Forum Moderators: not2easy
We want to ensure that aside from a screen capture which I cannot control (to my knowledge) that no one can take the images from the site via right click or otherwise.
I have seen some sort of java that prevents the right click but I would imagine you could browse to the image folder and also some browsers may not support this.
other options I thought about were
* visible watermark (may be unsightly on the website however)
* digital hidden watermark with tracking ($$$)
But right now I simply put the image in a very small flash file and protected it from import.
any ideas?
So trying to prevent local saving is futile. If you really are worried about copyright and the like, but must make them available, then a digital watermark will enable prosecution to be brought, if you ever find the culprites, and can prove they stole the images and and and....
Perhaps small representations of the images, too small to warrant theft, but large enough to convey the message?
Matt
optionally, prior to putting the image in the flash doc I could add a digital watermark but then I'm not sure how flash handles images with digital watermarks and how this info is retained.
aside from a screen capture which I cannot control
Right... so why bother to continue asking the question?
Surely everyone here has gotten at least 1 client at some point who asked for image protection... the fact is the only successful way to "protect" it is to put a disgustingly large watermark on it, which is just a smart way of saying that you're giving the user a different image that they can steal.
You're basically trying to protect image content from 2 types of people, agreed?:
1. Shmucks who want your pretty picture on their desktop. These people are basically harmless, and in fact may drive business to your site, if someone walks by their PC and says "wow, where'd you find that picture?".
2. E-Criminals who aim to swipe your image and use it for financial gain, or who want to take artistic credit.
The #1 people are the ones who are going to try to right-click and Save As... you can protect against that, but again, these people are harmless so it really doesn't solve the issue.
The majority of #2 people will know of several ways to get your image, and after right-clicking, their second resort will be to snap a screenshot- and they will succeed 100% of the time.
So the question then becomes obvious to me: if you have 5 leaks in a pipe, and you can't stop the second one, then what is the point of stopping the third or fourth one?
Incidentally, I know every client thinks they're special, but I have NEVER come across a client whose images simply HAD to be protected from download. If someone is selling paintings, prints, or photos, you just use an image that is small enough that the real thing is still worth the money. If the image truly needs to be protected, then at that point I'd have to ask, why bother to put it on the uber-free and public venue of the WWW? Would you put $1,000 in a glass box on the sidewalk, and then get mad when people tried to pick it up?
Of course, it's hard to tell clients to just live with it...
good luck
if your client has quality images, then what you are selling is the high resolution / full size ...
So what you are doing is all you can do and needs to be done ..
If your client is so precious then sell them digital watermark and a fee for yourself to implement that ..
My client is precious, very special and very high profile.
Sifting though the poetical analogies offered, I'll stand pat, moving forward with the flash implementation and optionally embed digital watermarks with trace option.
Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it.
