Locking pics on webpage

[GiveMeAHammer]

I was wondering how you could make it so no one could copy pictures from your website. I have some original paintings I want to sell on the net and dont want anyone copying them.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[DrZaius]

Hi GiveMeAHammer, welcome to the PC Mech forums!

There are different ways you can protect images on the net. One is to disable the Right Click feature (using a JavaScript) so that no one can save the file to their drive. Another is to add a light watermark to the image, so even if they can copy it, it will always have your name or your web address on it. I've also seen other methods of image protection, but I don't remember how they work for sure. Check out these links for more info:

http://www.artistscope.net/

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Shareware/Windows/Graphics/Copyright_and_Protection/

Hope that helps.

[dj4uk]

The disabling of right click works for all browsers but if people really want the image they will take the full path of the image from the page source so they can Save from the file menu. Also new versions of ie have a image toolbar that pops up as soon as you move the mouse over the image.
So I'd agree with DrZaius that a watermark might be the way to go.

[mairving]

If it is an art work, then you should put a 'copyright' banner over it and keep the picture small. If it is just an image on your site that you don't want people to take, you are just about out of luck. You can use one of the no-right click scripts but they are very ineffective since
(a) any picture can be picked up from your cache file,
(b) the script usually doesn't work in Netscape,
(c) You can print the screen to grab the picture,
(d) In IE you can download the whole page, pictures and all,
(e) IE 6 has a convenient way of bypassing the script entirely.

<a href="http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-7690-8-5421955-1.html?tag=st.bl.7690.dir1.7690-8-5421955-1" target="_blank">Here</a> is one of my favorite no right-click scripts, though it, as mentioned above, is easy to defeat.