Blocking "save as"

[stonefly]

Hi folks. I am new here and have been wandering aimlessly for 2 weeks trying to find how to block folks from right clicking and saving images from our website. We want to put our new 2002 image gallery up but we want to first make sure that everyone is going to swipe 'em.
Does anyone know how to prevent folks from saving/stealing our images?
TIA.

[Sceiron]

You can't. There are scripts to block people from right-clicking on an image to select Save As, but they are easily defeated. Even in a popup window, in IE a simple Shift-F10 will get them the option to view your source where they can get the direct URLs to your images.

Your could turn them into Flash animations, in which case a screen capture can be done and they can crop it out using an image editor.

If you don't want someone stealing your graphics, your options are basically to make them of a low-enough quality that nobody would want to use them directly, or not put them online at all. An aggressive legal team scouting for pirates can also be effective, albeit costly.

[wizzard]

Yeah this is not 100% effective but the average illiterate will be disabled.

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">
<!--
// +-------------------------------------+
// | NoClick 1.0 |
// | rightclick disable script |
// | |
// |(c)2001 BD |
// | |
// | find this and more at |
// | |
// | http://scriptor.cjb.net |
// | |
// | This script is free to use as long |
// | as this header is intact. |
// +-------------------------------------+

var errormsg="Sorry, right clicking has been disabled...";

function mouseclick(evt) {
if (document.layers) rc = (evt.which==3);
if (document.all) rc = (event.button==2);
if (rc) {
alert(errormsg);
return false;
}
}

if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=mouseclick;
// -->
</SCRIPT>

[Stefan]

Originally posted by wizzard
[b]Yeah this is not 100% effective but the average illiterate will be disabled.

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">

Anybody stealing images will be smart enough to be able to jurn of JavaScript.

For protecting images there are only 2 methods that works resonably well:

* Don't put them online

* If you do put them online, add a "watermark" (ie a semitransparent logo or even your site URL) to the images.
That is still not 100% secure, but a pain in the butt for anyone trying to steal and edit out the watermark.

[Rick Bull]

You can use digital watermarks can't you, that apps can read and show copyright information? Or was that just a dream I had?

[stonefly]

Thanks for the script and the concepts. I have considered the watermark previously and I suppose it is time to employ it. Shall employ the script to deter the simple folks also.
Thanks again.

[Stefan]

Originally posted by Rick Bull
You can use digital watermarks can't you, that apps can read and show copyright information? Or was that just a dream I had?

Don't know what you dreamt or not , but by opening up an image file in a hexeditor it should be fairly easy to remove that "digital" watermark.

I guess though that not many average Joe image stealers would know how to do that , so it might be usefull if you just want to be able to prove that someone ripped off an image.

[SabbathCat]

Digimarc is packaged with photoshop 7 as standard, but there's a version about that allows you to essentially trace all nicked images (provided people don't screen cap or crop them ) through a web crawler and see just how many sites have nicked them.

http://www.digimarc.com/ has more info.

Might be fun tracking down people who were blatant enough to do a "save as" and upload it unchanged.

Cheers

John

[dougcouch]

Never tried it because my images are okay to take...however, I have heard of creating a 2nd blank image for each image to be protected, and placing it in a layer on top of the good image. While I rather doubt this will stop the determined, the result is that they right click away and save...then later, they bring up a blank image. The idea is the deterrent factor of having to "go back and be evil," often would make it not worth their trouble. An image temporarily protected today may not spread across the universe quite as fast.

[jdavia]

The idea of "no right click" creates more hardships. I kills that button for everything else too. I would never go back to that site again, since I use right-click to go back.

[Sandman2383]

i've seen sites where there is a set of small, cropped pictures and when the mouse hovers over one, that full picture is displayed in a different part of the window. this would prevent the user from right clicking it, because when the mouse leaves the trigger picture, the full picture disappears. the only flaw i see is that the user can view the source to find the images, but i think there are ways of disabling the view source option.
anyway, this solution is stylish and effective.
let me know if you need help getting this to work.

- Keith

[jeffmott]

Sandman2383
the only flaw i see is that the user can view the source to find the images

I'm sure there are many more. For instance disabling client-side scripting, retrieving the image from the browser cache, or screen capture.

Sandman2383
but i think there are ways of disabling the view source option

nope

[jdavia]

i've seen sites where there is a set of small, cropped pictures and when the
mouse hovers over one, that full picture is displayed in a different part of the
window. this would prevent the user from right clicking it, because when the
mouse leaves the trigger picture, the full picture disappears.[quote]

You can defeat that by holding down the mouse button, and move your mouse on the new image. Press the right button while at the same time releasing the left one. You have to be quick. I just wanted you to know that it can be done if no right-click code was written.
But regardless, the whole site can be downloaded, images and all, with a program, or by simply using File/Send Page, the images are sent too. In your E-Mail you can go to View/Page Info and get the images from there, or copy the code and edit the right-click code out.