Originally Posted by
jim kitchen
Dear Jack,
Image theft is always possible, but there are a few tricks available to the web page creator, to make it a bit more difficult...
Most browsers allow you to right click and, or drag and drop an image to the desktop, but you can place an blank or transparent GIF image on top of the image, within your web page for the user to download. I also have a few lines of code, that will prevent a user from dragging and dropping, and right clicking an image, but this code disables all such events on a specific web page. This code does not prevent drag and drop or right clicking with every browser available on the market today. A few inexperienced users will certainly become annoyed with your page and obviously leave.
That said, the easiest way to prevent theft by a casual user, even if my pseudo code fails, is for you to create a blank 1X1 pixel GIF, and lay it on top of your image, where your image is set as a background image within the table cell. The casual user might not realize an image can be stolen by other means, such as an image grabbing tool, which can take a snap shot of the screen image. Users, knowledgeable about this utility, will succeed.
Other means of theft are available, such as access to the root code in the web page, which identifies the source of the image on the server, and with a few lines of code by the perpetrator, the image can be secured and downloaded directly to their desktop. There are means to prevent this on your server, but most ISP's do not go the extra mile to prevent this, unless you control your own server software. I can write code to steal an image in a heartbeat, as long as I can see the image location, on the server...
Many people place Copyright Notices somewhere on their page and, or on top of their images, in case their images are grabbed by screen capture utilities. It is somewhat difficult to remove these Copyright Notices, but never impossible in Photoshop, by an experienced user. A few people also make their images 72dpi, which is a good idea, and better for loading images on the web page, to prevent their higher quality images from appearing elsewhere, such as their office wall. It is more difficult, and expensive, to chase a Copyright violation, but many laws do exist to assist the creator.
So, if you are interested on a few simple tricks, and you are capable of creating your own web page, I will send you a few lines of code to help you along...
If you use a webpage creation tool, such as Adobe's GoLive, I can show you what to do in the table cells to prevent dragging and, or right clicking an image to the desktop, and placing a transparent GIF in the table cell. It is a simple process, but not foolproof.
jim k
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