Watermark - Decision

I want everyone to know, I lost a lot of sleep over this last night. It really upset me that people didnt feel I added the watermark with the best intentions for the site. With the amount of time that I put into the site, it just felt like a slap in the face in regards to my judgement. After much deliberation in my head, here is what I have to say.

The watermarks will stay. People have mentioned their concern about this meaning their pictures are now property of SS. Well i have news for you. Technically they always have.

Copyright 1999-2007 SteelSoldiers.Com No information or photos to be used without permission.

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This has been at the bottom of every page since I brought the site back up for Chris in September 05. Now... Let me explain what I feel this means, and I am sure you will understand. When you upload a picture to the site, you 'copy' it to the site. A file remains on your computer, and a new file is created on the server. The file on the SS server is the property of SS. It takes space on our server, is hosted by our server, costs us $ to maintain that files existance. This file is what is covered under the copyright. This does not mean that you cant upload the same image elsewhere, it just means that in order to link to it, or copy it from our site, it is protected. The same technically holds true for all the posts. The idea behind this, is mostly for everyones protection. You wouldnt want someone taking part of your post out of context and posting it elsewhere, stirring up trouble, likewise with copying an idea, description, etc of yours and using it elsewhere. This said, you, as the original author of said post, are the true owner. The point is, that it needs your permission as a member of SS for it to be copied. Anytime permission is requested of SS for copying ability, the oringinal author on teh site will be/is contacted.

Now, back to the watermark issue directly. As I stated above, with the file being hosted on our server, it is property of SS. Images are very easy to copy/take/link from a website. Many of these methods cause consistant bandwidth issues on our server. The idea behind the watermark is, if our resources are to be used, at least people will know the source. It was stated at some point that we are here for the public. I agree. WE as SS are here for the public. We are not here for someone else to take an image off our site, portray it as theirs elsewhere, use our resources in doing so. I have one other option in protecting the images, but its not as robust, and I feel its wrong. I have notices many other forums make it so you cant see images unless you are signed up and logged in. To me, this isnt helping the public.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. The watermark will stay, but I am open to some discussion about how it looks. I could potentially include the posters name in the watermark.

It is your ball, either we can stay and play or go home! no problem here. Sleep well!

Mike,
Thanks for the clear explanation of "ownership". Clears things up for me. I am no longer against the watermarks, just wonder if they could be a little more discrete.
Eric
CBVET

I appreciate the explanation... Thanks for your hard work and don't take offense, we just needed to be ejukated...

Re: RE: Watermark - Decision

cbvet said:

Mike,
..... just wonder if they could be a little more discrete.

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I think the watermarks are a good idea.

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i like them. if someone wants the "no water mark" version, all they have to do is contact the poster. i also think it adds to the forums visibilty as "the source" for green truck information.

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I voted against the watermark because I think it detracts from some of the pictures. I definitely didn't think Mike had any bad intentions. I already assumed that submitting a photo to the site gave SS certain legal uses of it. I am of the old school philosophy that if you put something out on the public airways (and I consider the internet public because it was built with public tax money for the most part) it can be used by the public as they see fit.

I also realize that it is going to be hard to come up with a watermark that is visible on all pictures yet doesn't detract from some of them. If you put it in just one place it will be lost in the background in some pictures. So make it a little smaller or leave it the way it is, I won't loose any sleep either way and Mike shouldn't either.

watermark is good idea

Watermarks to identify source of publishing are a good idea.

My opinion.

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Mike, it is a shame you are losing sleep over it. You do a great job keeping things running here and The Management should have the right to make the site however they wish. If you feel the watermark is the way to go, that is good enough for me. You might consider one across the middle if you don't want it to be cropped out, thus defeating the purpose for the watermark anyway.

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Mike, what's wrong with the idea of attaching the watermark only when the image is downloaded? We see it here and know the site without having to have it drummed into our heads every time we view a picture.

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Mike, I did not get the impression that anybody thought your intentions were anything but good, so please don't feel offended or lose any sleep. Some people (including me) didn't agree with the decision itself, but I can say that I never felt any anger towards you personally. We simply expressed our differing opinions, which is what participating in a forum is all about.

The final decision belongs to you, Chris, or whoever (I don't know exactly how the ownership of the site is divvied up, but I think you'll know what I mean). You've made your decision, some folks like it, some folks don't, that's the way it is, and I don't think anybody will leave in a huff over this. This is a great site, and we should all appreciate your great efforts in maintaining and improving it; I certainly do.

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I have no problems with the watermark and hope it helps bring more attention to the site. I would love to know if ther was some freeware out ther that
my daughter good use on her Myspace to watermark some of her work.
Thanks,
littlebob

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What about the PM, is it necessary to include a watermark on images sent via PM? Example shown below (from Polverone).

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cranetruck said:

What about the PM, is it necessary to include a watermark on images sent via PM? Example shown below (from Polverone).

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I am still debating this one. It is a bunch of code to make it not happen on PM's, as the forum & PM's use the same chunk. I have to figure out how to segregate them, or if we even want to. Problem is, even PM images are 'publicly' available. Case & point, this image http://www.steelsoldiers.com/modules/PNphpBB2/files/img_0703_large_118.jpg is one I sent to myself during a resize test. Click on it, go ahead, you can see how easy it would be for someone to use it elsewhere.

My thought is.... if you want to privately share an image, for the benefit of someone actually using it for print, detail, etc. You should email it. If not because of the watermark issue, but more so, a 640x480 resolution image is pretty useless for that anyway. This holds true for images posted in the forum too. If you see one you like, and want a non-watermarked copy for your files, pm/email the poster. They hold the rights to a non-watermarked version of it. Besides, You really wanted it in higher res anyway.


As to the size of the watermark, yes, I am working on reducing it. I would like to keep something in 2 different spots, for the reason mentioned above. Sometimes one corner washes out the watermark. I tried to keep the watermark as just that, a watermark. Not like the picture I have attached from another one of my favorite forums. I agree that it can be smaller, although it starts to get a little washed out as in this example http://www.steelsoldiers.com/test2.jpg

This also brings up another point. I do have the ability to watermark a users name on the image. Maybe I should put 'posted by mangus580' in the upper left, and www.steelsoldiers.com in the lower right? That defines it as an SS image, but really shows who it belongs to on SS? The problem with that is, if for some reason someone on the site were to repost it again elsewhere, the username watermark would get 'overlapped' and could be messy.

Please understand, I am trying to work this so that everyone is as happy as possible. More and more, due to the shear numbers of our membership, its getting harder to do. Just ask Chris, and his 'auction debate'

BTW, no hard feelings

and... M1075.... I would never resort to putting it in the middle like that

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Hey, I like the diesel place watermark better! With the background shading and centered on the image, it looks good.

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FYI: On another site...for MB Unimogs, you need to be a member and you need to be signed in to see the pictures plus they watermark the picts too. In a way it is good for the posters/members, etc. but perhaps limiting for the newbie that wants to see what is going on (join and find out is my response). I like this site for many reasons and one of them is the ability to post pictures. If you have to put a wm on a picture, no worries from me. Sleep well!
Regards,

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Small point mike, but if you allowed the use of the img tag, then some images wouldn't be hosted on Steel soldiers and take up your bandwidth.

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rmgill said:

Small point mike, but if you allowed the use of the img tag, then some images wouldn't be hosted on Steel soldiers and take up your bandwidth.

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Its not about that. I dont want our bandwidth eaten up, by people using the IMG tags elsewhere on the net, without at least some note that they belong to us.

Make sense? I purposley try to avoid the IMG tags here, as it makes for alot of blank images for people in restricted areas. Not to mention, people cant keep them in size properly, or the load slow.