dr4b | picture perfect... or not

picture perfect... or not

Okay, I need a second opinion.

Recently I've been getting VERY frustrated at the way people seem to be taking my picture archives for granted, as if it's just an obvious thing that I'll go to events and snap lots of pictures and spend a lot of time resizing/editing/captioning/etc them and put them up on dr4b.org for everyone to do whatever they want with them.

Well, I'm getting sick of that, to be honest. Yes, I might just be having a really bad day (I forgot my keys, I'm stressed over this trip, I need to do my taxes still, I spent last night resizing pictures instead of packing, etc), but considering I seem to keep revisiting this theme, maybe it's time to do something about it.

So I basically nuked my entire pictures directory an hour or two ago. Whee!

The question is, "now what?" Your input is greatly appreciated:

[Poll #122318]

Also feel free to post any advice. Whee.

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Only answered the first question - I feel I have insufficient data to answer the other two and don't want to pump you for more information on an uncomfortable subject.

No advice springs to mind straight away, but if anything pops up retrospectively then I'll pass it on. :-)

I didn't answer the third question because i've been to sites where if you try to click on the image, you get a little message that tells you that if you want a copy of the picture, you have to send email to the site owner, who will then send you a copy. I don't know how to do that, but since i've seen it, it *can* be done. Ask your webgeek friends and see if they have any answers. It's less extreme than the offered options, and it gives you control over what happens to your pictures.

This sounds like the best option. I was going to mention this myself. I don't know how to do it either but you can prevent people from directly saving pics.

It's done with JavaScript, so it can be gotten around by disabling JavaScript, which some people disable to avoid pop-ups.

You could probably put a copywrite notice at the bottom of each picture, and maybe javascript protect people from right clicking. (Although, they can always download the pictures directly)

I think mostly, you just have to suck it up and realize its the internet. :(

Something I'd be more offended of is bandwith theft. I don't know if you pay for your domain or not, but with the amount of pictures you have, I assume your bandwith isn't cheap. :/ 's why I'm hesitant about making a photos page.

P.S. Or, something you could do is to put them up as miniscule thumbnails and if people want particular ones, they could ask you for a full size. That way they'd be too small for them to ravage.

I totally understand your frustrations though. I absolutely hate having periphrials sometimes (printer, scanner, camera). I've managed to fend people away, only by having them not work for me either. ~.~

(Disclaimer: I had no idea you had a picture archive.)

So, the question is, are you doing it for you or are you doing it for them? Do you want people to thank you? Do they whine at you when you don't take pictures? It sounds like you're way too invested in what other people are thinking/doing; perhaps you should do it for yourself first, and if other people derive a benefit, that's great. If they don't, too bad for them.

Joe Hughes and I built and maintain a website that lists bus schedules. You know why? We needed a website that listed bus schedules. We don't get paid to do it (and it's a nontrivial website). Now, it happens that it gets some traffic, and occasionally we get fan mail and occasionally we get "hey, I couldn't figure out how to find X". Having the audience helps keep us motivated to add features and make sure it stays up-to-date and configured properly. And it feels good to help people out [pats self on back]. But there's a healthy portion of rational self-interest involved in the whole thing.

Well, I am doing it for me and for my friends. I'm NOT doing it for all of the random internet stalkers, nor am I doing it for all the 15-year-old boys on the DDR BBS who like to poke fun at me and my Bemani friends.

Yes, people actually do whine at me when I don't take pictures. Well, not exactly, but it's more like, I bring my camera somewhere and take pictures of people and people are like "WHEN WILL THESE BE UP? CAN YOU GET THEM ONLINE TONIGHT?" and stuff. And I'm usually like "No, I can't. I have to download them, resize them, etc..." I love having the pictures around to remember the cool stuff my friends and I did (and these pictures go all the way back to 1997, really) and I love it when I post pictures and people are all happy about them. But then it's when the pictures start leaking out all over and people start making fun of them, that I get all sad.

I heard about your bus website and I think it's great. Seattle's bus system at least has a decent website and doesn't suck, but MAN was the PAT bussite awful when I was still in Pittsburgh.

well, I can see that you deleted your pictures out of frustration. If you want to know whether you should put it back up or not, the question you have to ask yourself is: are you ok with other ppl taking your pictures? If not, then the best thing to do is to not post them at all. Sure you can prevent about 95% of users who aren't computer savvy from saving it, but there will always be people who will be able to get around it (and as a computer geek myself, I know I'm able to steal pictures when it's not allowed, hehe). Ehhh that's all I have to say. You're a computer geek, you should know how to handle it :).

Watermark.

I use a program that can auto-resize & auto-watermark called Smaller Animals Thumbnailer w/o much hassle. If it's a big ordeal, watermark all your pictures with the url website so if stolen, people know where they came from originally. Now you see why a lot of big reputable sites have to mark their pictures.

Oooh, cool link, I've been working on writing something similar for my own use, but this might save me re-inventing the wheel :-)

oh, good call. I *should* do that... although, people can usually photoshop out watermarks can't they?

I've had pictures, documentation, page layouts copied from me on the net without permission. I used to get annoyed by it (especially when documentation was copied and modified by a small company); now I don't worry much about it.

Now I try to think of it as more people being able to read what i've written or photographed. I don't get credit for it, but I don't mind so much.

I'm pretty sure there's a line you can add to your .htaccess file that prevents people from linking your images... It won't stop copying, but if the biggest problem is people putting them on their sites without copying them first.... Something to look into.

of course there's always petridish.net ;)

Did something happen recently that was worse than the nerdoftheweek.tinypenis.com thing?

Anyway, if people can view your pictures, they can reuse them in various and sundry ways.

Watermarks won't prevent photoshopping, as you pointed out.

Using Javascript to prevent people from right clicking is retarded and will stop no one.

Disabling outside linking is really easy: just host the pictures on Geocities, HOHOHO.

Password protection works but it's annoying, requires special setup on the server, and eventually fails when the password gets out. Then you have to make a new password and distribute that instead, and the cycle repeats.

In other words, the Internet indeed does suck.

Also, out of curiosity, how many e-mails have you gotten asking that pictures be removed from your cosplay page? Just the one that you wrote about a few months ago?

Hahaha, I don't think anything could be worse than that incident was. Gaaah. I was telling people about that as an example of the last time I removed my entire picture archive.

I think the password thing will vaguely work. We shall see.

Yeah, Maryssa is the only person I think who ever really complained about my DDR cosplay page. The thing is that I make a big effort to make it clear exactly where I got the pictures from and who the cosplayer is and all that stuff. And I mirror all the pictures so I don't steal bandwidth, etc.

Two questions:

1 - Are they claiming the work as their own?
(this is clear copyright violation)

2 - If they are citing you, is the fact that they are using it without your permission the problem you are having?

I only rarely go to picture sites, as I can't/shouldn't at work, normally only have dial-up at home, except for now (I have no net access at home/off-work).

Hmm.. If you're going to keep them htaccess protected, I would remove the img tags from ddr.html that refer to images in /pictures/DDRFest/, as it causes lots of auth requests when you load that page.

done. I think. Let me know :)

yay, they are back.

O_o;; the crazy CS talk...

anyway... I answered the second option to all the questions, in case you wonder.

First and third questions seem pretty consistent with everyone so i won't bother.. but as far as the second option, i had to take in consideration that you *were* in fact posting them for not only your own, but also others' viewing pleasure, so yeah...

Oh btw, I hope you didn't mind my using one of the pictures on the global BBS... you were mentioned as the author, and I mirrored it on my UW acct...

as far as what to do... I know nothing about the hassles about each option, but password protecting seems the way to go :D

Just wanted to say thank you for running and maintaing your pictures site. I have used it from time to time to show other friends pictures of friends. Also, I admit I think I stole one of your photos for personal use, without asking, it was a picture of me from blk's wedding, so I hope you didn't mind.

I liked your pictures, but never "expected" them to appear because it's a volunteer thing. And I'm sorry that people stole them, and really except for password protecting the site it's something that sadly will happen.

I don't have any good advice that other people haven't already said. If you do choose not to put the pics up again, can I have a copy of the one of

gootmu and I from last year? It's the nicest picture of me anyone's taken in a while.

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401 AD

Re: 401 AD

Re: 401 AD

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thanks dee

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