Illegal Picture Downloads

ergonzalez

I shoot sports for the local schools in my area. I've noticed drop in my pro sales in the last couple of weeks. I though it was no big deal, however, unlike before, people approach me to ask when the pics will be available and to request pics of a specific player. In other words, the popularity has gone up while pro sales have gone the opposite way... I did a quick search on the web and ran into these two links about downloading (hacking) pictures from smugmug. So far I have tried downloading pictures using the method mentioned in the first link, with no success. I have not had a chance to try the second method. I wanted to share this with all of you and find out if somebody else is aware of this, and/or to see if somebody has experienced people downloading your pictures illegally?

http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/28/batch-download-pictures-from-sites-like-smugmug/

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/01/28/the-smugmug-privacy-hole

_________________________________
Edgar Gonzalez
http://www.mcallenphoto.com

Dano

It is very easy to download the pictures. You must watermark everything you put on Smug if you want them safe.

ergonzalez

Dano wrote:

It is very easy to download the pictures. You must watermark everything you put on Smug if you want them safe.

I forgot to mention that all my pics are watermarked. I see a lot of my pics in myspace, etc. These are pics where they did a "screen cap" since they have the watermark right in the middle. Although that bothered me at first, i think it is good advertisement I am talking about people downloading the original files or a file that is good enough for them to print (with no watermark).

I also want to make clear that I am not insinuation anything, I am just concerned about the recent combination of events in addition to the links I shared in my original post. Any opinions or advice about this would help me an hopefully others... Am I a little too paranoid?

apexonephoto

I just tried the 2nd one and about the 10th photo was 2 women kissing at a party. How do I find mine?

darryl

Ah, the great SmugMug Privacy Hole of 2008. I remember it well....

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=82913

Final resolution:

http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/02/08/big-privacy-changes-at-smugmug/

So what you're seeing are photos from before the February 2008 implementation of Image Keys. Those users either don't care about the insecurity of their images (or more likely) were completely unaware of the security issues.

From February 2008 on out, all images require a unique (and more importantly, non-sequential) key for viewing, that essentially closes this hack for new images.

Here, let me just quote Don:

>> Yes, older galleries and photos/videos are grandfathered. Their old URLs without the Keys still work. All new photos/videos, as well as old photos/videos inside of new galleries, require Keys to access. Same with new galleries.

>> If you don’t want your older stuff grandfathered, simply create a new gallery and move your photos & videos from your old gallery into the new one. Key’d links will instantly be required for access (if you change your mind, just move them back and they’ll be re-grandfathered). Alternatively, you can set a password and turn off external links.

bkatz

Both of these articles reference a security issu that was addressed last year by Smugmug where they now add characters to the name of photo so they can't be batched and easily guessed.

There is no way that I know of to get the photos without the watermark but it is very easy to get them with the watermark. What some people do is use photoshop to remove the watermark.

Art Scott

ergonzalez wrote:

I also want to make clear that I am not insinuation anything, I am just concerned about the recent combination of events in addition to the links I shared in my original post. Any opinions or advice about this would help me an hopefully others... Am I a little too paranoid?

Along with watermark, limit the viewing size and you may want to use the print delay so you can use only small or med size for viewing and at an almost non printable resolution...........

jfriend

ergonzalez wrote:

I shoot sports for the local schools in my area. I've noticed drop in my pro sales in the last couple of weeks. I though it was no big deal, however, unlike before, people approach me to ask when the pics will be available and to request pics of a specific player. In other words, the popularity has gone up while pro sales have gone the opposite way... I did a quick search on the web and ran into these two links about downloading (hacking) pictures from smugmug. So far I have tried downloading pictures using the method mentioned in the first link, with no success. I have not had a chance to try the second method. I wanted to share this with all of you and find out if somebody else is aware of this, and/or to see if somebody has experienced people downloading your pictures illegally?

http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/28/batch-download-pictures-from-sites-like-smugmug/

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/01/28/the-smugmug-privacy-hole

_________________________________
Edgar Gonzalez
http://www.mcallenphoto.com

As others have said, the methods discussed in those two articles have been blocked for over a year by the addition of the image key (random characters that must accompany the URL before anyone can download).

I checked a few of your recently uploaded images and it looks to me like you are doing the right things to safeguard your images. Max size allowed for access is Medium, images are watermarked and right-click protection is on. You are set. All people can get is the medium-sized image with watermark. You have to show them at least that in order to be in business on the web so that is the best you can do. If they are ripping off even that, there's not much you can do other than to gently remind them that this is your livelihood, these are copyrighted images and they are only available via purchase. I would say that people who are taking that are not likely using it for something that they would have purchased anything for anyway.

Have you talked to any of your prospective customers about why they aren't buying? Are they too price sensitive in this economy? What do they think about your prices: 4x6's from a basketball game for $4.65 and 5x7s for $7.05?

Do you know that you're getting lots of traffic to the site and just no orders? Or are people not even looking?

In a total surprise to me, I did a volunteer shoot for a local school graduation party and put the images up on the web for free download. I was surprised how many kids asked me if it was OK to download them for use on Facebook. They were actually aware of the rules and wanted to do the right thing. After receiving a bunch of questions, I posted on the site that the images were available for free download to the students and family of the school for their own personal use. I'm not saying that there aren't still plenty of people trying to rip-off anything they could avoid paying for, but I was happy to see that at least some of the youth of America is getting educated on digital rights.

ergonzalez

Art Scott wrote:

Along with watermark, limit the viewing size and you may want to use the print delay so you can use only small or med size for viewing and at an almost non printable resolution...........

That's how i have my settings.... watermark, and medium size viewing is the highest people can go. I just joined the forums earlier today to post my concerns. Thank you all for the quick and very useful responses.

fwenchy

Frustration
It is so easy nowdays to take a picture with an Iphone and share it with the world...
I had my Smugmug site "tested" by some friends and it really scared me: they 'took " a picture of my pictures with their phone. I was green...I am going to watermark everything personal that I don't want people to copy for free. A suscriber or moderator (?) had a point: What are they going to do with the pic copied from a phone anyway? The watermark would add advertising right?... I am still a little confused a far as size and definition, especially because Facebook require still good quality pics but low definition. After all it is not a good idea to advertise bad pictures...
So I am very frustrated also, but the protection on Smugmug works from pc to pc. Thank you guys! How about from mac to pc or mac to mac?
Thank you guys and hang in there!

Andy

Protection works the same on Macs or PCs. ANY IMAGE on any website anywhere on the World Wide Web can be copied with a screengrabber (go google for Jing or Skitch or many others). Watermarking, limiting larger sizes, and blocking external links and adding right-click protection are the best defenses

More: http://smu.gs/nXh1zb