Cannot Avatars be protected.?

[vivandorron]

Surely there must be some technological way that Abers can be protected from their Avatars being copied and used by others.

At the moment it seems a simple matter for a troublesome person to make a minor alteration of a username and it has been proved to me, by a few respected AB members, that an Avatar can be copied and placed above the altered name; so as to pass as being genuine

Consequently, I am quite perturbed by the thought of stolen identities and would welcome further opinions on the matter.

Ron.

[boxtops]

A lot of the avatars are from avatar sites so they are up for grabs. The cross-eyed cat I used at one time is freely available and I've seen anotehr ABer using it for a while.

[hc4361]

It's impossible. Once any data is on the internet it is impossible to prevent people copying the image or words.
I would say very few people on AB have designed their avatars from scratch, but have simply pinched somebody elses and maybe edited it a little bit in Paint.
I made mine using a legitimate free program.

[dotty.]

Noone;s used a Garth avatar yet except me, if they do I will probably be quite pleased, unless they also pretend to be me, imposterers are the scurge of this site.

[dotty.]

Hi Doc, nightmare on the M6 today, suicide attempt junction 31a and the whole system shut down grr took me 1hr and half to travel home (usually 12 mins!)

[hc4361]

Yes, but dotty, that avatar of yours belongs to the copyright holder, not you. You haven't got permission to use it.
Or have you?

[Mamyalynne]

Doc those aren't your own little legs, well I never.

[vivandorron]

My Avatar is free of copyright, but I don't want anyone using it in AB. Use it elsewhere if one wishes to.

Ron.

[hc4361]

If it is free of copyright there is nothing you can about it, Ron.

[vivandorron]

I acknowledge what you say hc4361. Nevertheless I was thinking that perhaps AB could do something to prevent an Avatar being copied into its system....Wishful thinking no doubt.

Ron

[vivandorron]

Butch...Why do you not think so.?

Ron

[ABerrant]

AB does not copy the avatar to its system - it is linked from the Gravatar site - and is expressly forbidden by Gravatar to "copy, store or modify User Submissions" by the Gravatar Terms of Use.

Another of the Terms of Use is that "you hereby do and shall grant to [Gravatar] a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully-paid, transferable (including rights to sublicense) right to perform the Services (e.g., to use, modify, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, perform, and otherwise fully exercise and exploit all intellectual property, publicity, and moral rights with respect to any User Submissions, and to allow others to do so)."

In other words, you relinquish control of the avatar image to Gravatar (and the rest of the world) from the moment you submit the image.

http://en.gravatar.com/site/terms-of-service/

[China Doll]

I don't think a stolen avatar equates to a stolen identity... Most get their avatars by finding an image they like and using that. I don't see how it makes any difference to someone copying a name and adding a number or a space which still doesn't really mean an identity has been stolen as a) they usually give themselves away and b) how can you steal an identity from an annonimous (sp) site?

[jno]

someone did copy Ron's avatar, though only for purposes of illustration. You only have to change one pixel and it's a new picture. But you could possibly petition the Ed to remove an avatar (if necessary by removing the whole poster) if you thought someone was imposterising you.