To watermark or not to watermark?

[GailFan]

Hi Veffers,

Recently while browsing another site (don't worry, I was only there for the porn) I came across a short, very rare video clip. Just last month I had posted the same clip here, and proclaimed it to be a VEF exclusive. Now it could be coincidence that the same same clip surfaced just after I posted it, but given that I've been looking for it on and off for a couple of years, it makes me think it was mine.

Normally I don't care too much if my rips get posted somewhere else. They're not mine to begin with anyway. Sometimes I even laugh. But this got me a little annoyed. Everything else I have posted has either been an encode of something I happened to already own, or had stumbled across elsewhere on the net (and thanked the orignal poster). In this particular case, I didn't find the original movie anywhere online, so I ponied up the grand total of $1 (plus about $20 P&P despite the fact that the DVD came in a cardboard sleeve that could have easily been sent without packaging) to purchase this made-for-tv movie from Amazon.

I'm annoyed enough now to think about watermarking my posts.

Do you guys have any feedback in this?

[snowy25]

Watermarks create a vicious cycle in my view. They are done to promote a site or protect another rip but at the same time are so annoying people tend to avoid those sites or posters. The problem is how the watermark is done, most seem to think bigger is better and thats obviously not the case when the watermark covers the action or is so big your eyes just focus on that. Some sites do come up with a better solution and thats to have a small non-intrusive watermark in one of the top corners where 99.9% of the time it doesn't affect the viewing.

At the end of the day its your choice if its your rip. You could of course create a credit watermark at the beginning before the scene/movie starts. Obviously it can easily be cut off but most people I think wouldn't bother and it would be uploaded elsewhere that way with your credit.

[luddite]

There are a lot of posters ripping off material and trying to make money by using payhosts. I see it all the time on other sites I work. Watermarking is about the only thing you can do to prove it is your rip, but do yo really want to do that ? Let Prenda Law chase the other guy !

[buttsie]

Protecting your VEF uploaded content

http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...7&postcount=65

Even if you use the above idea I'd still think those posting to earn will be posting your content elsewhere because their game is post as much as possible on as many forums
8-12 hours a day...The number of adult forums about is a lot...seen lists of 50+

There are a minority of forums where the only rule is steal as much content as you can find and bring it here...Nothing is off limits for those posting to earn is the real bottom line

When you consider the numbers of whose uploading

85-90+% post to earn
5-15% at a stretch to share

[NIN]

I have seen entire threads ripped, then watermarked ( largely and crudely in most cases by automated process ) and then put up for sale on a famous esales site
& individual images printed and sold as 'original' photographs.
It's always easy to remove, disguise or crop the image as the 'vendor' is indifferent to the quality, just the cash.

sadly , it's gonna happen (annoying as it is) & I don't bother to watermark purely coz i don't like tags & can recognize my own scans anyway.

[snowy25]

Originally Posted by NIN

sadly , it's gonna happen (annoying as it is) & I don't bother to watermark purely coz i don't like tags & can recognize my own scans anyway.

Thats the thing, whatever you do people will post it anyway and you may find yourself with less downloads due to a watermark. Something I see quite a lot is people to rar the file up with an "uploaded by so and so" txt file in the rar. It doesn't make that much difference again to people using your files but if they upload the rar at least people know the original uploader. I have also seen people use their uploading name as the password such as uploaded-by-joebloggs. That way again people know where it originally came from. Both I think are infinitely better than a watermark potentially ruining a movie.

[chip]

Yeah... This is a double-edged sword.

I generally dislike watermarked content ('pornstar classics' anyone?). Primarily because so often the mark is so obtrusive it detracts from the content: Almost to point of making it unwatchable.

I've had content I've uploaded find its way to places I've never intended it to be found. I take it as an expected part of sharing content. I figure that once it is posted, its really fair game because I've effectively lost control of it.

I have done things like make the forum name as an archive password, or have packed archives with a text file to throw off a check-sum, and the text in the file read something like "this clip swiped from the vintage erotica forum" and so forth. About all that will really do is slow someone down that is bent on stealing content just long enough to re-pack and re-up.

What really bugs me is when I see material that I'm responsible for putting online with the intent of free consumption, available for sale. I won't say where and what but I've seen it and it really p*ssed me off.

--

[GailFan]

There's no point in archiving and then password protecting the archive. In this particular case, the person had re-uploaded to RG.

[LadyLuck]

Originally Posted by GailFan

Hi Veffers,
They're not mine to begin with anyway.

Doesn't this pretty much sum it up? If it was your original work then you would have a cause to be chapped about it.

[DTravel]

Well, I only make screencaps and not videos so I don't know if my input is what you want. When I started I didn't mark them in any way but after a while I got a bit frustrated with some of the re-posting of my material without credit. I don't mind people sharing what I post, I actually like it because it means they like my work enough to want to share it with others, but as petty as it may sound I want at least some recognition for all the work I put into making them. So I started tagging my caps. I also started putting captions on with the actor's name and the movie or TV show, useful info that some people had asked for. (Besides I had downloaded lots of other people's work that didn't have that kind of info, which can be frustrating if its been re-uploaded half a dozen times and the file name changed every time.) I deliberately tried to make my tag not too intrusive but enough to hopefully get some recognition or credit. I have no idea if I succeeded or not since no one has said squat since I started doing it but at least no one has been screaming at me about it either.

Hmm, let's see if I can boil that down some. You can't please everyone and you'll drive yourself crazy trying. Pick who you want to please and don't worry about the rest. And make sure that #1 on your list of who to please is yourself. As long as you do that you'll find the right niche to post in.

Hope that helps.