VISIT THIS PAGE FOR SAMPLES AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIMITING IMAGE THEFTYou must realize, you can not stop people from taking your images. You can basically expect people to take your text and images at some point. Which is really nasty, but a fact of life in the web community.
The 'no right click' option is useful only to slow people down much like a speed bump on a road. If someone really wants to steal your stuff, they will, and there's no stopping them.
I use a
no right click script from Dynamic Drive that only prevents right click on images. I just ask visitors nicely to not take my images. You can still access the menu on the right click (I use the menu alot and resent when I can't reach it!). Change the wording to "Please do not take the copyrighted images" and it will be received better by visitors.
But if they want the images, does that stop them? NO. NOT AT ALL! Lots of ways to do it and I will not post them here to teach folks how to steal.
Also use
the disable IE toolbar script from Dynamic Drive to stop that reminder to take the images.
You can also SLICE your image into pieces. If they try to take it, they only get one small piece.
I made an example here:(made in Paint Shop Pro) The second photo (boat and seagrapes).You can visually watermark your image with copyright info...Paint Shop Pro and many other photo programs can do that for you. No special software needed. Even if they download the image, it would be a marked copy of the image.
A DIGITAL watermark places digital info into the image that can not be removed if they take your original image, proving where the image came from. To personalize and register the watermark, costs $49 to $499 per year.
By the way, Image slicing is easy. When I do image slicing, I usually do not block the right click!
..... let them think they saved the whole image, then find they got only a part of a forehead and left eyebrow!
BTW Image slicing is great for other things too. But you'll have to figure that out for yourself!
You can do somethings like Image slicing, watermarking (background identification), layering etc but in the end, if someone really wants your image, they will get it, if nothing else, they can just use screen capture software! Even photo programs have image capture in them. I use screen capture to make tutorials so there is a good use for it, besides ripping people off!
If you want to sell photos or display UNIQUE material you don't want stolen....
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you consider using a photo program to place a sheer text overlay (a watermark) across the image that says "SAMPLE" or a logo, etc. You can see the photo through the text, but if someone tried to capture/print what's on your website, they would get one that says SAMPLE on it! If positioned well, the text overlay will make the image less than desireable for download. Yes, I mean make the overlay very visible and so that it would not be easily trimmed out (use diagonal, not horizontal or vertical). To get the real image without the text/logo, they have to order an image from you.
THIS IS YOUR BEST OPTION. Like shown in this tutorial (When designing for someone, I use this method when making new background layout images for folks! I overlay my "sami logo" and tiny dragonfly on the images in areas that would be difficult for them to remove manually. Once the image is paid for, I provide them with the non-watermarked product.)
And Richard (our flash king) came up with the most unusual way to display a photo....with a rotating copyright band, using FLASH. I posted a sample I made using his technique. Here is another using 2 images in a
FLASH piece I made that uses dashes and floating site name to distort the image enough that people may not want it.
Also on your home page should be a simple statement something to the effect of: "Contents of this web site and all original works are copyright ©2003-2008 your name here - All rights reserved.The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of owner."
OR THIS TYPE STATEMENT:
"You are not permitted to copy, broadcast, download, store (in any medium), transmit, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the content of these web pages for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of the site owner."
Statements like these officially put you on record that the material is YOURS, not public domain.
This site has an interesting way of handling it:
http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/ His list of weasels (people who did not comply) is VERY interesting!
http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/hall-of-shame It's sad that so many people do not think it is stealing to right click and take what is not theirs but the reality is that anything put on the web is available to someone that has no morals.
Some folks will take take take and when they are foiled in their attempts to take, they actually get angry at the one that has foiled their attempts! There's a thread on another forum that I am following where the thief is threatening legal action against the original owner for blocking the HOT LINKS to his images and content. The thief says the owner is interfering with the ability to have a viable site and make money! The thief has been copying content, linking to images, etc and SELLING the information on his site as his own. NERVE. Obviously, the owner of the content and images has the right to block users, visitors from his site if he chooses, and to even expose the duplicity that is taking place so the threat against him is full of hot air.
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Hot-linking is linking to an image or content of a web page that is not on the same website. Can be used for good purposes with clean motives. Ex: in order to have a profile image on this Globalscape board, you have to link to an image on your own website space. The profile image link originates on one site to show content from another site. In this case, with permission of the owner of the site. My profile shows an image here at Globalscape. But the image is not on thier server, but on my website space.
But hot-linking is more known for a hostile act of theft of content! Trudy said "Hot linking is stealing twice, because it also uses the original site's bandwidth! " and she is absolutely correct on this point. Some message boards are FULL of it where people link to other than thier own site to an image that proves their point in some way.
Someone surfing the net finds an image they like. They get the URL address of that image on the site it is already on. Then on their own site they point to that image and PRESTO that image appears without ever storing the image.
All free clipart sites say download to your own machine, do not link to us. Linking to the image on their site is hot-linking.
Even used with permission to link to an image off-site (like our profile images) the linking to that image is a drag against the bandwidth of the site with the image. When the image is linked without permission, it is a double whammy to the originating site. When you hot-link, you make a choice to USE other sites content, making THEM pay part of your hosting! It is THEFT.
BY THE WAY... I HAVE A SNEAKY WAY TO GET BACK AT THE PERSON STEALING YOUR IMAGES WITH HOTLINKING. CHECK OUT THE SAMPLES PAGE, AT THE VERY BOTTOM.
