Web image protection

[Tim_3713]

Why do you want to hide the image path? Are you worried about people hotlinking to your images from outside sites (either from the attribution or bandwidth leech perspectives)? If so, there are a number of server-side tools that can make it much more difficult (although probably not impossible) to prevent people linking to images from outside your site. If your webserver is running Apache, you can use the following trick:

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Prevent_bandwidth_theft

Every time a web browser makes a request to the server for an object (page, image, whatever), it sends a little bit of information detailing what page referred it to that new object. The code above checks to make sure that the person was referred by an internal page (rather than by some hotlinking jerk), and either displays the correct image or an alternate "no hotlinking" version.

--Tim

[Tony Roberts]

I'm with Frank on this one. Posting images on the web is promotional and the more that see them and even download the better. The missus loves to spider really egregious illegal uses and she's getting real good at it, but we actually approve of casual use.

But if you want to get tough, Digimarc ($$$) is one good way to keep on top of image use; it's what Corbis and Getty use. Here's their link http://www.digimarc.com/default.asp It won't prevent use, but you can spider usage. There's a digimarc plug-in for Photoshop which will ease the embedding process.

But we actually favor the ultimate idea which is to produce a subscription site, say $8-10/year, wherein subscribers would get to download a selection of A4 sized jpegs. We're even going to show them how to download, what paper to buy, how to get get their color inkjets to print them, etc.

For a terrific example, you might want to wander over to Jacquie Lawson's site www.jacquielawson.com. She's making a bundle creating animated cards that can be posted directly to friends and family. Our variation on this idea is somewhat different and I'm talking with a co-designer now to work out the details.