Copyrights and Watermarks

I'm sure everyone knows by now, based on one of Lorelei's threads, and a thread I started over at the CG, that there has be issues regarding people posting links to maps without prior permission. It's being handled, so I don't want to start another go around here. Vintyri posted a link to that thread for anyone that might be interested.

It has, however brought up a couple of questions about copyrighting and watermarking our maps, to prevent people from 'stealing' them. Or... more accurately, to prove that they have been stolen if/when it happens.

I sort of create a copyright in my maps anyway, because cc+ has that option. But I noticed it DOESN'T include the universal copyright symbol, the little 'c' inside the circle. I've also noticed that the standard computer keyboard doesn't include the copyright symbol either. I've been extremely lucky up to this point... My book publisher, of course, takes care of my copyrights for me, and the publishing websites I belong to do as well.

This practice has also left me extremely naive, because for the first time, working with making maps, I'm having to copyright my works on my own.

Which brings me to the questions for this thread. Is there anyway to implement the copyright symbol into the cc3+ products? So that when we use the copyright option it provides us with a legal copyright? Possibly making it multi-lined so that we can add the appropriate 'all rights reserved' ?

Comments

  • I think some font sets include the copyright symbol, but I don't know how to get that into a map as text.
  • DogtagDogtag Moderator, Betatester Traveler
    edited July 2016
    Option 1: Quick and EasyIf you're using Windows, you can insert the copyright symbol into your text. Press and hold the Alt key and then (still holding the Alt key down) type 0169 on the keypad, and then release the Alt key. This trick only works with the numeric keypad; it doesn't work with the number keys at the top of the keyboard.
    Option 2: Easy, Powerful, and More Versatile (But Not As Super-Quick)You can also use the very helpful Character Map applet from Start>Programs>Accessories (newer versions of Windows might have it in Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools). The Character Map lets you choose characters from different font sets. When you click a symbol in the list you can click the Select button to add it to a small text field at the bottom of the dialog. When you have all the symbols you want, click Copy to copy them to your clipboard, and then you can just paste them in and copy and move them wherever you want in your text. Also, when you click a symbol in the Character Map, it will show you the "Alt code" for that character. You can then use that code, just like I described in Option 1, above.
    Cheers,
    ~Dogtag
  • That's very helpful, Dogtag! Thanks!!!
  • edited July 2016
    If you are making maps for profit, please copyright your "products" and state that it may not be re-posted without permission. Sharing awesome maps and drawings is a common practice. In most cases, it is people who like to highlight their favorite artists and as such, is not malicious in nature. They are also shared to highlight awesome products, such as ProfantasySoftware, and websites such as this forum and the CG website. In most cases, a kind word to the re-poster will suffice to have it removed. My stuff is not copyrighted, and as such, may be shared freely. I hope that my artistic efforts, such as they are, help to promote the interest in cartography, my fellow artists, great products like Campaign Cartographer, and the websites that supports it.

    Thanks,


    Charles W. Robinson
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited July 2016
    I suppose your right in many ways Charles. But there are people here who sell their work and suffer badly when its pirated in any way. There are also people who regularly put copyright notices on their work, which are just as regularly cropped out.

    Since Redrobes was kind enough to demonstrate a little home-grown steganography on Cartographer's Guild this afternoon I would like to share a simple sheet version of this idea, which is less obtrusive than a watermark, and far more difficult to remove.

    The attached file has very few sheets and is based on a standard Mike Schley template, so that people who only have CC3 can open it and see the effects. The key factor that makes a steganograph different from an ordinary watermark is the blend mode, which completes a more complicated mathematical algorithm than simple addition or subtraction on the nature of the underlying pixels. The other effect of key importance is the blur effect, which makes it difficult for specialist software designed to remove watermarks to identify the edge of the steganograph.

    This steganograph sheet is home grown and untested, but its free to you, if you want to use it as a temporary measure to add just a little more protection along with your copyright statement, while you consider what to do about this issue in the long run.

    I have set up the sheet to work best with black or very dark grey text, and though you may not see it straight away the word Steganograph is pasted right across the middle.

    for added protection you might want to change the fill of your words to vary the shade of grey, or even use a dark grey texture of some kind to further camouflage the writing.

    Have fun :)
  • edited July 2016
    hmmm....this doesn't seem to work for me. It is not transparent. it only seems to get transparent if i remove the blend mode. i wonder why?? That doesn't seem right, now does it?
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited July 2016
    LOL trust you to be different!

    I have no explanation for that, but it looks like this to me.

    I wonder if your system is set up slightly differently - might explain those other problems we were having with edge striping?
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited July 2016
    Hey - just thought about it.

    Has there been a recent update?

    I remember not doing one because it disagreed somewhat with the beta test setup I had. Maybe that's the difference here?

    EDIT: and WOW! that's definitely not the slightest bit subtle.

    I mean its very pretty, and all, but its not what the sheet effects were supposed to do LOL.

    Maybe its something we need to ask Ralph about - help with setting up a template that works for everyone?

    What do you think?
  • I think i am having a glitch somewhere within the program itself.....That is why the Edge Striping doesn't work in the Annual for me. Does the Blend Mode need to be Linear Light? Can it be Lighten? That seems to work for me, but Linear Light seems to block the transparency
  • And my version is NOT the most updated....mine is 3.67, the latest is 3.72. I don't think i updated either because of the beta maybe? Honestly, i have no idea why i don't have the update. ha. maybe THAT'S why the annual isn't working for me? I don't know, but i tried it on a dungeon map with a different Effects Presets to see if that was the problem, but it didn't work either. And nevermind, Lighten doesn't just work, it completely disappears.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    If you can adjust the settings so that you can barely see the text, but still have some kind of a blend mode in operation, then you have a working Steganograph. the important thing is that you have a blend mode, because it does mathematical things to the pixels that a straightforward transparency can't do.

    Sorry Lorelei. I can't reproduce the problem, so I can't really help. I'm thinking this is looking more and more like something that should be referred to Ralph?
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    You'll probably wish to start with applying the latest update. There have been quite a few fixes since 3.67. For reference, this works fine for me in 3.73.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited July 2016
    Thanks for confirming that Remy. I was beginning to get concerned that it might only work for me, and nobody else, because I haven't updated yet. That wouldn't have been very helpful of me at all - to upload a totally useless file to the forum!

    Lorelei. I hope you are ok? I'm assuming you did the update. Is everything working all right?
  • Well crap. I updated and am NOT happy. My Character Artist AND Perspectives menus are missing. All the Bogie and CSUAC toolbars are gone. Oh god, what have i done? NOOOOOOOOOOOO
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Ooops. Now I feel really guilty for kind of starting this off...

    I'm sorry Lorelei!
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    You had perspectives installed under 3.72? The support for perspectives came with update 4 (3.70). If that's the case, it does seem like there is something weird with your installation.
    Assuming everything is ok, toolbars should be restored byy running cc3menuconfig.exe in the cc3+ data directory (it executes and terminates silently).
    There should be a similar procedure to restore the bogie/csuac toolbars (they just use a different config file for cc3menuconfig), but if you are not on the release version of the Bogie symbols, you should grab and install that.
  • yeah, Remy i have NO idea what you just said. lol. Perspectives....come to think of it, i haven't played with it since i installed it, but yeah, the toolbar was there. My bigger issue is how SLOW the program is now. It takes quite a bit to start up....then toggling between toolbars is terribly slow, especially the DD3 toolbar, which now brings up the Bogie symbols rather than before i had them already there on the toolbar when i started the program.
  • I am coming in late on this but....

    You can use a myraid number of other graphic programs to create a special copyright logo and then just import it in to CC3/CC3+. In something like Photoshop you can make the entire thing almost fully transparent like the example IN CC3+ above. The difference would be that you design a logo and copyright notice and then just import it as a graphic image. By going this way you can also create your own icons of your logo and copyright notice so you just load them in each time. Just a thought.

    Also, one of the things I have looked at (and which seems very do-able) is to (in a real 32bit color file like a PNG file) use an area which has all the same color in it but insert your copyright notice as a set of bit settings. I'm still working this out and I am thinking I might have to resort to using a boundary around an image. But think of it like this: If there was a one bit wide black border going around your image, black is usually something like 0,0,0 (although, just like with white there are different types of black). If, instead of 0,0,0 you used the tuple as a way to build the binary representation of a letter, then black might actually be 0,6,7 (for the letter "C") followed by 1,1,1 (for the letter "o") and so forth with the first number being the hundred, the second the tens, and the last the ones place. The highest any of the numbers would go is "F" or 15. Using this you could easily insert your copyright notice without ever having to deface the image itself. In fact, the only real thing you need is a way to say what the "special" or "unique" color is that you use as the base. I just used black as an example. But the color does have to have enough room to be able to do 128 characters. The copyright symbol is not in the first 128 ASCII characters but you can substitue a Control-C (0x03) to represent the copyright symbol. Anyway, just a thought on what I am working on. :-)
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    Posted By: markem@sim1.usI am coming in late on this but...
    This sort of scheme assumes lossless compression to preserve those low-order bits. A lossy transform like JPEG or clipping out things will probably damage such a message sufficiently that it would be unrecoverable. A much more complex scheme involves using various types of transforms to spread out the signal so that a bit is generally more than the 8x8 block of the common JPEG transform. This information can be encoded into image channels in such a way that the information might be visible, but that wouldn't be objectionable to humans (e.g. encoding information in the luma channel where the eye is more sensitive to transitions and detail would potentially be more useful for low-frequency information than encoding it into the chroma channel where the eye is very sensitive to color shifts).

    Note also that encoding a digital signature (that is, a short message) is much easier than encoding a long message because spreading out the energy of the message is easier.

    If you can guarantee lossless compression, then it's easy to use the low-order bit to encode virtually anything as long as you encode it with something pseudo-random to ensure that it looks like noise and not something structured.

    Anyhow, this is a pretty big field of study (hiding messages imperceptible to attackers) that has been around for a long time. The traditional tale involves the story of the Egyptian general who tattooed a message on the messenger's head before sending them out with fake messages. Recovery involved shaving the messenger's head and if the messenger was captured, attention would focus on the dispatches.
  • Okay, I hope you both realize that you just got way to technical for some of us...me in particular. I have absolutely no.idea.what either of you said, with the exception of the tattooed messages.

    It also sound like . much more work than I want to put Into this. I just want something fairly simple that shows everyone that the maps I make are mine.
  • jslaytonjslayton Moderator, ProFantasy Mapmaker
    That's not technical. http://qh.eng.ua.edu/classes/spring2007/ece635/index_files/papers/digital_watermark.pdf is technical. ;-D I tend to ramble and I apologize for that. What I did here is broadly under the category of "intellectual violence" and I usually know better.

    My badly-made point was that hidden watermarks of one form or another (broadly, the category of steganography) are best done via a post-processing software package if the watermarks are to be recoverable in the face of deliberate damage like cropping or blacking out of sections. A basic semi-visible watermark is much easier to realize, but it tends to distract me from the overall image, especially if the image is low-contrast or has large fields of fairly constant color.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited July 2016
    And just think, none of this would even be necessary but for people who seem to think they own a thing just because they like the way it looks!

    I too, have been utterly lost in the technicality, but I do know one thing. There will be a mouse hidden in all my future completed works.

    This mouse, in fact. but no one will ever see it there... not unless they read this thread ;)
  • Oooh ! A Mouse ! I see it !

    Was that helpful ?
    ;-)
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    LOL. Jim. What would I do without you injecting a sense of humour into everything!
  • Just be glad I'm NOT trying to pun as I'm terrible at it.
  • I like that!!! Hey Sue... at the risk of causing you a lot of headache... how hard would it be to create a storm cloud with lightning strikes coming out of it, that could be used in the same manner?

    And I see your mouse too!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Ummmm.... not that long. I'm really lazy though. You got any such images just lying around?
  • uhm... I might... let me take a look :) If I do, may I email you with them?
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