hello

can i find somewherer a big zip or rar of the all the images posted weekly or monthly on the renderosity gallery ?

thanks for your answers

salut

Peut on trouver un gros zip ou rar contenant les images postées par semaine ou par mois dans la gallerie de renderosity ?

Merci pour vos réponses

victoria.poser@laposte.net

No. That would be a copyright violation.
What exactly were you planning on doing with them?

hello thanks for your answer "What exactly were you planning on doing with them?" just watch ! it takes me a lot of time to do it even with a good connection thank for your answer

I fear that if your connection is slow in viewing just one gallery image, that it wouldn't be able to download a zip file as large as would be needed to accommodate all of the images in the poser gallery that are uploaded even in a single day.

On average there are about 200 such images uploaded everyday to the Poser gallery, that's a whole lot of images.

Images posted in the last 45 days: 25290
Average approximate file size: 300kb

So one week's worth of images would be around 1.2 gb...
Even on my superfast 8mb connection, that would take me around an hour to download...
If you're on 1mb or cable, you're probably looking at a good 8 hours.

I'd stick to browsing ;-)

hi

thanks for yours answers

i don't want you to think i'm angry or willfull about the answer talking about "copyright violation" but today i can find practically the all market place on P2P.

I just ask for a easy way to watch pictures.

My english is not good enough to express my feelings

you 've been nice to answer me

thanks for your answer and for the first pics in my email.

hope i did'nt hurt anyone

but today i can find practically the all market place on P2P.

When images are uploaded, the artist grants permission for them to be displayed on this web site. That doesn't include giving permission to distribute them en masse in other formats.

Your bringing up P2P for marketplace items is an interesting response to the moderator's concern for ZIP files of all gallery images being a copyright violation.

I just ask for a easy way to watch pictures.

I can't imagine downloading a ZIP file of every single image that has been posted even on a daily basis.

It would be much quicker to go through the gallery thumbnails and open the images that you are interested in, rather than downloading everything in a single ZIP file.

I've downloaded pix I've like here since '01...about 20 CDs, and that's zipped..;) I just look at them myself, if I need to make a pic for something, I just make one myself..;) Even getting picky, I wind up with about 800 a month or so, which winds up being a couple of CDs worth.

Quote - I've downloaded pix I've like here since '01...about 20 CDs, and that's zipped..;) I just look at them myself, if I need to make a pic for something, I just make one myself..;) Even getting picky, I wind up with about 800 a month or so, which winds up being a couple of CDs worth.

Naughty naughty.  You ain't supposed to do that.

I am not taking issue with the TOS here, but merely wondering whether some people have really worked out what "copyright" actually means.   I don't think that downloading an image from the internet amounts to a copyright infringement, even if the site, from which the download takes place, claims that it does.   The copyright infringement takes place when the downloaded image is re-distributed, especially when the new distribution is accompanied by a false attribution.  

The idea that merely to download an image violates copyright is completely daft.   According to that logic, downloading anything from freestuff is a copyright violation, too.   And what about giving someone a book, or a DVD, for a Christmas present?   That must be a pretty clear violation of copyright - after all, the recipient hasn't paid a penny for the right to the content.

If you're trying to sell your pictures, don't post them here first.   If I commissioned a piece for, say, a book's cover, and found that the artist had loaded the finished article up here first, so that it had promptly appeared on every pirate site, from Henry Morgan's to Cap'n Blackbeard's, I'd be hopping mad at the pirates and at the artist.   Innocent downloaders, who had kept the image to themselves, wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Quote - I don't think that downloading an image from the internet amounts to a copyright infringement, even if the site, from which the download takes place, claims that it does.

Want to bet on that ?
Downloading images from any site, be it Renderosity or the owners own website, is breaching the image owners copyright - the fact that it happens doesn't make it legal.

Downloading stuff from the freestuff section is different, they are not images and the fact that there is a download link is sufficient permission to download it.  Also any readmes with the download explain explicitly (or should anyway) what can or cannot be done with whatever it is you've downloaded.

Quote - > Quote - I don't think that downloading an image from the internet amounts to a copyright infringement, even if the site, from which the download takes place, claims that it does.

Want to bet on that ?
Downloading images from any site, be it Renderosity or the owners own website, is breaching the image owners copyright - the fact that it happens doesn't make it legal.

 
This part I don't understand.
Any time I look at an image here, it is downloaded to my cache.
After a while I have hundreds of full size images in there and have to clean them out.
So how does that breach copyright?

The breach of copyright enters into the equation when a user deliberately downloads an image to keep.  Storing it in the web cache is regarded as ok because it's part of the way the computer works and (theoretically, at least) it won't be stored permanently.

Downloading something from Freestuff is in no way the same because the content creators have given their permission for you to do that.  Books and DVDs are allowed to be given as gifts because you have the right to redistribute that particular copy once you have bought it.  You are not, however, allowed to make copies of them for redistribution, free or otherwise.

Artists on here are not trying to sell their gallery images.  Don't confuse money changing hands with copyright.  The creator of the work has the right to say what can and cannot be done with the work and unless stated otherwise by the creator, downloading and storage of gallery images here is not permitted.

*Downloading stuff from the freestuff section is different, they are not images and the fact that there is a download link is sufficient permission to download it.  Also any readmes with the download explain explicitly (or should anyway) what can or cannot be done with whatever it is you've downloaded.

*That implies (especially the bit about the readme files) that the owners of the freestuff somehow get to interpret copyright law to suit themselves, which is completely absurd.   That may well be the way things work on Renderosity, but I doubt if it stands up in law.   I fail to see how someone, including me, can hope to pursue a copyright claim against an internet user for doing no more than downloading a copy of an image.   Fine:  having downloaded the said image, you may not re-distribute it for any reason whatever.   Fine:  if you re-distribute it as your own and claim it as your own, you are plainly committing theft.

If I upload an image and somebody innocently wants to keep a copy...

Am I surprised?   Somewhat.

Am I flattered?   Definitely.

Am I getting lawyered-up?   Of course not.

In any other context, copyright kicks in only when the creator's ownership is questioned.   That doesn't happen in the cases to which I am referring.

Quote - That implies (especially the bit about the readme files) that the owners of the freestuff somehow get to interpret copyright law to suit themselves, which is completely absurd.

doesnt' imply anything of the sort - they own the item so can decide what happens to it.

Quote - I fail to see how someone, including me, can hope to pursue a copyright claim against an internet user for doing no more than downloading a copy of an image.

In the uk, the small claims court

Quote - In any other context, copyright kicks in only when the creator's ownership is questioned.

Copyright kicks in as soon as you create an image. 

What about the images that wind up in my temporary internet files after I viewed them??? Technically, they've been downloaded through an act of my viewing them....
[ducking and running]

*i don't want you to think i'm angry or willfull about the answer talking about "copyright violation" but today i can find practically the all market place on P2P.

*That's one of those cases where just because it seems like 'everyone is doing it' it doesn't mean it's right (a in lawful) or okay (morally) to do it.

Quote - What about the images that wind up in my temporary internet files after I viewed them??? Technically, they've been downloaded through an act of my viewing them....
[ducking and running]

I'll refer you to SamTherapys post upthread a bit  :tongue1:

Trust you to think of that heh

It's very foolish for artists to posts their pictures on the internet, expecting that no one will actually save them. Laws that make criminals and thieves of the majority of citizens who aren't actually harming anyone or profiting in any way from the work of another should be revised in a just society, I think. Short of redistribution, how would you know that someone has saved what you've posted? How has it harmed you?

Quote - Short of redistribution, how would you know that someone has saved what you've posted? How has it harmed you?

Lots of people justify different forms of stealing in different ways.  That's a common one.  It's like saying rape isn't a big deal as long as you don't kill the victim - who got harmed?

Getting back to OP, I think that a "Powerpoint"-like Shockwave slideshow would be a cool thing here. This would be nice, as there could be lower-rez compressed image-stream that people could browse- especially on dial-up or slower DSL connections. If someone wanted to look at the larger hi-rez pic, they could look in the artist's gallery.

I’ve rarely seen such a bad analogy. Obviously rape is harmful. Harm includes far more than murder. To assert that someone who has saved an image you’ve posted online is akin to a rapist or a thief is a stretch, to put it mildly. How have you been harmed by the people who saved the images you've posted online in public galleries? How do you even know they have saved the images?

P.S. I've never heard anyone (let alone "a lot of people") assert that "rape is ok because no one is killed." Please get real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

The point is that just because it's convenient for you to steal someone's copyrighted material, and just because you think no harm is done when you steal someone's copyrighted material, does not make it right to steal someone's copyrighted material.  And frankly, "nobody got hurt" is justification for acquittal disgustingly often in rape trials.  

We all know it's copyrighted material, we all know it's illegal.  Justify it to yourself however you need to, I guess ^_^  Right along with your pirated software, mp3s and movies.

Again, I ask, how does it harm you when or if someone saves an image you posted in a public gallery? Bad laws don't render an argument rational, nor is accusing someone of breaking the law in the absence of evidence a rational tactic in debate. If there is no harm, a law should be revised, in my opinion. I argue from the standpoint of someone who has posted images in the gallery with the full knowledge that people might click and save. Any reasonable person should be aware of this probability. Personally, I see no harm in it but would like to know why you do, aside from your implication that it might make rape legal and popular. I find the notion that rape has anything to do with this issue hysterical and absurd.

"Any reasonable person" can expect to have all sorts of crimes committed against them.  Your comment that you find this kind of comparison absurd leads me to believe you don't know what reductio ad absurdum really means, so I encourage you to go read the link I pointed you to.

To give you some other "harmless" scenarios:  
What if someone sneaked into your house at night and drew a sample of your blood?  You never even noticed, so how are you harmed?

What if someone slips your kid a sleeping pill and molests him while he's unconscious?  Nobody knew it happened, so it's not a big deal right?

How about some harder ones:
Your accountant over-bills you whenever he does any work for you.  He's so slick that you never catch him.  Harmless?

You spend all of your money and a few years of your life and possibly a marriage making an independent film.  During post-production, somebody duplicates the entire film and puts it out on torrent sites before it's even released.  Still harmless?

You write a book on a subject dear to your heart.  Someone at the publisher steals it and minimally re-writes it and publishes it as their own book.  No harm done, right?

Quote - You write a book on a subject dear to your heart.  Someone at the publisher steals it and minimally re-writes it and publishes it as their own book.  No harm done, right?

That's totally different. That's redistribution and profiting from your efforts.

The OP wants to download images to his computer just for his eyes only to view. By the sounds of it he doesn't want to change the credit or redistribute that image as his own.

Those 2 situations are entirely different.

Regarding the cache being ok, and right clicking and saving not ok..... whose to stop someone from going to their cache and moving a legally downloaded copy of the image to another place on their hard drive?

I am all for protecting artists' work, but so many blow it totally out of proportion to the point that I'm just ready to start telling people that if you don't want your images viewed, saved etc, then don't  post them on the internet or let anyone else see them. Over the years paranoia  and interpretationhas totally made copyright such a complicated thing and turned it into something that is totally different than its original design... to prevent the hoarding of art.

I write poetry and short stories. I am very protective of my writing because I put so much of myself and my life experiences into my writing. I don't post them on the internet, and I let very few people actually read anything I write. I have been offered publishing deals twice and in the end turned it down because my writing is so personal to me that I would feel totally exposed and vulnerable if it were mass published.

My art on the other hand while I consider it "mine", it doesn't bother me if people hack it up and use it in tags etc, just so long as they aren't saying "I made this!"

If someone wants to save my images to use as their wallpaper I have no problem with that.

While the definition may vary from country to country, in the US it's pretty black and white.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

Quote - In the United States, copyright has been made automatic (in the style of the Berne Convention) since March 1, 1989, which has had the effect of making it appear to be more like a property right. Thus, as with some forms of personal property, a copyright need not be granted or obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape or a letter), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while a copyright need not be officially registered for the copyright owner to begin exercising his exclusive rights, registration of works (where the laws of that jurisdiction provide for registration) does have benefits; it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees (whereas in the USA, for instance, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits). The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the actual author rather than the author himself if the work is a "work for hire". Again, this principle is widespread; in English law the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that where a work in which copyright subsists is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically owned by the employer which would be a "Work for Hire."

People can consider it a stinky, dumb, mean, farty old inconvenient body of law, but it's still law.

Saving something to your computer for your eyes only is not a copyright infringement.

An infringement would be if that person then took that saved image and claimed it as their own or used it in some manner in a public arena such as reposting it on their website.

The act of simply saving the image is not a copyright infringement.

If it were then Microsoft would be sued left right and centre because they allow cached images to be saved onto your hard drive, something that you  have no control over other than to go and delete them afterwards.

Copyright violation involves the unauthorized alteration, reproduction, or distribution of images.

Quote - Saving something to your computer for your eyes only is not a copyright infringement.

I hate to contradict you, but in most places, that's wrong.  Canada does seem to be the exception here though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_and_the_law

Quote - Interestingly, Canada stands out by authorizing, at least until the projected copyright reform, downloads on peer-to-peer networks under the "private copying" exception.

The web browser caching business notwithstanding (and I agree, that is a rather silly real-world example of how impractical it can be to enforce this kind of law) it stops being "fair use" when you copy and keep copyrighted material on purpose.

Quote - Copyright violation involves the unauthorized alteration, reproduction, or distribution of images.

That's really not the way the US and EU law works, or reads, or has been carried out in many countries.

Quote - > Quote - Saving something to your computer for your eyes only is not a copyright infringement.

I hate to contradict you, but in most places, that's wrong.  Canada does seem to be the exception here though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_and_the_law

Quote - Interestingly, Canada stands out by authorizing, at least until the projected copyright reform, downloads on peer-to-peer networks under the "private copying" exception.

Again, you are talking "redistribution", not the simple act of saving for no other purpose than to look at it on your computer from time to time.

Saving and image to your hard drive for your eyes only, and redistributing said image are 2 entirely different things. The latter would be copyright infringement.

So far as the file sharing law in Canada, yes, it's 100% legal to share MP3 files via P2P. The music industry challenged it and it went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where the law was upheld.  However, that extends only to MP3 files so far as I know.

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-5121479.html

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39118537,00.htm

But we pay it in other ways.  We are charged a tariff on everything audio/video, from machines to blank media. That tariff is then submitted to the government like any other tax. 

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39118537,00.htm

Quote - The money collected from levies on "recording mediums" goes into a fund to pay musicians and songwriters for revenues lost from consumers' personal copying. Manufacturers are responsible for paying the fees and often pass the cost on to consumers.

Quote - Saving and image to your hard drive for your eyes only, and redistributing said image are 2 entirely different things. The latter would be copyright infringement.

In its most basic form, "copyright" means literally "the right to copy", which you, as someone other than the creator, do not have.  Saving one copy for your private, personal, only-Jesus-sees-me use is still a copyright infringement, apparently excepting in Canada.

In the US and in a lot of the rest of the world, it doesn't work like that.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

You keep pointing to examples and articles that speak about redistribution.

Please point me to a link where it explicitly states that it is a copyright violation just having used "right click and save to hard drive" for no other purpose than to privately view it with your own 2 eyes.

Right there in the link I just gave:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106

Quote - 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works36Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

The Owner has those exclusive rights - meaning if you are not the owner, you do not have those rights.

I'm sorry, but I still fail to see  saving an image to a hard drive for your eyes only as being a violation of copyrights because that image is not being maniuplated, changed, altered, mutilated or shared around.

As I stated earlier in another post in this thread,  the copyright law is obviously open to interpretation and because of that it's become a snake pit of convoluted hodge podge making this whole thing  more complicated than it needs to be.

Anyway, it seems you and I are at a stalemate because we both seem to have different interpretations of what is and isn't copyright infringement of intellectual property.

Well no, because you're operating under what appears to be a correct interpretation of Canadian law, and I agree with you in that context.  However, Canada's the exception as far as I can tell.

Quote - Well no, because you're operating under what appears to be a correct interpretation of Canadian law, and I agree with you in that context.  However, Canada's the exception as far as I can tell.

Maybe :)

How can anyone post an image now with the certain knowledge that it is perfectly legal for at least some Renderosity viewers to save images to their hard drive, break into your house and rape your cat? The horror!

One key point to remember here is that copyright law wasn't really designed with the internet in mind.

The DMCA doesn't really cover this scenario.

Existing copyright law (in the US) can be interpreted, as pjz says, to state that you cannot copy a gallery image to your hard drive.

On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, your browser automatically makes a copy of all images so that they can be viewed. So it could be argued that, by uploading an image to the gallery, the artist gives implicit consent for the viewer to download the image *for viewing purposes only.

*Realistically, until someone sues someone else, we won't have a clear legal position on this. Possibly we never will, because I personally can't conceive of someone going to court over this issue.

Quote - P.S. I've never heard anyone (let alone "a lot of people") assert that "rape is ok because no one is killed." Please get real.

Believe it or not, I have. Not only that, but I've heard the argument that 'most women secretly want to be raped' therefore it shouldn't be a crime.  Pretty extreme, but it does happen.

Anyway, back to your claim that noone is harmed in people downloading images, first, you have no way of asserting that as a fact. It's only a speculation, and speculations aren't good enough for making laws.

Let's say one made a series of images for use in a desktop pack (for sale), and people decide to take somewhat smaller resolution images from rendo gallery and use them for desktop background. Having done that, they caused the loss of potential income for the creator.

The main bottom line is that just because someting is online it doesn't mean that you or me or anyone else but the author gets to decide how their images are to be used.

Much like someone coming in my gouse, seeing all of the shoes I'm not using, and deciding to take them - since I'm not using them, there will be no harm. Well, the shoes are owned by me, and I get the say so what is to be done with them. Not you, or anyone else. 
It's the matter of property ownership - the owner is the one that has the say in how their personal property is used, rather then whether there's harm by crossing the boundaries of property ownership.

Anyway, that's a somewhat simplified explanation as to why even when there's no harm done, it's not right to do certain things.

Quote - Again, I ask, how does it harm you when or if someone saves an image you posted in a public gallery?

So, if I like your artwork, you don't mind if I download it and print myself some posters, right?
I mean it's much cheaper and convenient then contacting you and asking you for permission and paying you for the trouble, and also, this way I avoid you realizing that if people really like them, you might be able to sell them.
Then I can tell 100 of my friends they can do the same - beacause of course, it is on your online gallery afterall. Why bother you with potentially selling prints of your work.
I mean, no harm done, since you're not selling them right now, and whom in their right mind would put an image of what they want to resell online anyway.

Anyway, above is an illustration of using your logic. As you can see, there CAN be harm done. Immediate or future.

Quote - Well no, because you're operating under what appears to be a correct interpretation of Canadian law, and I agree with you in that context.  However, Canada's the exception as far as I can tell.

I can see in US laws (my particular jurisdiction) that it could be argued pretty easily that the act of deliberately saving an image on one's hard drive is an act of reproducing it without permission.

An example, a copy of the image resides on the internets server. After a 'save image as' there's another dsistinct copy residing on a hard drive of the person saving it as.

To make an analogy, it's much like making a photocopy of copyrighted material - even if many people do it, it's not legal.  Here in the US, if you take a book or any copyrighted material to Staples, or Office depot or Kinko's or any other place offering reproduction services, they will refuse to make a photocopy for you - of the copyrighted material.

That includes instuction manuals, textbooks, fiction, literature, posters, photographs made by photo studios, magazines etc... Anything that shows copyright. EVEN IF one is making just a single copy for personal use. Technically and theoretically this even extends as far as teachers making copies of articles or book excerpts for handouts, even if those are least likely to get a slap on the wrist.

*Existing copyright law (in the US) can be interpreted, as pjz says, to state that you cannot copy a gallery image to your hard drive.

On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, your browser automatically makes a copy of all images so that they can be viewed. So it could be argued that, by uploading an image to the gallery, the artist gives implicit consent for the viewer to download the image for viewing purposes only.

*The main difference in the two is the intent, which I think can be argued pretty easily.

Image being downloaded to the internet temporary files is a process inherent to the act of viewing an online image, and internet temporary files are subject to periodic purging, without being used elsewhere.

Act of saving one's image on a hard drive by deliberately clicking 'save image as' or similar, like drag drop etc... with the intent to save and use personally in places other then temporary internet files, and with purposes other then viewing online within the context of a gallery.
Desktops, skins, screensavers etc....

Yes, the author of an image DOES have the right to define in which manner their images or other copyrighted property is to be used. Much like merchants and freebie providers being able to specify whether their product can or can not be used commercially.

Quote - Saving something to your computer for your eyes only is not a copyright infringement

This made me think of another way some damages may occur.
In most cases the reason something is free on the internet, or the reason people put an image in a gallery is self promotion.
If I put an image in a gallery, I may hope that by viewing the image they like, people notice other things that I do (or in more succesful cases, there may be advertisers hoping for exposure).
By saving an image locally, instead of having to come to my (or any particular website - like rendo) to see the image again and again, the person can circumvent all of that, and use the image personally.
Well, what good is it to me to give you a copy of an image (my property) if by doing that I limit you coming to my website and benefiting me in various ways?
There's a legal term for those kinds of damages, but I forget what it is, I'd have to look it up.

Rendo in part depends on people coming to their website and spending time here looking at the images... every emage one looks at, there's a new merchant banner etc... By allowing hundreds of images to be downloaded at once and viewed locally, the merchants whiom paid for the banners lose exposure. People listed in linkshare lose exposure. Advertizing is often sold by the volume of exposure it gets. 
What follows from that is that limiting the ability to have and view the image individually, on a hard drive DOES have a value (even if it's minor, it's still a value) therefore it should be up to the image owner whether they wishto give that value up or not.

I did not see in rendos gallery agreement a blurb that says you hereby cionsent to allow viewers to download and keep a single digital copy of your atwork for their personal viewing pleasure. (outside the themp internet files)

Anyway, to my knowledge, that's how it works in the US, and in my line of work I often get to 'worry' about those things.

I think it's fairly unreasonable for any artist to expect no viewers will download their images from a website for private viewing, when they publish to the internet.  There's no way to enforce this "rule", unless you put in place some "scripted" deterrant that prevents right-click function, and then have any unauthorized downloads somehow tracked to a database, along with the member's IP address (which could then turn into a privacy controversy).  It's possible to code simple javascript calls to prevent right-clicking on any given HTML page, so if Rosity felt that was something they wanted to do to "protect" artistic copyrights by discouraging right-click "save as" downloading in javascript-enabled browsers, then it could easily do it.  However, I think it's just silly.

If you post to the internet, expect your work to be downloaded for offline viewing.  Redistribution is another issue, and I'm opposed to that of course.

Quote -
This made me think of another way some damages may occur.
In most cases the reason something is free on the internet, or the reason people put an image in a gallery is self promotion.
If I put an image in a gallery, I may hope that by viewing the image they like, people notice other things that I do (or in more succesful cases, there may be advertisers hoping for exposure).
By saving an image locally, instead of having to come to my (or any particular website - like rendo) to see the image again and again, the person can circumvent all of that, and use the image personally.
Well, what good is it to me to give you a copy of an image (my property) if by doing that I limit you coming to my website and benefiting me in various ways?
There's a legal term for those kinds of damages, but I forget what it is, I'd have to look it up.

Rendo in part depends on people coming to their website and spending time here looking at the images... every emage one looks at, there's a new merchant banner etc... By allowing hundreds of images to be downloaded at once and viewed locally, the merchants whiom paid for the banners lose exposure. People listed in linkshare lose exposure. Advertizing is often sold by the volume of exposure it gets. 
What follows from that is that limiting the ability to have and view the image individually, on a hard drive DOES have a value (even if it's minor, it's still a value) therefore it should be up to the image owner whether they wishto give that value up or not.

Connie, even if it were possible for a site like Rendo to somehow impliment a secured measure of preventing people from saving any of the images in the galleries to their hard drive, through means of some clever PHP or scripting code, I'm quite sure the outcome would do the site more harm than good in the long run.

The overwhelming majority of surfers seem to want to be able to save stuff to their hard drive.  What they do with it, or their reasons for doing it, will range from harmless collecting to more malicious intent.  There's no way of knowing.  However, fact is, this is the internet culture.  Some people embrace it, some are scared to death of it, but this is the risk we take publishing in digital form on the internet.  There's ways to watermark your work, both visibly and internally, to help track down or deter any copyright misuse, but there's no fool proof way of ensuring it never happens.

As for banner views and return visitors, that seems to be why live, updated content is so valuable, and why this site and others like it are so popular.  Keeping content fresh and new every day or as often as possible ensures more return visits and happy campers.  Having a free, user-submitted content stream pretty much ensures this process is automated, so Rendo doesn't have to worry about buying new content, or leasing it from some distributor, or licensing pics or galleries from artists (like some pay-per-membership sites would).  It keeps the "bookmark" visitors coming back day after day to see what's new.

Personally, just speaking for myself, I don't care at all if my work is downloaded.  Even if it's shared on P2P, who cares?  So long as no one is claiming it as their own, or profiting from it.  And then even this wouldn't be much of a concern, because once they are caught, I have the originals... the uncompressed full versions in PSD or TIFF format, that aren't the same resized, compressed JPG images I upload here.  Without these originals, there's no way they could fight off a C&D order from a lawyer, or a copyright lawsuit if the infringement was so egregious as to warrant this.

Are we arguing reasonable and practical, or legal aspect of it? 
Cause they're not the same thing... LOL

I totally hear you Maxxmodels, about the practical part of it.

It's kind of like leaving a newspaper vending machine open, you know that people will just take them. It's not a huge deal, or something that one would go to jail for or get dinged for doing.

However, from purely legal point of view, it's some sort of a petty theft.

Anyway, I was arguing the legal side of it.

Quote - Are we arguing reasonable and practical, or legal aspect of it? 
Cause they're not the same thing... LOL

I totally hear you Maxxmodels, about the practical part of it.

It's kind of like leaving a newspaper vending machine open, you know that people will just take them. It's not a huge deal, or something that one would go to jail for or get dinged for doing.

However, from purely legal point of view, it's some sort of a petty theft.

Anyway, I was arguing the legal side of it.

Oh, on the legal side of it, your points are all valid.  I wasn't trying to dismiss them outright.  Just that it's an impossible task to enforce broadly, and yet some artists (not in this thread specifically) seem to think it should be done, or seem to expect this kind of protection.

*There's a legal term for those kinds of damages, but I forget what it is, I'd have to look it up.

*Yeah, well, come back when your ducks have got you in a row, won't you?

Quote - > Quote - Again, I ask, how does it harm you when or if someone saves an image you posted in a public gallery?

 

So, if I like your artwork, you don't mind if I download it and print myself some posters, right?
I mean it's much cheaper and convenient then contacting you and asking you for permission and paying you for the trouble, and also, this way I avoid you realizing that if people really like them, you might be able to sell them.
Then I can tell 100 of my friends they can do the same - beacause of course, it is on your online gallery afterall. Why bother you with potentially selling prints of your work.
I mean, no harm done, since you're not selling them right now, and whom in their right mind would put an image of what they want to resell online anyway.

Anyway, above is an illustration of using your logic. As you can see, there CAN be harm done. Immediate or future.

Again, that's talking "redistribution", not just simply right clicking and saving to your hard drive to view it at your liesure. Doing absolutely nothing to the image other than viewing it.

OMG! It's the ninja death squad come to get me cuz I didn't let them take my pics!

WTF LOL!!!!111!!!

(Heavy irony here)