ArtistScope

ArtistScope is the trademark and trading name of ArtDept Pty Ltd incorporated in Australia who later changed their name to ArtistScope Pty Ltd to avoid confusion as ArtDept was often mistaken as a governement department. The name ArtistScope was chosen to encompass copy protection solutions that were developed to enhance the scope and livelihood of artists publishing on the Internet. In fact it was through publishing and promoting artists on the web that copy protection was invented in the first place.

History

The first ArtDept website was created to showcase local artists but when it came time to go live, the artists baulked at the thought of showing their art where it could be so easily copied and plagiarised. Two roads led from that realisation, one being the founding of the first International Art Contest and the other - the beginnings of copy protection for images on the Internet.

In 1997 there were no references returned from web searches about copy protection for web content like images except a proposed theory found in a University paper about preventing unauthorised linking, but the practice had not been proven. Determined to find viable solutions to protect the work of artists online, William Kent approached many notable developers including the Netscape team, only to be told that a) it was impossible, and b) why would enyone bother? However research suggested that Java could be useful so Fabio Cucci (Italy), the developer of AnfyJava with some most impressive Java applets for graphics was consulted. Fabio was over committed but recommended a colleague named Tonny Espeset (Norway), also a developer of Java applets for online image display. From that collaboration Secure Image evolved to encrypt images for the display on the Internet. Secure Image was the first solution for the copy protection of web images and it employed domain lock, a process that checked which website it was being displayed on to ensure that is was approved by its owner.

That same year Link Protect was released to prevent hotlinking and badwidth theft. Link Protect was a cgi/perl script that delivered files while preventing unauthorised access, which meant images could be displayed on a website but could not be downloaded or saved, even when knowing the location/url of where the image was stored.

Both Secure Image and Link Protect could be used to protect images from save and download, but the new threat of the day was PrintScreen and Windows computers could take a screenshot of the computer screen by simply pressing the PrtScr key. In that day Mac computers had no such thing and 98% of all web developers and graphic artists did not know what PrintScreen was. But everyone soon found out about PrintScreen because it was the only way to steal Secure Image content and every miscreant on the planet had to spread the word.

In 1999 CopySafe was released that displayed encrypted images (like Secure Image) while using a web browser plugin that prevented PrintScreen and screen capture. Unlike Secure Image which could be viewed on all devices, CopySafe used NPAPI plugin technology for Mozilla type web browsers and an ActiveX plugin for Internet Explorer. Consequently Copysafe was limited for use on Windows computers. Although there was a demand for a Mac version, Mac usage outside of USA did not justify the development cost.

In that same year the ArtistScope team set up the first reliable online interface to a credit card gateway in Australia, enabling Australian businesses to transact from web pages on their own website.The Camtech gateway was developed and maintained by a South Australian university and ArtistScope interface was deemed more reliable and more secure than PayPal who was just starting up at the time.

In 2000 Alchemedia released a similar product known as Clever Content which had been developed by a company in Israel. Alchemedia had been floated on the share market and raised $26 million in funding and a lot of that went into promoting DRM and copy protection as the next gold mine for investors. The following year they reported that an additional $20 million had been acquired. As to whether Alchemedia was a copycat or not was difficult to discern because although the two solutions did the same things, they seemed to have a different approach. Alchemedia required a dedicated server while CopySafe could be used on any type of web site. However Alchemdia denied any knowledge of Copysafe and dismissed it as a European thing, which is ludicrous when considering that Alchemedia had applied for a patent described an image protection application that could be none other than Secure Image. Also, at the same time, ArtistScope's website was being attacked every night by the same person located in Israel.

Following in Alchedia's footsteps was another new startup named Vyou from Canada who claimed to have raised $28 million in funding. Vyou quickly opened offices in places like London and like Alchemedia, relentlessly peppered news outlets about their wonderous offerings.

In July 2001 CopySafe PBV was released. PBV (page-by-view) was a content management system (CMS) that enabled a user to upload images directly from their hard drive to have them automatically encrypted added it to a web page that could edited using an online editor to reproduce the look of their home site. the end result was securely hosted web page that was copy protected from all avenues of save, copy and exploit.

In September 2001 ArtistScope was invited to attend the Seybold digital show in San Fransisco by the CrossMedia magazine. It was too late to get an exhibit stand but ArtistScope made the most of it by sharing the CrossMedia stand and running a raffle with CopySafe licences offered as prizes. Unfortunately the timing could not have been worse because it was just after the 911 plane hijack and nobody in the US wanted to go near a plane. To make matters worse, the dedicated server hosting the ArtistScope web site that was located in USA, was hacked and taken offline the night before William Kent was to board his flight. According to the web host the hard drive had been wiped. The server had to be reinstalled and the websites were restored from backup which took most of the night. William looked forward to meeting the CEO of Alchemedia who also had a stand at the show but he never showed. By the end of 2002 both Alchemedia and Vyou had scampered... nothing remains except a news report that a company named Finjan had acquired Alchemedia technology but no product was released.

In November 2002 ArtistScope CD was released. ArtistScope CD created a master file that can be copied to CDs for ease of distribution of product samples and catalogues. Either CopySafe Web Protection or Secure Image Pro be used to encrypt the images, preventing them from being stolen/plagiarised. By using Copysafe Web images and pages could not be copied while on display in a web browser. ArtistScope CD was free software but Copysafe and Secure Image required licensing.

In October 2007 Copysafe PDF was released. The CopySafe PDF Reader was specially designed to protect PDF documents from all methods of copy and reproduction. It was the only solution that could protect from all threats of copy, including Print Screen and screen capture. Other PDF viewers only provided password, print, expiry and watermark options while CopySafe PDF included those plus copy protection.

In December 2007 ArtistScope partnered with ImageTec for the development of image and copy protection solutions optimized for distribution in Japan. ImageTec had been a primary distributor of specialist photographic films in Japan for many years. With the way of the world moving to digital images, ImageTec needed to toward digital image services and image hosting solutions for their outlets and photographers.

In July 2008 Digital Rights Management (DRM) was included in Copysafe PDF to provide access rights control for documents. DRM was not new to the Internet but ArtistScope DRM was most unique in that it provided total control over all aspects with immediate effect on any changes made. The major difference was that instead of using embedded permissions or accompanying token files, CopySafe PDF documents used call-to-home authentication. Each Copysafe client had a dashboard from which they add, edit and manage persmission for each document and user. ArtistScope had revolutionised DRM while competitors like LockLizard claimed that it was impossible for the two years that they took to plagiarise the concept.

In September 2008 ArtistScope DRM portal software was released to provide total control over web pages. ArtistScope DRM was a content management system (CMS) for creating and editing web pages from an online dasboard much like WordPress is today. CopySafe Web technology prevented all manner of copy and ArtistScope's DRM gave authors total control over each users access rights.

In April 2011 ArtisReader and the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) was released to provide the most secure website protection system, enabling all media to be copy protected much more easily and securely than ever before, even more securely than ArtistScope's own CopySafe Web technology. ASPS runs as a server module on Windows and Linux servers to encrypt images for display in ArtisReader, a web browser specially design to decrypt ASPS web pages and copy protect them while on display. ASPS is most unique and more secure than ever desired. By using ArtisBrowser with ASPS a secure tunnel is created between the server and the user's desktop.

In May 2011 ArtistScope started providing business class web hosting on Linux and Windows servers especially for copy protected web sites. Ideal for those not wanting to use a dedicated server or VPS to be able to utilise the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS), clients could opt to have their own website hosted on either Linux or Windows and be able to use ASPS for their copy protection.

In September 2011 CopySafe Mail was launched to provide a secure mail service for messages that could not copied or forwarded. Messages could include images and PDF documents that could be read online only, without them being downloaded. Copysafe Mail is much like the Webmail solution that Gmail uses for online reading except that pages and attached media are copy protected by the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) and users need to use ArtisReader to login and manage their messages.

In August 2012 plugins for popular CMS like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and Moodle were released for managing web pages protected by the ArtistScope Site Protection System. The plugins enable site owners to programatically tag the pages that they want to copy protect by either nominating their full url or part thereof as a keyword so that when "lesson" is nominated all pages including the word lesson in their url are encrypted by the ASPS module, making them accessible via ArtisBrowser only.

In April 2013 Copysafe PDF included support for display on web pages that could be viewed in all web browsers. By using ActiveX for Internet Explorer and NPAPI plugins for Mozilla web browsers (like Chrome, Firefox, Safari) website visitors could now view Copysafe PDF documents embedded on web pages. Visitors not already with the plugin installed would be redirected for download and installation before continuing to read.

In July 2015 the popular web browsers dropped support for NPAPI plugins claiming that they were a security threat. The influencing party in this move was Google mainly to cover deficiencies in their own browser. Chrome didn't comply wth W3C standards had always had a problem supporting NPAPI technology. However this move, despite the obvious repercussion, was a blessing for copy protection because now no-one had to rely on web browsers that were designed at cross purposes. Now web site owners could no longer make the mistake of allowing access to browsers that are useless for protecting web content. Now copy protection for web content can be secure and better than ever imagined by allowing ArtisBrowser only!

In October 2015 ArtistScope Portable Media (APM) was released to provide the means to distribute media displayed on web pages without using a web server. APM packaged web pages into a single file that will run on any Windows computer as a mini web server. APM files can be distributed by email, download or on disk and their content cannot be extracted to retrieve the media within. APM was especially designed for seafarers to study merchant mariner courses while at sea and without Internet. APM was commissioned by LapWare who provide study courses for US Merchant Mariner and US CoastGuard credentials. APM could integrate either Copysafe Web or Copysafe PDF technology to prevent course material from being copied and plagiarised.

In September 2018 CopySafe Video was released to provide the most secure video protection on the planet, safe from all copy and capture, with optional DRM to prevent sharing and unauthorized distribution that can apply while online and offline. Authors have Total Control over all aspects with immediate effect on any changes made, even to videos out in the wild on CD or already saved to a user's computer, ie: a video subscription can be cancelled at any time.

In May 2019 live chat was added to ArtistScope web sites using a proprietary solution that was developed inhouse.

In April 2021 ArtisBrowser versions for all operating systems (OS) were released, enabling all users on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android phones to access and view web pages copy protected by the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS).

In December 2023 WordPress plugins were released for embedding content copy protected by the ArtistScope Site Protection System (ASPS) into any web page or post. The SafeGuard Media plugin adds copy protection while the SafeGuard DRM plugin can add access rights governed by DRM tokens. The effectiveness of these plugins, integrated with ASPS, makes all other WordPress content-protection plugins look fake.

In June 2024 the Guest Video copy protected web hosting service was launched. Guest Video is essentially a web hosting solution for web pages and media, and the only web/file hosting service that includes options for DRM and copy protection. Published web pages can be viewed as standalone web pages or they can be embbeded into existing pages. For example the WodPress plugin will enable site owners to embed either whole pages or media only, such as images, PDF and video. Guest Video is similar to SafeGuard Media except Guest Video dasboard can be used to create webapages using an online editor and it includes file hosting on Amazon S3 while SafeGuard Media uses need to arrange their own file hosting. A point to note is that by using the Guest Video service one does not need a website and can sell books and online courses from almost anywhere including Facebook.

In December 2024 ArtisWiki was launched to provide clear and concise information for online artists without the trivia and misinformation found in other artist/author resources. The ArtisWiki backend is a self contained content management system (CMS) especially designed for the task by the ArtistScope team.

Please report any errors or typos here.