image protection

does anyone know the best way to protect images on my website being stolen by individual, i know of the javascript that disable, indvidual right clicking. but is there a better way of protecting the images.

 

Probably your best bet would be to watermark the images

 

ditto that...

 

The thing is i am getting some images from a individual who wants to ensure that the images arent going to be used by anyone else and watermark doesnt really stop anyone from coping your images.

 

There's no way to stop people from copying your images if you want to put them on the web. There are lots of things you can do to deter some people, JS, putting the images in a Flash movie etc, but there is not way to stop people from copying the images. If they are images so that people will buy the original print or somethign, the best thing to do is show the image at lower resolution, with a watermark across the middle so the image is effectivly not usable for anyone who would want to steal it.

 

its on the web - so its for everyone.
nothing will protect you images. but i think the best way is transparanced cross with watermark on all over your image.

 

trick 1: place your image as a background of cell. and as content of same cell use transparent gif of same size as image. so, if anyone want to save image with right click can save only transparent gif.

trick 2: save images as flash files

also, use watermark. save images in photoshop and add all info to images, as copyrights, legal notices..
put script that, if anyone who want directly access to images, not via page, can see only "forbidden". maybe could be set via .htaccess

 

Good tricks, but they're just that. Bottom line if someone whats the image all they have to do is press PrtScr.

 

well, prnscr is worst enemy. I dont even like to mention his name. but, if some images are so important and so precious then their place is not on web.

 

If you want, you could implement all these tricks:
1. Use two layers (image plus transparent image on top)
2. Disable right click
3. Watermark images
4. Provide slightly lower res images perhaps

At least, then you know that only the smartest of people will have your images and if they are that smart, they probably deserve your images right?

Here's a link with some useful Javascript:
http://www.hypergurl.com/norightclick.html
(Try and ignore the fact that he has 4 Google ads on the page and focus on the useful stuff!)

 

maybe use password??

well really..... if its so important - do not put it on web. there is no way to protect it. ITS WORLD WIDE!! +)

 

A friend of mine uses a number of tricks to protect his images, they may not stop image stealing but at least he enjoys with them.

1.- Meta tags to prevent search engines indexing images, as well as stopping IE images toolbar

2.- Images are located on a directory with robot exclusion disallowing all search engines but also bad bots (grabbers, leechers, etc.) and Google bot robot for images

3- he uses a sort of onload events to avoid right click or drag images to your desktop or location displayed on the status bar.

4.- additionally there is a javascript tha popus a pay per pop sponsor if someone does the right click

5.- he wrote a custom "on-the-fly" watermark script that put the name of his site on particular images he wants to protect, and his URL in the bottom.

6.- Because Firefox, Netscape and Opera have "inspectors" revealing where the images are located and even allowing the download, he makes sure to use 2 encrypters for very special images:

- One converts the image into php code translate into image by the browser
- the other encrypt the image to avoid the location be revealed.

As he said, that does not prevent people taking his content but he profits with the pops and enjoy wondering the hard time the surfer have when they are hunting his images

 

Mystique - care to share any of those php scripts? I am particulary interested in the two to disable the firefox/opera inspectors... (i didnt even know they had them)

 

Yeah, well... all the methods to prevent picture beeing saved.

Smart people will use a web site downloader such as Meta Products Mass Downloader and save the whole page, then go to the download folder and look for the image.

OR, use Save as...

OR, search for the page on Google and use its cache

OR, use Print Screen

OR, use Print To PDF.. if they have Adobe Acrobat Pro

Or, check the Temporary Internet Files for the picture.

Perhaps the only viable solution would be to watermark the image and use some kind of javascript/vbscript that will constantly enter some characters in Clipboard , thus deleting the image if Print Screen is used.

But then again, if someone uses Auto Print Screen from Irfanview...

 

Let me ask my friend for them and I'll pm you back


And for mariush, robot.txt and .htaccess should include Meta Products Mass Downloader to prevent to that work.

I tested once trying to download the images on my frien's site using webcrawler and netspider and I only got robots.txt as he has listed them as bad bots.

 

>> I tested once trying to download the images on my frien's site using webcrawler and netspider and I only got robots.txt as he has listed them as bad bots.

But you can always change the UA.

 

All that effort for nothing Why even bolder?
Are the pictures going to be sold?

If so watermark it and end of story

 

Not exactly true. TagRight is a java-based technology, in development for years and just released last fall which snuffles out print-screen and/or (depending on how someone configures their content settings to begin with) displayed automatically generated "watermarked" images or other replacement content where it can't snuffle print-screen (eg. for someone running a Linux OS).

It's still in beta mode while adding more browser/OS patterns to the db, other content management features, etc., but yeah, in general it's the "exception that breaks the rule" re: your comment that all someone has to do is print-screen.

ps: my perspective is a bit biased on this topic as I work for a company that's been involved with the technology's development for the last year.

 

I can always take a picture of my monitor. What I'm getting at is if you're displaying a photograph to the user, inherently you're opening it up to the risk of being taken. It's the same with a computer. The only way to guarantee that a computer can't be hacked is turn it off.

 

well the images dont belong to me , and the owners have requested that there images are protected adequately, which is impossible as i know all the tricks to get any image i want to get. i have found a software that is really good in protecting images though.