Why Piwigo.com is not free?

This blog post is related to Piwigo.com which includes hosting, installation, updates and backup of Piwigo. Piwigo, the software distributed on Piwigo.org is, and will stay, opensource and free.

Among the photo hosting services on the web, many are free. Running these infrastructures costs money: servers in data centers, electricity power, salaries and so on… These services need to make money, one way or another. The model of these “free” services implies counterparts. “If you don’t pay for the product, then YOU are the product”.

To make it simple, the main purpose of these free services is to attract as many users as possible and generate as much content as possible. The most common way to make money is to monetize users data, mainly with targeted ads. For an advertiser, knowing that you like cooking has a huge value. The true users on these services are not the users actually, the true users are advertisers.

Our goal at Piwigo.com is not to sell your data or improve your “profile” for targeted ads. Our primary goal is to provide a service you appreciate (and buy): our true users are you, sharing your photos, not advertisers.

Protect your photos against copy

One of the most frequently asked questions on Piwigo.com support is “how do I forbid copy on my photos ?”. Here is how Piwigo can help you.

Before listing tips and tricks it is important to understand that no protection against copy is 100% reliable, be it on Piwigo or anywhere else: as soon as a photo is visible on the web, it can be copied, one way or another. It is just “more or less” easy, depending on computer skills of the thief. If anyone says otherwise there is a good chance he is either naive or incompetent or simply a liar.

Which technical protections are available in Piwigo?

  1. plugin rightClick prevents from  right click on photos. Please note that it has no impact on administrator users.
  2. on screen [Administration > menu Users > sub-menu Manage], say “no” on option “high definition enabled” for all users
  3. on screen [Administration > menu Configuration > sub-menu Options > tab Display > section Photo Page], deactivate icon “Download this file”
  4. on screen [Administration > menu Configuration > sub-menu Options > tab Watermark], add your own watermark.
Piwigo 2.4 introduced the "watermark" feature. All your photos are automatically watermarked.

Piwigo 2.4 introduced the “watermark” feature. All your photos are automatically watermarked.

These are only “technical” protections, with a limited efficiency. In addition we recommend to highlight that “All rights reserved. Do not reproduce in whole or in part without prior written permission.”, for example. You can choose to display this message in several locations. For example:

  • in page banner
  • in a PWG Stuffs block, anywhere on the page
  • in a personalized menu with plugin Advanced Menu Manager
  • in page footer with plugin Perso Footer
Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer

Create a custom footer on all your pages with Piwigo plugin Perso Footer