[mapserver-users] watermarking

[Allan Doyle]

I think people expect more of digital technology than they do of paper
technology. If I buy a paper map that has a copyright on it, what keeps
me from copying it? Nothing but my honesty or the possible legal
ramifications will stop me.

If I buy digital map data, I have to sign a license agreement, depending
on the vendor these can be quite restrictive. Again, what's to keep me
from copying it? The same thing. Honesty or fear of repercussions if I
breach the agreement.

So, if you provide a map to a large number of people via the internet,
in an easy-to-copy format, you have to rely on the recipients to "do the
right thing". In the internet, the expectation is largely that what I
see on my screen is mine to reproduce or reuse. (This is technically not
really even the case since even if there is no copyright statement, the
author of the content is still the copyright holder).

Given the expectation on the part of the casual user that what's there
is to be reused, I think Thorsten's answer is correct. So you need a
different strategy.

Either you only provide material to the end user that you are willing to
let become free, or you make sure you inform the end user about the
restrictions. Your idea of a popup would be a start in that direction.

A strategy that could take you down a middle road is to save your
high-value information for "premium" customers. I.e. don't provide your
best maps to the free users. Make the high-end people sign an agreement
or make them pay subscriptions. I would guess that most of those people
will be honest enough to not churn out lots of copies. Just as I
wouldn't copy pages off my atlas and give them away en masse.

At the same time, assume that there will be some "leakage" of your
content. The best way to deal with that is to make your premium content
always be better than even the leaked content. By way of example, I can
get stock market data for free but it's 20 minutes old. Who cares if I
copy that and send it out? It only becomes more worthless over time. Map
data changes too. If you can keep refreshing your data, you provide more
value to those who have your most recent maps. In the extreme, a company
that could provide real-time updates to road conditions would be able to
sell that data to emergency response organizations and would be able to
give it away a day later because the next days' data would be better.

I realize that not all map data can be treated this way, but I think
people get hung up on one way of thinking and forget that there are
alternatives.

I also believe that you're always better off working out a scheme
whereby you adapt to the circumstances rather than fight them. Trying to
keep the maps from getting copied is futile. Figuring out how to make
enough money to keep providing maps even while they are being copied is
the way to go. (By the way, think about MapQuest - they are not selling
maps, they are selling a channel to large advertisers that helps them
get at customers who may be looking for services in unfamiliar places).

Good luck figuring out what to do!

	Allan


Matt Carlson wrote:
> 
> Thorsten,
> 
> thanks for your input.
> 
> could you please tell that to our marketing manager... in japanese :)  i
> agree.  the reason i wrote the list is because i myself couldn't see it
> happening either.  'it' being a graphic changing states as it's saved from
> the browser.
> 
> heck, even if it's not a gif ,png, or jpeg,  for example a vector image in a
> java applet, if i can see the map with my eyes i can take a screenshot and
> copy and paste it into to photoshop.
> 
> anyway, after spending a few hours on this issue i'm going to put this one
> to rest for a while.
> 
> regards,
> matt
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Thorsten Fischer" <frosch at cs.tu-berlin.de>
> To: "Matt Carlson" <matt at aruke.com>
> Cc: "Lyndon Zimmermann" <lyndon.zimmermann at adelaide.edu.au>;
> <mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 5:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] watermarking
> 
> > On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Matt Carlson wrote:
> >
> > > here's my solution for a baseline copywright embedded on the map using
> perl
> > > mapscript.  company-logo points to a pixmap symbol in my markerset file.
> >
> > There is no reliable way to watermark digital data, though there is
> > nothing bad in putting a company's logo on a picture.
> >
> >
> > Watermarking of digital data does not work. Watermarking of digital data
> > does not work. Watermarking of digital data does not work. No matter what
> > the manufacturer of your watermarking scheme tells you: it does not work.
> >
> > At least it does not prevent the copying process itself; if it were
> > reliable, it would ease tracking of copyright violators, but even that
> > part ... does not work.
> >
> > That said: in my humbleth opinion, it's evil. It's digital data, it's in
> > its nature to be copied.
> >
> > > what i'm looking for is some way to prevent people from right clicking
> the
> > > map gif image on the browser screen and saving the map image onto thier
> > > desktop.
> >
> > Hum???
> >
> > When the image is created (by copying things around and finally creating
> > a copy to the disk), the webserver copies it to the socket that
> > belongs to the tcp connection: first copy. Any point inbetween that
> > routes your packet copies it from one point to another to send it, but I
> > will skip those here. Then the client takes it and copies it into memory:
> > second copy. Most probably, it gets cached as well: third copy. I left out
> > several steps, but the client has several copies already created.
> >
> > If you do not want your data to be copied, don't copy it yourself and
> > leave it alone.
> >
> > > the effect i'm wanting is when someone does save the map image,
> > > somehow an embedded image shows up with a big copywright message in the
> > > middle.  i thought company's like digimarc and ewatermark were doing
> > > something similair to this??
> >
> > You can do something similar using javascript to trap mouse events and
> > react according to them. Some porn sites do it, take a look at them. But
> > you will only shut the most unskilled persons out who cannot turn off
> > javascript in their browser.
> >
> >
> > And even if you manage to do this, I can still see the URL of your page
> > on the top and handcraft a line that I can use with 'wget' or similar
> > programs, take a look at the html sources and then 'wget' the image by
> > hand if I really want it. But as it seems to me, the images you are
> > talking about are not there for being looked at anyway, so I personally
> > would not bother taking the effort.
> >
> >
> > Sorry if this sounds like ranting/trolling around, but digital
> > watermarking has never worked, it does not work and it will never work;
> > well, it will maybe work if you blackbox every piece of hard- and software
> > of every person on earth and seal it shut and then threaten to kill them
> > if they even think about circumvent the protection.
> >
> > The logic behind it is flawed. Don't waste your time on it.
> >
> >
> > hope that helps,
> >
> > thorsten
> >
> > --
> >
> > thorsten fischer : frosch (at) derfrosch (dot) de
> >
> > hostien in groesseren mengen sind schwer zu beschaffen
> >
> >

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allan Doyle                         http://www.intl-interfaces.com
adoyle at intl-interfaces.com