Is it possible to prevent screen capturing?
Question by A.Berrak: Is it possible to prevent screen capturing?
we wish to publish and sell online videos. But we need to block people to screen capture is this possible? We bought artscope copy web safe script but its useless because orbit downloader can record videos. We told that problem to tech support and they said “sorry we will solve at next version”
So be careful. Do you know any other script?
Please do not send me answers “you cant….” I have been searching this subject for 2 years. Do not answer please to gain points or just to write something. I already know all the things Brisray typed.
If its not logical do not try to kick me please. I have found a solution but its not safe and I told it to here. Now may be someone has another solution than artscope.
Best answer:
Answer by brisray
People have been trying to do this for years with no success. The problem is you can’t control something that’s already on somebody else’s computer. There are programs around that claim to obfuscate websites but a lot don’t work properly as browsers don’t like encrypted coding. Once upon a time streaming multimedia was regarded as “safe” to distribute but there are now probably hundreds of programs that can capture it.
You can probably deny access to known capture agents (like Orbit) at the server but then there are good screen video capture utilities around that you’ll have no control over at all.
What you could do is only put short clips from the videos on your site. They’d better be representative of the whole video though or you’ll probably get returns of the full product as people may well say the clips weren’t representative.
Another way may be to watermark most of the online video.
Unfortunately, people who don’t think themselves as thieves will steal any digital file they can get their sticky little fingers on.
EDIT
If you’ve been researching this for 2 years then you already know the answer. This is the answer! You CANNOT prevent anyone from capturing stuff that is already on their computer! How do you think web browsers work?
The only possible other answer is if you don’t want people downloading it, then don’t put it on the web.
Edit (again):
I’m sure you must realize this by now but the really only safe way of doing this is to have a restricted, password protected area on your website where you keep the full versions of the videos for people to download it from. After viewing the taster or watermarked videos then you could ask people to email you for the password. This will stop a lot of the “drive-by” downloads.
I’m also sure you’ve seen the JavaScript protected sites where the mouse buttons are disabled so people can’t easily right click and get to the usual menus. You can find these here – http://www.google.com/search?q=javascript+disable+right+mouse+button
Again, you must realize this will only stop complete amateurs, there are so many ways around this type of coding it usually say’s how little the people who put it on their sites know.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings and that I can’t help you more. I was hoping someone else would reply with something that actually works but I’ve been writing websites for a long, long time and know of no foolproof way of protecting files apart from restricting people’s access to them or encrypting them.
Maybe you could distribute the actual videos on copy protecred CDs? – http://www.cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_utils_3.shtml – but, again, i’m sure you know, almost every copy protection scheme yet devised has been cracked to some degree or another.
Edit (yet again)
You probably already know this, but you could use lower quality vidoes on the public site with the promise that people withthe password to the protected files will get higher quality ones.
What do you think? Answer below!
