Encryption?

Post your questions and problem reports here
Post Reply
jerry
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:08 pm

Encryption?

Post by jerry »

We have a photography studio and would like to offer screen savers to our clients. Is this possible without losing control of the image? I understand a screen shot could always be used BUT would the client have access to the image files once the screen saver was installed?

Thanks in advance
jackie

Re: Encryption

Post by jackie »

I'm also interested in the answer to this question. Can purchasers of your screensaver gain access to the individual images used to create it? Should a copyright notice be placed on each individual image or can the images be legally protected simply by placing a copyright notice in the readme text of the screensaver?
User avatar
Karlis
Site Admin
Posts: 3605
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2002 5:24 pm
Location: Riga, Latvia, Europe
Contact:

Post by Karlis »

Technically it is possible to take screenshots (even if PrintScreen is blocked), so there is no way to make the images inaccessible.

Anyway, image files are already stored in such a way that 99% of users or even good computer specialists will most likely not be able to extract your original image data, however there is no protection against taking high quality screenshots.

Strong encryption can not be used here because image data amount is pretty huge and it would simply cause performance decrease and other problems.

From the experience, the best way to protect media is to write not very long but very descriptive license agreement and include small copyright notice on all images. That is how most professional photographers handle this.
Karlis Blumentals
Blumentals Software
www.blumentals.net
Post Reply