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Can I prevent the screen capture of an iPhone's display? I want to prevent the user from capturing the copyrighted image showed by my application.

Aurelio De Rosa
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Klamore74
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    What if the user uses another camera to take a picture of the iPhone running your application? – BoltClock Oct 10 '10 at 14:10
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    That must be a valuable image! Are you sure you want to let people see it at all? – Peter DeWeese Oct 10 '10 at 14:23
  • Also, this is a duplicate of [How do I disable screenshots on iphone or automatically watermark image?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2492798/how-do-i-disable-screenshots-on-iphone-or-automatically-watermark-image) and possibly [Notification of or detecting screenshot being taken?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2121970/notification-of-or-detecting-screenshot-being-taken) – Brad Larson Oct 10 '10 at 23:01
  • possible duplicate of [Disabling iPhone screenshot feature](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1586592/disabling-iphone-screenshot-feature) – QED Dec 03 '13 at 07:04

3 Answers3

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I think people answering this topic miss the point entirely. I think we all get the answer it cannot be done at this point, however, this is not entirely correct. The device function can be altered by using profiles that allow basic functionality to be turned off. There is a caveat to this and you can read more about it at Apple Support and the Developer website. http://support.apple.com/kb/dl926 Apple configuration utility.

It is not a helpful answer to suggest it is not worth protecting intellectual property especially when this is a main source of some professions (selling and displaying images). Do not discount the importance of apps that make it harder for people to steal from professionals. It should be obvious that this is a concern to may professional artists and they want Applications and Programmers to understand this is a need.

It is also poor logic to say if people want it bad enough they will get it, so why bother protecting it. Think of that logic the next time you want to lock your door when you leave your house or lock your car after all if people want to they will just break the window so why bother locking it?

People should continue to show Apple where this option for developers is a vaild need and copywrite is protected by law.

user976057
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  • Ok, it may be logical to you, but the guy that invented instalus wasn't thinking of logic when he wrote an app that has stolen thousands of dollars from developers. – CodaFi Oct 03 '11 at 05:06
  • Your cited link does not address the actual question as it's a system-wide policy instead of "just this image in this app." It is not currently programmatically possible to block this. End of story. – Joshua Nozzi Aug 18 '12 at 16:09
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Direct Answer: No, there is no way to do this other than to not show it at all.

General Answer: Consider focusing your energy on making your app and user experience better instead of trying to prevent piracy of your intellectual property. As hinted above, there are so many other ways your image can be extracted, it's not worth wasting much time fighting the possibility.

Joshua Nozzi
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  • "Consider focusing your energy on ...": disabling a screen capture is a security control, and its used to nuetralize some threats. Its kind of like saying, Google wasted their time on Encrypted APKs and should have focused their energy elsewhere. One can do it on Android via [WindowManager.Layout Parameter.SECURE_FLAG](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowManager.LayoutParams.html#FLAG_SECURE). – jww Aug 18 '12 at 14:39
  • And nobody can bypass this on Android? Interesting. – Joshua Nozzi Aug 18 '12 at 15:03
  • Its a data egress point (including copyrighted material and intellectual property), and we do our best to close it. On Android, WindowManager.Layout Parameter.SECURE_FLAG is due dilligence. If you are running a hardened android, you can even go as far as removing the Screen Capture APK. Windows Phone does not even ship with the functionality. Google and Microsoft got it, Apple did not. – jww Aug 18 '12 at 15:33
  • Then I'm afraid it sounds like you're trolling rather than commenting on the validity of my answer for the specified platform. – Joshua Nozzi Aug 18 '12 at 16:06
  • "Then I'm afraid it sounds like you're trolling.." - whatever. please report my post. – jww Aug 19 '12 at 18:58
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Distort the image, blur the image, place a semitransparent watermark over the image using a CALayer, put ugly splotches hidden under any touch locations and quickly move the image so that only part of it ever shows after the user gets their fingers out of the way. Whatever the user captures will be less than a perfect replica of your copyrighted image.

hotpaw2
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