Forum Moderators: buckworks
Among other things, we sell a lot of fuses. Big fuses, in the $2 to $200 range.
I was in the process of adding another line of fuses so I went to one (of two) vendors that we get wholesale fuses from to get some pictures for our site.
The first one had that stupid no right click code. So I cancelled the order and re-placed it with his competitor.
Now I realize that most are a little (ok, a lot) less hysterical than me about this issue, but I just thought I would post it as a warning that anything that might upset your browsers and/or buyers should not be on your website.
I mean, seriously, do they honestly think they are protecting anything by putting that in there? Use the menu to view source.. disable javascript to stop the script from running.. take a screenshot of the page to grab the pics... and if you are real geek capture the request stream and do whatever the hell you want with it.
Did you let the non-right-click vendor know?
Yes I did - sort of. Their site has a couple of other problems also (I suspect related to IE6 hacks), and that was one of the 4-5 items I emailed them about - while of course mentioning that because we were on a tight schedule we had to order from their competitor...
Yes I know I could easily have defeated the NRC, but I just did not feel like messing with it when the other site was a favorites click away.
[edited by: Wlauzon at 4:01 pm (utc) on Nov. 12, 2006]
I hope you don't have the same passion for the no imagetoolbar tag as I do use that one, not to keep the images safe but just because I don't like the intrusion of the silly toolbar.
William.
Just because you spend $40k with them to buy a product doesn't give you the right to take their images whenever you feel like it.
Just because you spend $40k with them to buy a product doesn't give you the right to take their images whenever you feel like it.
[edited by: RailMan at 12:25 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2006]
can't think of a single reason why a wholesale company would object to their customers using their images...
It's a legal thing.
Of course, a lot of people who disable right click do it out of stupidity, but others do it for a good reason.
No matter how weak the "protection" is, it's still protection. So if you are in court suing your competitor for using your images, an argument that they "deliverately circumvented the copy-protection system" is one that's hard to defent against.
What are you going to say in response?
Oh, it was so easy to "hack" your system, I just pulled the source with a download app or used a menu or disabled javascript or something else?
Any way you respond, you are screwed since you not longer can claim that you didn't think those images were protected against copying. And you show that you knowingly and willingly put effort into getting around that protection.
It's not about actually protecting your content, it's about having a good argument in court, if it ever gets to that.
It's not about actually protecting your content, it's about having a good argument in court, if it ever gets to that.
My watermarks are small, and in the center of my images. I've received zero comments or complaints from customers. I also add my © to the EXIF metadata in my JPEG images.
Hoping I never end up in court over website images :-/
It does my heart good to hear of a company losing a big order because of a stupid stunt like that.
[edited by: KenB at 4:32 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2006]
Blocking right click is a stupid thing to do and does absolutely nothing to protect your images from copyright theft. That said, if you're popping along to someones website to try and take their images I have to say you really have NO right to get all upset when they take steps to prevent you from doing so.
It's your choice to take your business elsewhere, but please, don't think you have some moral high ground here.
Just because you spend $40k with them to buy a product doesn't give you the right to take their images whenever you feel like it.
Actually, in this particular case it DOES. The manufacturer of the items specifically states that authorized dealers (that's us) are allowed to use product images for selling their products.
This is not artwork - these are pictures of fuses. Unfortunately the manufacturers site does not have good photos online. They are sending us a CD with images, but that won't be here for a week. The distributors pictures are from the same CD, so not like it is original works.'
If you go to almost any website selling any product, 99% of the photos are manufacturer-supplied images specifically made for marketing. That is what the images in question are. If we had the items in hand we would just take our own pictures, but that won't be for 2-3 weeks.
Any way you respond, you are screwed since you not longer can claim that you didn't think those images were protected against copying. And you show that you knowingly and willingly put effort into getting around that protection...
Actually not a very good legal argument. All I have to do is browse on my computer to the temporary cache file and all the stuff is there if I want to sort through hundreds or thousands of cached images. It is not required to use any "hacks" or workaround.
[edited by: Wlauzon at 10:49 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2006]
Personally I browse using it. I do a right click on a link and open it up in a new window - for later reading - then continue reading the original document. This way I can open up several interesting likes without abandoning the current page I'm reading. It makes things nice and easy.
Equally I hate sites that use Javascript links - these stop me from doing my right click. I have no idea why IE can't overcome this javascript issue and still allow me to right click - surely this should be possible.
I too abandon sites that don't allow right clicks - whether it uses Javascript or disables right clicking - it just isn't worth it when there are so many competitor sites that aren't designed to get on my nerves!
keeps the less experienced users from viewing their code so why hid it anyway unless "up to something" is my thoughts. Seeya.
This will be a good example to use when someone asks about doing this on their site.
LisaB
I constantly open pages in new tabs or windows...That was the 2nd thing that made me mad :P
The website has a couple of other problems related to bad and/or amateur programming, but I just blew a fuse (!) when I ran into that after a very long day of trying to get this mini-project done before Monday.
But the main reason I posted that was not so much just the NRC, it was that it made me also realize that if users get frustrated for ANY reason, they might go elsewhere. So I am also taking a 2nd look at our own ecommerce site to see if there are any glitches. I enlisted the aid of a couple of total amateur web surfers to look around for a few things, place dummy orders etc to try and catch things that the more savvy web user might never notice.
Beyond not doing things that break a browser's functionality (e.g. disabling the right mouse click) sites need redundant and easy to use navigation and they must be fail safe in all modern browsers (which is easiest to accomplish by coding to W3C web standards).
Hiring a cheap/inept web developer, taking development shortcuts or putting in stupid/useless/annoying web tricks are quick ways to lose customers.
I have several competitors who apparently have no access to the actual products, whether they are affiliates or are getting the item dropshipped...in my opinion, they simply cannot know the product as well as me or provide the same service which I can. Most competitors use just a single photo in bad lighting of just one type of widget, while I can have custom images of 40 or so different colors and styles of each widgit type that I sell.
If someone takes the image I labored over and uses it to compete against me, I call this stealing. I can see no logic to the "if it's published it's ok to scrap" argument at all. It's "possible" to steal most anything, but that doesn't make for a good defence.
Using the "no right click" image protection is meddling with the client's browser behavior, so I don't like it or use it...but if it's intended to protect an image that anyone has spent any time at all optimizing, then I believe that should be respected.
It is unlikely that my visitors and customers use RC feature to view my website and to make a purchase. NRC feature is for sneaky competitors and Internet thieves. It serves it purpose.
I supply my partners with high resolution of the product images by their request. It works great for both parties.
I use NRC feature on my site and have no decrease in sale, site popularity or increase in customer’s/visitor’s complaints.
If people are worried about misuse of photos, the best way to deal with this is to simply put a copyright watermark on the photo. Done creatively, this "watermark" can look integral to the photo and provide an extra branding opportunity. For instance I will often use the company logo and web address as a watermark in a corner of an image much like the TV networks put their logo in the corner of a TV screen. This way if a legit customer saves an image for future reference they end up keeping the address to my website.
People saving images as theft, look at it as a marketing opportunity.
I use NRC feature on my site and have no decrease in sale, site popularity or increase in customer’s/visitor’s complaints.
How exactly do you know this? I would be willing to bet you have lost plenty of sales from it and upset quite a few visitors.
It's simply that most of us have better things to do than waste additional time writing an email etc. to let you know. You've already wasted enough of our time. The visitor will simply head to another site (read your competitor).
I'm with many here. I use the RC feature a lot to open new windows/tabs etc. If a site stops that, I simply move on.
***Looks like Ken's a slightly faster typist than I. ;)**
[edited by: Philosopher at 4:12 pm (utc) on Nov. 15, 2006]
(Just our of topic, last year I was working at the factory, where engineering department employees did not know that is Google – true story.)
I sell specialty products (not high tech). I bet, if you need the product I am selling – you are more likely buy it regardless of website features that might irritate you.
We had some pictures stolen a while back, and the idjut posted them "as is", so he was advertising our website on his...
For future browsing though....... there is an option in Firefox that will disable the ability for people to even do this. You won't even know they tried.
In Firefox goto tools....options....content... under the javascript settings goto advanced..... There is an option to "allow scripts to disable or replace context menus" uncheck this option and you won't ever have to deal with that again.
