Watermark system for AO?

[dj89]

Have any of the mods thought of a watermark system so when aoers put pictures up on the board they are not used elsewhere, well at least not without advertising the site.

Just an idea to help AGD save some money, I know that people can still use them other places but if the do it will adverts for AO.

[SCpoloRicker]

I don't think some users would like to cede rights of their pictures over to AO. Some people are professional photographers.

We've got plenty of members. ;)

[Muzikman]

Yeah, that would be a big issue. I know that if I postd a photo on AO, I would not want an AO watermark on my photo as it's not owned by AO and people would get the wrong idea. I do think a good idea would be one like SA has where a lot of times a picture hosted on SA will not show up if linked to from another forum. That would cut down AO bandwith. The other and better option would be to not allow attachments at all.

[SCpoloRicker]

htp:totalfark.com/threadid?=56235345ith/dontlinktosomethingawful

If bandwith is a concern, Muzik's point would be an easy solution.

[jayloo]

2 things about watermarks....

1. You have to put them on the pics by hand. download a bunch and run a batch job on them with a program like photoshop. This would be extreemly time consuming.

2. Do it when they are uploaded to the AO server. You would have to install about 4 or so libraries on the unix server then recomile php with several new options then write php the code to automagically watermark the photos. Waternarking pics on the server takes up a lot of ram (then u swap) and cpu.

I have done both in the past at one time or another and they both suck. The second option is the better one but you could really slow the server down or even hang with impropperly written code.

My 2 cents ... leave it all alone. and definately stop hotlinking if you have not already done so. Use the power of mod_rewrite for Apache.

[Dryden]

2. Do it when they are uploaded to the AO server. You would have to install about 4 or so libraries on the unix server then recomile php with several new options then write php the code to automagically watermark the photos. Waternarking pics on the server takes up a lot of ram (then u swap) and cpu.
Bah, never write code that somebody else has already written for you. Albinator 2 does everything, and it plugs right into vBulletin and phpBB.

http://www.albinator.com/product/professional/

[teufelhunden]

Bafd I\dea!

[RobAGD]

Why would it be bad to eigher block people linking images hosted by AO ?

NOw what Jason said it woudlnt effect him because he post links to his web space and uses his bandwidth. It would effect all the people attaching things here and link to them else where.

And thats using the AO bandwidth for non AO things. I am sure its costing Tom money in that reguarde. I have mentioned a few times about breaking out side linking or tagging images with an AO banner ;)

-R

[JaredMeier]

what if there were watermarks that said "AS SEEN ON AO".. like this...
http://img85.exs.cx/img85/3628/ao0vh.jpg

[Muzikman]

I would still not like to have any of my photos watermarked with anything that was not me. Although I do not attach many files, if I should ever, the images still belong to me and not AO.

[jayloo]

Bah, never write code that somebody else has already written for you. Albinator 2 does everything, and it plugs right into vBulletin and phpBB.

http://www.albinator.com/product/professional/

Code is useless till you install the right libraries on the server. Its not as simple finding some prewritten code.

[Dryden]

Code is useless till you install the right libraries on the server. Its not as simple finding some prewritten code.
I never said it was that simple, but your argument against would only have basis today if it were still 1997 or if you were a unix graybeard who likes to do things the hardest way feasible. Every Linux distro I've used since 2000 has had a full complement of PHP and ImageMagick in both source and binary form. Watermarking a photo and generating a thumbnail isn't any more complex than a "convert" statement from a command prompt.

[SCpoloRicker]

I never said it was that simple, but your argument against would only have basis today if it were still 1997 or if you were a unix graybeard who likes to do things the hardest way feasible.

roofles. :)