Author Topic: Tag Central, does anyone know about the site? (my Smugmug images found) (Read 6752 times)

ljooc · « **on:** September 18, 2009, 20:15 »

I came across this site while searching to see if my photos are used anywhere.

http://tagcentral.net/?tag=crayon

http://joochianglee.smugmug.com/Other/Still-Life/7812213_tFzw3#505866851_AMkgK

I have a Smugmug account and posted a couple of my photos there. All my albums have right click protect. Two of my photos (crayon and color pencils) appeared on the site, links are provided, but the images on the page can be saved by anyone if they right click!!!!

I never sold any print downloads on Smugmug so needless to say I am furious as to how this is even possible. I just emailed Smugmug for an explanation.

Note photos from a few other Smugmug galleries are on the page as well and that is only for the tag "crayon".

Does anyone (any techie) know what Tag Central is about? and how they could "hijack" a copy of the Smugmug image?? please shed some light

JC

Digital66 · « **Reply #1 on:** September 18, 2009, 20:37 »

At that size, and without any watermark, those images can be easyly stolen by anyone. Right Click or not!

Doesn't Smugmug offer the possibility to use a watermark?

goldenangel · « **Reply #2 on:** September 18, 2009, 20:53 »

Having watermarks woudl be a must in my opinion. Right click protect is really not much of a protection.

ljooc · « **Reply #3 on:** September 18, 2009, 20:59 »

yes, they do (Pro package), I only have the Power Package (which offers right click protect and disable print option, two features I thought were critical to start). I could have added my own watermark before I upload the photos but that defeats the purpose.

The Pro package is the one that offers the added watermark as an added feature

what puzzles me is that this guy is able to post a copy of the image with the link, how the heck did he get the image in the first place when you can't right click to save on my Smugmug gallery

It looks like I will need to migrate to the Pro package, I am waiting to see what Smugmug has to say about it.

sc · « **Reply #4 on:** September 18, 2009, 22:04 »

The way I see it is they don't actually have the images on their site. They are using an XML feed to post the image and link that they capture from SmugMug. Clicking on your image takes you to your SmugMug Gallery - IMO nothing wrong with that.

BTW I have found some of my images also. But I also noted that it is only images that have keywords and are not watermarked.

Watermark your images and they may stop showing up in their search.

Steve

ljooc · « **Reply #5 on:** September 18, 2009, 23:17 »

if you right click on the image posted on their site, you can select Save As, so the image they posted can be saved.

Adeptris · « **Reply #6 on:** September 19, 2009, 01:33 »

Quote from: ljooc on September 18, 2009, 23:17

if you right click on the image posted on their site, you can select Save As, so the image they posted can be saved.

TagCentral looks to be just an aggregating website, using a keyword will collect public feeds and aggregate the data in one place for the user, they are doing nothing wrong.

The images are coming from SmugMug via a public RSS feed, they will have a way to exclude your images from public feeds or mark images as private, but that is not much use in getting your name out there, so do not rely on others as protecting your images is your responsibility, just add the watermark before uploading or even upload two, one private un-watermarked and one watermarked public.

If I use this link and go to SmugMug where your images are and use the right mouse it is disabled, but if I select any un-watermarked thumbnail, I can have a usable image with a few mouse clicks and keyboard strokes, I can have the 600 x 400 preview image, Ctrl + PrtSc, open paint and Ctrl+V, select the large preview with the selection tool and Ctrl+C, Ctrl+N dont Save, Ctrl+C and you have a 600px x 400px image to save.

9 Simple steps that takes less that 30 seconds to steal your image, because you have relied on someone else to protect your asset, make them private or watermark them.

How much faith should we have in the disabled right mouse or flash galleries where right mouse is also disabled?

David

elvinstar · « **Reply #7 on:** September 19, 2009, 09:13 »

I just used a screen capture utility to grab the image below which is right-click protected. Watermarks are a MUST for photos on non-microstock sites!

ljooc · « **Reply #8 on:** September 19, 2009, 10:55 »

Adeptris, Elvinstar, and others,

Thanks for your insight/info, this is definitely an eye opener for me (you would think I would have known since I knew about Ctrl+Print Screen and Snagit), I have been careful to post only watermarked images on my blog, and even that sparingly and none on Flickr and thought RCP on Smugmug was suffiicent until now. A rude awakening for me indeed. I just turned that particular Smugmug folder private for now and disabled all external links for the remaining folders.

The reply from Smugmug suggested the same (what do I expect

), get the Pro package or upload an already watermarked image.

The question now do I upgrade to Pro package, or pull all my work off Smugmug and just show selected watermarked images on my blog only, I have to give this some thought now.

camera shy · « **Reply #9 on:** September 19, 2009, 11:35 »

lgooc, thanks for this post, I've spent the morning watermarking my smugmug images!

ljooc · « **Reply #10 on:** September 19, 2009, 11:40 »

update:

now that I have disabled all external links on Smugmug, the two images no longer appear on the TagCentral link. It looks like the feed grabs a screen shot each time?

it does not solve the larger issue though.

if you have images on Smugmug, make sure you DISABLE EXTERNAL LINKS (under tools, customize gallery)

HermanM · « **Reply #11 on:** September 19, 2009, 20:05 »

I too had a rude awakening on this issue several years ago... now everyting is watermarked...

MicrostockExp · « **Reply #12 on:** September 20, 2009, 14:44 »

I have the pro zone package and you can design your watermark.
If you want to save $5 on the pro zone account your can use my following coupon when you sign up: 5CnHScGMAvPuA

L

ljooc · « **Reply #13 on:** September 21, 2009, 08:53 »

thanks Idambies
Have not quite decided if I am upgrading to Pro package just yet or exploring other options. If I do, will use yr Discount code

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Tag Central, does anyone know about the site? (my Smugmug images found) (Read 6752 times)

ljooc

Digital66

goldenangel

ljooc

sc

ljooc

Adeptris

elvinstar

ljooc

camera shy

ljooc

HermanM

MicrostockExp

ljooc

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