When I first started dealing with plagiarists in 2001, the problem was primarily on message boards and forums. This made sense. Forums were the most popular means of socialization at the time and they were by far the easiest way for someone with limited Web experience to publish content.

So, even though I regularly ran across a personal home page or even a blog that had plagiarized copies of my work, most of my time was spent working with forum admins.

However, over the years that has shifted. Forums are now more of an Internet curiosity than an established meeting place. Social networking is now, quite literally, the hottest thing on the Web and with profile, blogging and image tools built in, they are by far the easiest way to publish a work on the Web.

So, with this trend, plagiarists have also begun to flock to social networks. Of all of the human-made plagiarism of my content I deal with, approximately 75% take place on social networking sites.

However, whenever I say “Social Networking”, I am actually being generous. Nearly 95% of all of my social networking issues, and thus well over half of all of my issues in general, come from one site: Myspace.

This is something that has me very worried.

Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Social Plagiarism

Sadly, I am not alone in my issues with Myspace. Nearly every author I have asked about their plagiarism problems have put Myspace either at or near the top of their list. This is especially true for anyone who writes poetry, short stories or other creative works that might appeal to Myspace users.

The only group that doesn’t seem to put Myspace at the top of their list is fan fiction authors. They are one of the few groups that still see the worst issue with forums and community sites. However, fan fiction plagiarism creates a whole new set of problems beyond the scope of this article.

The Myspace issue isn’t limited to writers either. Ask any artist or photographer where they see the most unwanted copying, they’ll usually mention Photobucket. Photobucket, however, is owned by Fox Corp., which also owns Myspace, and the two sites are closely linked. In fact, much of Photobucket’s initial popularity, before it was bought out, was derived from Myspace users wanting to host images and videos in their profiles.

But while it makes sense that the largest social networking site and the largest photo sharing site would attract the largest number of plagiarists, these sites see copyright infringement way out of proportion to their numbers. Where Myspace may be a little bit ahead of Facebook, I see hundreds of cases of plagiarism the former with almost none on the latter.

The question becomes “Why is that true?” and “What can be done about it?”

Copy and Paste Haven

To see the problem first hand, all you have to do is either browse around a few Myspace profiles or visit Photobucket’s home page. Though many people use these sites to post legitimate content, the majority seems to have performed at least one act of likely copyright infringement.

The problem is so serious that scripts have been developed exclusively to detect image copying on Photobucket (more on this script later) and it seems that you can’t go anywhere on Myspace or Photobucket without encountering likely infringements.

Users of these sites are content hungry. They need text, images, video and audio to complete their profiles. On one hand, this has created a whole cottage industry around providing licensed content for Myspace, including profile layouts. On the other, it has lead to a copy and paste culture that can be very dangerous.

Though plagiarism and copyright infringement takes place everywhere, in my experience, the number of likely infringements on Myspace profiles dwarf those on Facebook. Why this is seemingly true is complicated, but there are five potential reasons I see for it.

1. Public Profiles: Myspace profiles are, for the most part, visible to general public. This not only makes it easier to find infringements, thus increasing the number found, but adds motivation for people to beef up their profiles, sometimes motivating people to take content that is not theirs. I see a similar trend on dating sites that have public profiles.
2. Younger Audience: Most of the plagiarists I deal with on Myspace are under the age of 25. Myspace seems to cater to a younger audience and, for whatever reason, they seem more prone to abusing copy and paste on the Web.
3. Low Expectation of Originality: In a way, it is hard to call much of the content use on Myspace plagiarism. There is a very low expectation of originality on the site as most people recognize that the images and other profile touches came from somewhere else, attributed or not. This is less true with the blogs and profile information sections, but it is clear that most Myspace users don’t expect fellow members to create every element of their profile.
4. Permissive Takedown System: Though Fox responds quickly to all DMCA notices and removes infringing works, it is very slow to ban users. I have seen many cases where a Myspace user has lifted ten or more works and Myspace simply removed the infringing work without deleting the user as a repeat infringer.
5. High Degree of Customization: Myspace, unlike many other networks, allows users to edit almost every aspect of their profile’s look and feel, leading to far more opportunities for abuse.

All in all, the reason Myspace is such a haven for plagiarists is not a simple question to answer, but rather, there seems to be a combination of factors contributing to the problem.

Fixing it, however, is going to be even more difficult.

Solving the Problem

Myspace, as a site presents several critical challenges for writers and artists.

First, there is almost no way to contact the infringer directly unless you already have a Myspace account and can send them a message. However, such messages are a risky way to resolve copyright disputes as the paper trail is very limited.

Second, as mentioned above, Myspace does respond well to DMCA notices but rarely takes action against heavily infringing users. This can make it difficult to handle any infringer that has taken many different works.

Finally, the nature of Myspace is one where works posted are passed around almost immediately. It is something of an enclosed ecosystem where a poem, an image or an article will enter into the environment and then travel throughout the service, often carrying dozens of different names.

Overcoming this will not be easy and there is no way that a single Webmaster or copyright holder can do so. It is going to take a concerted effort to change both the culture of Myspace and the approach of its parent company.

The best advice I can give right now is to be aggressive when dealing with infringements on Photobucket and Myspace. Actively seek out infringements on the sites and report them quickly. Once image search tools allow users to detect infringements on Photobucket, use those tools as well and aggressively demand removal.

The goal is two fold. First, motivate Fox to create a more efficient and usable copyright system and the second is to change the culture of these sites. Currently, on YouTube, there is a great deal of infringement but users, for the most part, expect any likely infringing video to be pulled down. As a result, those who care about their YouTube account are careful not to post such videos and the most successful YouTube users feature original content.

The goal is not to eliminate copyright infringement on the site, that will never happen, but create an ecosystem that encourages creativity and rewards originality. The difference in such a system is obvious when one looks at a site such as Flickr and then goes to visit Photobucket.

Conclusions

The sad truth is that there is very little that we can do from the outside to help shape the type of site Myspace is to become. In addition to its large size and strong, if at times annoying, culture, there seems to be a lot of foot dragging on Fox’s end.

But what is frustrating about this problem is just that infringement seems to be so rampant on these sites, but that legitimate users of them seem to share the burden.

There is a reason why Myspace is not taken as seriously as Facebook or Photobucket as seriously as Flickr and the issue of copyright infringement is a big part of the equation.

This is most unfortunate not just for the artists and writers that have their work misused, but those that use those sites and try to do good things with it. Their reputations are tarnished by association.

Fortunately, most of those who use or did use those sites for the purpose of displaying their own work have at least established presences elsewhere.

If one wants to be taken seriously, it is clear that Myspace nor Photobucket is the place to do it.

That company, a Japanese organization called Gazopa produced a technology that seemed to be very similar to Tineye at first glance.

However, after using and experimenting with the service, I can safely say that it was not built for this kind of searching and, at this time, it not ready to be used as a means to detect image copyright infringement.

How Gazopa Works

In terms of how one uses Gazopa, it actually works very similar to Tineye. The user either uploads or points the search engine to an image on the Web and Gazopa then searches the Web for similar images.

However, Gazopa does offer two additional options. First, it allows users to search for images based upon a keyword, thus making it more like a traditional image search engine, or via a drawing that the user makes on an electronic whiteboard.

If you upload an image or use a drawing, Gazopa then searches its database of approximately 50 million images (Note: Tineye currently has approximately 900 million) for images that are similar to it. But rather than using fingerprinting to perform the matching, it is based on more vague elements such as shape, color and face.

The concept is interesting and it would seem to have a lot of potential for detecting heavily modified image copying, such as images that were severely cropped or distorted.

However, after experimenting some with the service, it appears that the service is not quite ready for such use, at least not at this time.

Limitations of Gazopa

The problem with Gazopa is that, no matter what I search for, the site does not seem to return exact duplicates of the image or even modifications of it. Rather, it returns images that feel like the original, but actually have little in common.

A good example is what happens when I search for the Layered Tech logo using Gazopa. As you can see in the image below, none of the top results are copies of the logo, though many exist on the Web.

Though Gazopa returned 1000 matches, none of them, at least on the first five pages, were direct copies of the Layered Tech Logo.

However, when I punched the same image into Tineye, I was given much different results. Even though Tineye was only able to pull one result down, it was a perfect match for the original logo.

The result is that, where Gazopa produces far more results per item, most of them are questionable in terms of being a direct match. However, when you consider that Gazopa has a feature to prevent direct matches from appearing in the results, it is clear that isn’t the goal of the service.

Better Uses

At this time, Gazopa does not appear to be well-geared toward detecting image copying. Though I can see a lot of usefulness for the search engine, this doesn’t appear to be one of the better applications.

I would be more fond of this search if I were a designer looking for ideas or wanting to see if there was anything extremely similar, not identical, to a work I had created.

Likewise, with the drawing feature, I might be able to see if an idea I came up with has been done before or how unique a new logo I got really was.

It is a great idea for an image search engine, it just doesn’t fill this one function. Though that may change as the database grows, it is still barely 1/20th the site of Tineye’s limited database, it still seems as if the technology is not well geared toward this kind of use.

There is a lot to be excited about in Gazopa, but unfortunately, this kind of detection is just not what they are good at. There are many other reasons to try it out, but copy detection isn’t one of them.

Conclusions

Overall, I like Gazopa. It has a slick interface, a fast search and seems to return some interesting results. However, it doesn’t meet the needs for myself and others like me who are trying to track how their work is being used on the Web.

Still, I definitely recommend giving Gazopa a try. Not only might it work better for you, but it is just something that is fun to use and to play around with as well as something that can be useful.

It may not be the end all solution to finding copied images on the Web, but it certainly can help in other ways.

photo credit: Keyser_ Soze

It happens about once per month. I get an email a software programmer who believes that he or she has developed the perfect DRM solution. They send me the usual promotional copy about how great their product is and why I should promote it on this site.

Even though my faith in DRM as a solution to content theft issues has been completely shattered, it is hard for me to not get my hopes up a little bit. However, they are almost immediately dashed every time as I test the solution.

Usually within a few minutes I’m breaking the DRM scheme and emailing back the person their “protected” sample image. Though I offer a detailed analysis of how I was able to perform the feat and offer suggestions on how to improve the product, I never hear back from them.

This is in stark contrast to detection and licensing companies, such as Copyscape that have listened to my issues and made changes to fix them. In fact, many of these companies go on to become paid clients to take even further advantage of my beta testing and trouble shooting.

The DRM guys, however, disappear, They almost always resist even a simple email exchange and never defend their product against the flaws that I find.

This is not to say that all DRM schemes are unscrupulous, just that I have serious questions about the ones who have approached me. If there is a DRM solution out there that works, I want to find it and I want to give a chance to the legitimate DRM problem solvers to get their products reviewed.

However, to ensure that the playing field is fair, I’ve created a simple DRM challenge. A format by which any image DRM solution provider can submit their product, have it reviewed on this site and, potentially, win the prize of free advertising.

The rules are below.

The Big Idea

The big idea of this challenge is fairly simple. If there is a magic DRM solution out there, I want to feature it on this site. I haven’t found it yet and, currently, do not believe it exists, but I would love nothing more than to be proved wrong.

So, I wanted to give every DRM producer a chance to have their technology tested and reviewed on this site under a standard set of rules. If anyone can meet my criteria and beat all of my efforts to break your DRM, then I am offering a month of free advertising on this site (delivered in the form of a 200×200 button near the top of the sidebar), bearing in mind this site does not currently show ads, as well as a text link at the footer in the RSS feed for a week.

To get the prize though, you must meet the following rules.

How It Works

The premise of the challenge is easy. If you are a DRM solution creator and would like to take me up on the challenge, what you first need to do is email me with the following things:

1. General information about your DRM solution, including name, how it works and any promotional information you wish to include
2. A logo or other graphic to include in my review (if applicable)
3. A link to an image that is protected using your technology

Please bear in mind that, right now, this is ONLY for image DRM solutions for simplicity reasons.

Once I have that email, when I am able to, I will attempt to break your DRM and email you either your image or the critical parts of it. To do this, I will bring a series of tools to bear including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Source code snooping
2. Browser tricks
3. Screen capture tools
4. Decompiler programs
5. File extractors

If I am unable to break the DRM in a reasonable amount of time, approximately one hour of work (Note: the work may actually be over a period of many hours due to my schedule) I will then turn the system over to a friend that is even more savvy about breaking DRM and give them the same chance.

(Note: If you are interested in helping to break image DRM schemes, send me an email to jonathan@plagiarismtoday.com and let me know. I have some people in mind but if there are a lot of applicants I may need more people to keep the line moving.)

If the DRM system survives both attempts to break it and meets my other criteria, then it wins the challenge.

It is that simple.

Usability Criteria

However, since it is easy to lock down an image so that no one can get to it, including a legitimate viewer, I’m also laying out a series of usability criteria any such system must meet.

1. No software install to view
2. Must work on Mac, Windows and Linux
3. Must work in at least IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera
4. Ideally, legitimate users should not even be aware of the DRM in place but the DRM should definitely not hinder normal viewing in any significant way
5. It can not incorporate watermark as the goal of DRM is to prevent copying, not reduce effectiveness of any copies made

Please bear in mind that these are not absolutely all of the guidelines in this area and that any DRM that greatly hinders regular viewing of a file could be disqualified from the ultimate prize.

It will be up to me and readers that I poll whether or not a DRM system hinders viewing too greatly.

(Note: I am on the fence about slideshow systems such as Slideroll. Though these systems are relatively secure, they do hinder viewing of the images and have other vulnerabilities. I am seeking artist feedback on whether to allow such systems into the challenge.)

Other Rules

Before we go any further, here are a few miscellaneous rules to the challenge.

1. You must be the creator or a representative of an image DRM system to apply. Users can not nominate a system for the challenge (but can suggest them to me informally for outreach).
2. Once I have completed my testing of your system, I will email you with the results. You will have a 48 hour period to respond. If you don’t reply in that time, I will publish my article without your commentary.
3. All systems submitted, whether they complete the challenge or not will be reviewed on this site, possibly including a screencast. By submitting your service, you agree to allow me to do so.

In short, if you submit a DRM system for this challenge and it is trivially broken or creates a horrible user experience, the world will know about it.

Objections and Questions

Finally, here are the answers to some of the more common questions/concerns many will have regarding this challenge.

This is impossible! No system can do this!

I’m on record saying that I agree. No image DRM system I have seen has been able to balance usability and provide good protection. Please bear in mind that I am not some kind of elite hacker or tech guru, I’m just a computer-savvy Webmaster with a lot of experience testing image DRM.

If your system can not survive my test then there is no way it will survive on the Web. The image only has to be jailbroken once for it to be all over the Web.

The inclusion of screenshots as a means to break DRM is unfair, those are low-resolution images.

This argument is suspect to me for many reasons.

First, there is no reason to post high-resolution images on the Web unless they are intended for printing. Posting extremely high-resolution images is, usually, a waste of bandwidth.

Second, as was shown during the first round of concern with Photobucket, low resolution images can still be used very successfully in prints.

Third, screen shot tools are almost universal now, built into every major operating system. It is the first way many amateur image plagiarists obtain an image.

Finally, the most common use for an illegally-copied image is on another Web site, for that, a screenshot is more than adequate.

Do you have to get the whole image?

No. I look at it from the artist’s perspective. If I can get the bulk of the image, enough to virtually replace the original work, then I will consider that a failure.

Though such omissions might help prove which image is the original, it doesn’t help the artist keep their work from spreading. However, there will be a note in my review that I was not able to get the full image.

What if my system doesn’t meet your usability criteria?

You can still apply to be reviewed, just understand that even if I can not break your DRM, you will not win the challenge. I realize that there may be works and artists that find such a trade off rewarding so I will not bar such products from this site, though I will be honest about any such issues.

What if my system doesn’t prevent copying but tracks it?

Those systems are not designed for this challenge. If you have such a system you wish me to look at, let me know. However, it is not eligible right now for this challenge. More on this later.

What if my system is commercial?

That is not an issue, I will mention the price in my review but so long as there is no charge for me to test it, I will not object. Such systems are still eligible to win.

When is the deadline?

There is none. This is an open-ended challenge until either someone wins or I decide to close it down. If I receive too many entries at once I may put a temporary halt on new submissions.

I will announce changes/closures on this page.

A Word About Rule Changes

I am writing these rules a bit by the seat of my pants. Remember this, the spirit of the competition is to create a DRM system for images that is both user-friendly to legitimate viewers but also difficult to impossible for a prepared computer-savvy user to break.

Please keep your submissions in the spirit of the competition.

I will likely be posting minor rule changes to this page over the coming days. If I have to change a rule between the time you submit an entry and when I test it, I will email you to let you know of the changes and make sure you agree.

I don’t expect anything drastic to change.

Ask Questions

I encourage people to post questions about the contest in the comments form below so that I can give public answers. If you have a question that is specific to your system email it to jonathan at plagiarismtoday dot com.

Enter

If you want to enter the challenge and agree to all of the mess above, send me an email with the required elements to jonathan at plagiarismtoday dot com and I will let you know when to expect met to start work.

Thank you very much for your time and patience with this. I sincerely hope that there is a holy grail of image DRM out there and would love nothing more than to be proved wrong.

Bear in mind that, if such a system has been created, this challenge would not even be the beginning of what the creator could do. With so many artists clamoring for a means to control their images, such a system would almost certainly lead to much greater things.

On that note, I look forward to being challenged and to seeing what creative solutions the programmers of the world have come up with.

To that end, many are looking visible watermarking, such as what the free Faststone Image Resizer provides, others are turning to invisible watermarking, such as Digimarc’s MyPictureMarc service. Still others, however, are getting back to basics and looking at embedding data in the file itself, using established protocols to display their personal info.

Fortunately for artists, there are programs that can easily embed copyright, descriptions, titles and other information into an image, all without altering it visually in any way and without any great demands on time or money.

In fact, Microsoft provides a great tool for editing this data and makes it available completely free to all users of Windows XP and Vista.

Introducing Microsoft Photo Info

Microsoft Photo Info is a free download and install. Once you’ve set it up, you use it by finding the images you want to add information to and right clicking on them, either individually or in a collection, and select “Photo Info”.

From there, explorer will pull up a window the proves the information that is currently in the image spread across several tabs. This information includes both the EXIF data and any IPTC data included in the file and can include a wide range of information including titles, descriptions, copyright statements and even URLs.

There are several features worth noting:

1. Collective Editing: You can edit the files individually or collectively if you selected multiple ones before hitting “Photo Info”. This is great for batching together large numbers of files.
2. Automatic Copyright: The program can automatically generate a copyright notice based upon your name and the date of the image’s creation.
3. Viewing Existing Data: Most digital cameras add a great deal of metadata to a picture before you ever see it. You can use this program to view the information stored and edit some of it.
4. Entry Recall: The program remembers your latest inputs and can call them back to make editing future images easier.
5. Support for Multiple File Types: Program edits both jpg and tiff files among others.

But while all of these features are useful and the variety of data available can and should be exploited, it is most important to edit the “Title” and the “Description” of the image as those are the ones most easily viewed by others.

Simply put, without Photo Info or a similar EXIF reader, most of the data will remain hidden. However, any Windows user, by simply clicking on the image properties, will be able to see those two elements very clearly.

With that information easily available, it will be difficult for anyone to say that the photo or image belongs to them or that they performed a reasonable search and could not find the copyright holder.

With the upcoming orphan works legislation looming, such an argument could be very important to make.

Why Do This

The reasons to mark your work using metadata are many. The most obvious is that it makes plagiarism very difficult to defend as the metadata is not likely to be changed or removed by someone just copying the image. All one has to do to prove their ownership of the work is right click the image and select “properties”.

More than that, however, it provides protection against the work becoming an orphan. The orphan works bill in 2006, which is likely be reintroduced, at least in part, would have made it so that, in the event a copyright holder could not be located after a “reasonable” search, the work could be used without permission in some circumstances.

It would seem logical, however, that any “reasonable” search would start with looking at the file itself. By embedding your copyright information into the file, you ensure that you are always identified as the copyright holder and never have your work become an orphan. Simply provide your name and some form of contact information and the work should be in good hands as the metadata is carried with it even if the file is copied.

However, the system is not perfect, there are problems with relying solely on metadata and many reasons why you should not make it your sole source of identification.

Limitations

Before you put your name and information in the EXIF data of your image, consider the following points:

• Anyone Can Change It: The same as you can use Photo Info or another EXIF editor to manipulate the metadata, so can anyone else. There is no way to “lock” a file so that no one else can make changes.
• Anyone Can Erase It: Metadata often gets erased from images, especially by programs that optimize images for the Web. Such programs often erase the data in order to save a few bytes in file size.
• Not For All File Types: Sadly, there are no such standards for PNG or GIF graphics at this time. The only Web format it works for currently is JPG.

But while these are definitely limitations to take to heart, these are not reasons to avoid using a free and easy tool to protect your work, especially when it does not negatively impact your viewers in any noticeable way.

Conclusions

With the orphan works legislation coming back from the dead and image reuse becoming more rampant, it makes sense to take a moment or two to protect your work, especially considering how much time and effort went into creating it.

Even if this system is far from perfect in its protection, it is not often that we have something that is free, easy to use and does not harm the viewer experience. Even if it only provides a small amount of protection, it makes sense to go ahead and try it.

Visual artists, especially those that post to the Web, already have a very tough time protecting their works and need all of the help they can get to make sure that they don’t lose total control of their creations.