Copy Techniques

The means and methods for obtaining a copy of digital media are vast. As time passes new methods and avenues for saving, copying, printing, downloading and duplicating digital media have been made available to anyone with a computer or mobile phone.

Copy prevention

See copy protection for the latest information on how to prevent copy of web content.

Methods for copying web content

The means by which anyone can save, copy and scrape web page content have evolved considerably over the years and much of it can be accredited to the popular web browsers and their desperation to be popular. Some of those methods are:

Bandwidth theft

Bandwidth theft is the unauathorized linking to images stored on other websites. The practice assumes ownership of the image and by using images not stored on the server/site that is page displaying the web page, bandwidth (data usage) can be minimized. This practice can also be used to imply a relationship with the image host by SEO worshippers.

Desktop sharing

Desktop sharing or remote viewing enables a view to explore the desktop of a remote computer. While useful for editing content on a server live and for debugging user problems by support staff, while viewing the remote desktop the user's computer will not be affected by any limitations or protection applied on the remote computer. For example, while the remote computer may be viewing copy protect content and unable to copy using prinstscreen or screen recording software, a user viewing that desktop remotely is free to copy using any means at their disposal. Some web browsers now include options for sharing desktops. There are also many software applications for remote viewing, some of which are available for free.

PrintScreen

All content displayed on a computer screen can be captured simply pressing the PrintScreen button on the keyboard. On non-Windows devices PrintScreen can be actioned by alternate key combinations or when on mobile, by double tapping teh screen. The newly saved image is then stored in memory and by simply opening an application like Paint or any other image editor, the image can be pasted into its workspace, to be saved as any filename the user likes.

Such an image is usually referred to as a screenshot or snapshot. Usually a screenshot of the whole screen is captured at the user's monitor resolution, usually 72-96 dots per inch (dpi) which is ideal for use on web pages because most computer screens are incapable of displaying anything at a higher resolution that 96 dpi.

When a screen capture software is installed, it can be activated by using the PrinstScreen key and provide the option to select which area to copy, which is a process known as cropping.

Save

The options for saving a page can be found in the browser's tool bar or by right-clicking for a popup menu. Page save can also be actioned by using the Ctrl+S keys. Page saves can provide options for saving the page HTML only or with ALL contents including images, scripts and CSS stylesheets, neatly packaged into a folder of its own.

By right-clicking while selecting text or on mouseOver an image/link options can be available for save image/link as, copy image/link, open image/link, email image/link.

Scraping

The very nature of web site means that all pages are linked and all page media including images, scripts and css are also linked, making it extermely easy to scrape and download everything on a web site that is linked from the home page. There many applications available for web scraping. Serious pundits can web scrape programmatically and serial content thieves can automate teh process of scraping web pages for publishing on their own website as their own content. The motive is usually for profit by way of getting paid for displaying ads.

Many new websites have been created from pages that were scraped from the sites of their competitors. Sometimes the only changes can be a simple word replacement of company or brand name only and a change of header/footer.

Screen Capture

Capture programs, although useful as design tools for legitimate intentions, can also be used to capture oneen images for incorporation into other designs without the authorization or knowledge of the creator and owner of the artwork. Screen capture software has evolved to include many sophisticated options for editing and manipulating the image. Most screen capture applications take control of the PrintScreen key.

Screen capture software has been so popular that there are hundreds (100s) of different brands available. So popular that now most popular web browsers include their own version which can be actioned by selecting a link provided in the right-click popu menu.

Screen Recording

Screen recording is similar to screen capture except that instead of taking a single screenshot, a video is created that creates a recording of motion. There is a multitude of screen recording software available today for the explict purpose of copying video already published online. While such software can be useful for creating lessons by recording the desktop while walking through steps in how to use an application or writing code, most people use screen recording software for piracy.

Spider and Grab Utilities

Media grabbing softtware is available that can search the web or target specific websites, then spider crawl through all links to list and extract the media of choice, whether it be images, video or documents saved as PDF.

History

An explanation of how and when these exploits have evolved and by whom can be learned from the history of ArtistScope. ArtistScope developed the first copy protection solution in 1998, and continues to innovate solutions to keep abreast of new threats as they evolve.

 

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