image from being cached (can be done)
3.) Prevent "File->Save As..." from saving the image (can be done)
4.) Prevent IE6 image toolbar (when held over an image) from letting the user save the image (can be done)
5.) Prevent people from directly accessing the image file (can be done, but hackers can always prove otherwise ;))
6.) Prevent the user from taking a screenshot (cannot be done)
7.) Prevent the user from taking a photograph of the screen (cannot be done)

For the most part, if you do 1 through 5, your image will be more safe than most, but there is no 100%

And what happens if I disable javascript in my browser?

(200th post :D )

You don't need javascript to do #1 - 5

Telnet to the page on port 80. Give the raw HTTP commands. Voila.

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Originally posted by BMJ
Here is what needs to be accomplished to make an image safe...

1.) Prevent right-click "Save as..." (can be done)
2.) Prevent image from being cached (can be done)
3.) Prevent "File->Save As..." from saving the image (can be done)
4.) Prevent IE6 image toolbar (when held over an image) from letting the user save the image (can be done)
5.) Prevent people from directly accessing the image file (can be done, but hackers can always prove otherwise ;))
6.) Prevent the user from taking a screenshot (cannot be done)
7.) Prevent the user from taking a photograph of the screen (cannot be done)

For the most part, if you do 1 through 5, your image will be more safe than most, but there is no 100%

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And absolutely all of that could be disabled by, on top of everything else, writing a plugin for your browser :eek:

To get the picture the old school way, get out your camera and take a picture - there's nothing that'll save THAT! HAHAHAHA!