Can someone explain this to me?

[akktri.livejournal.com]

I admit this is a little off topic, but I figure that since it's related to art thieves, copyrights and stuff, I thought I might be able to at least get someone to explain this to me. I am really confused.
A person told me a way to sneak a watermark into my drawings the old fashioned way (to protect them from theft), but I can't imagine how it works. Does anyone know what this stuff means?
"You take a blank piece of paper, ruler, and pencil. To make the letter `C', you draw a straight vertical line, then at the top and bottom of it draw horizontally to the right, a quarter-inch line. Then from the free end of each of those little stubs, draw an inch- long line parallel to the original 8" line. The result is a squared-off letter `C' that has been outrageously stretched, vertically. Just looking at it, you cant see it is a letter C. Follow it with several more distorted letters and it looks like semi-random thin vertical lines. To read the message thus written, lay the paper on the table, and crouch down so you are looking at the tabletop almost edge-on (or just do that with the paper), and the vertical stretch is un-done by your viewing angle, and you can read the text. My suggestion was that such stretched characters scattered throughout the drawing (either manually, or by photoshop-overlaying a standard file) would mark it, not too obtrusively, in a way that cant be easily removed by a thief."

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

So... what are you asking? Is this a good idea? Probably not. The point of a watermark is to tell people that the art is yours, if they have to print it out, then look at it at an extreme angle to see the watermark, then what good is it doing?

If the question is "does this illusion work?" or "how does this illusion work?" yes it doesn, and I suggest you try it and see. You can do it simply by taking letters on a graphics program and stretching them until they look just like lines, like a bar code, or you can do it by hand as suggested.

But what good it's supposed to do you, I've no idea. I guess you could prove a stolen work of art was yours, because the theif wouldn't know about the illusion, and you would. But that's the only use for it I can think of.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

I'd personally opt for the "don't mess around" option. Put a hidden signature in the image somewhere and a visible watermark, that way if someone is dumb enough to remove the watermark, you still have the hidden one to prove it's yours. But really I wouldn't bother with the stretched water mark thing, it's way too much effort and it wouldn't be any good for digital protection.

[aaaamory.livejournal.com]

The idea is to insert something that the person plagiarizing the work wouldn't know about. It's kinda like how the GI Joe dolls have a flaw on one of their hands that is put in on purpose so that they would know if someone is copying their dolls by making molds out of them.

It looks like the explanation that you posted outlines a way of stretching something, like a signature, to make it less obvious that it is a signature and more like a neat-looking pattern that you can incorporate into the drawing. The plagiarist will remove the more obvious signature and completely overlook the hidden signature and later on you can go, "Oh, but this artwork *is* mine. My name is right there. If you tilt the paper and eye the little pattern over in this area, you will see it clearly."

[lastres0rt.livejournal.com]

The illusion works, but if you're already hiding the signature, there's not much point in having it to begin with.

[aaaamory.livejournal.com]

I thought I explained the point in having it. An art theif that is saying that the art is their own and that they created it wouldn't hide someone else's name in the art, particularly the name of the person most likely to challenge them, would they?

[iankeith.livejournal.com]

As far as explaining what it means?

It's like lettering on a road. Stretched out, but in your car you're reading it at an angle, so it looks normal.