Copyrights and Watermarks
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
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' ?
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
~Dogtag
Thanks,
Charles W. Robinson
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
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?
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?
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?
Lorelei. I hope you are ok? I'm assuming you did the update. Is everything working all right?
I'm sorry Lorelei!
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.
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. :-)
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.
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.
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.
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
Was that helpful ?
;-)
And I see your mouse too!