Stupid question.

[shaylou]

Is there a way to sell a customer an image that could only be used by them on social media and not be printed?

 

[srichards]

One answer is very low res one so that it would look terrible when printed.

I think adobe PDFs contain security that can restrict printing and screen capture but they'd be no good for sharing on social media.

Short answer is no there doesn't seem to be one. Music has drm but I've not seen drm used with images.

 

[neil_g]

Not really. Even if you give them low res they could still print from it (depends what they consider a good quality print).

I always chucked a logo along the bottom for social media downloads and limited the long edge to 800 iirc. Sure that won't stop people printing them but it's about as much as you can do.

 

[Phil V]

Not really. Even if you give them low res they could still print from it (depends what they consider a good quality print).

I always chucked a logo along the bottom for social media downloads and limited the long edge to 800 iirc. Sure that won't stop people printing them but it's about as much as you can do.

This^
And if you're selling digital files, make sure you're making as much 'profit' as you'd make from the largest print they can make from it, then it doesn't matter to you what they 'can' do with it, you're paid.

 

[shaylou]

I just thought with all the street photography I do it would be cool to hand someone a card where they could buy it at a discount if they just wanted to share it on social media. I thought I could make up the profit with volume.