Protecting images?

rmbsoft · November 4, 2012, 8:19am

Hi,

I just finished creating a Photohunt game. Created 300+ images with 5 differences which was a lot of work

My main concern is, the jpg files are not protected, and if some other programmer would inspect my app, they could just copy and use all those images for their own software.

My first idea was putting the images into a sqlite database, and use BLOB to store the images, but then it would be easy to rip the images from the database. Protecting a database with sqlite doesnt seem to be possible.

Another method would be:

Overwriting the first 4 chars of every jpg with some rubbish data
In the game, copy original picture to temp dir
Write correct header into original picture and read it into Corona

Main question is:
Am I overprotective here? Should I worry about people stealing it?

If so, any other ideas to protect the data?

What do you think?

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mpappas · November 4, 2012, 9:05am

Watermark the images before saving – include a “Copyright Me” message in the image somewhere (small, at the bottom usually, alpha 0.5 kinda thing)
Have the images saved with some transformation on them, making them less usable as is. To do this, you would save the images as upside down/backwards, tinted green, with stretched x,y coords, or with other effects you undo in code, leaving the raw images as undesirable, but still entirely usable in your code.

Just a couple thoughts. [import]uid: 79933 topic_id: 32651 reply_id: 129825[/import]

jkrassman · November 4, 2012, 1:55pm

I shouldn’t put in an effort to try to “protect” those images for copyright issues.

No matter what you come up with, theres always a way around it. As long as you don’t fill your app with real highres images you should be fine. No matter what type of protection you add, the user can always do a screenshot of the display. So on an iPad the user would get an image with a nice resolution, and theres no need for hacking skills to do that. Just push some buttons and they have a perfect image.

If you are successful, your app will be hacked anyway - thats the sadness of the development today and I think thats a bigger concern then copyright issues.

Joakim

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mpappas · November 4, 2012, 9:05am

Watermark the images before saving – include a “Copyright Me” message in the image somewhere (small, at the bottom usually, alpha 0.5 kinda thing)
Have the images saved with some transformation on them, making them less usable as is. To do this, you would save the images as upside down/backwards, tinted green, with stretched x,y coords, or with other effects you undo in code, leaving the raw images as undesirable, but still entirely usable in your code.