Protecting images

[mooncavecrystals]

I have over 500 images on my website of crystals that I sell. It has been brought to my attention that other sites are copying these pics and putting them on their own sites without permission or credit.

Is there anyway i can protect these images from being copied?? I know there is an html code that i could use on my regular pages (which wasnt too effective, they could still click edit, then copy, etc) but what about in the zen cart?

Any suggestions?
thanks!

[Sketchy]

In my opinion, it's an uphill battle that can't be won. There are just too many techniques that are used to beat image theft protection. I think the only alternative would be to have a visible marking upon all the demo pictures, of course this may come across as gawdy to some and even unprofessional perhaps. It would take a long time to prep 500 images. Even at that, it would only take someone good with a image program to wash those away... but, it would provide a good deterrent. I know I can take whatever image I see over the net by various methods and it's all common knowledge to mostly everyone that's even semi-computer literate.

Theft of materials over the Internet has and always will be a problem. I had the odd poem of mine stolen from a poetry forum. All too easy, but I couldn't do anything about it... it's just text. Sure, I could copyright everything, but I don't have the time to scour the web to get into a long legal battle with someone on the other side of the world.

Like graphic/art websites... people like to show off their talent and obviously, you can't have a huge anti-theft marker across the whole image, so people steal them and blot out the artist's signature. What can you do?? Unless, there is some mega script that can disable screenshots, caching, and other various methods from all browsers and image devices... I don't see a relative solution to the problem.

[kobra]

There is a method of creating a transparent overlay image that sits over the actual image. So the thief can right click and gets the transparent image. It is separate from the back image.

See if others post with methods known to thwart this protection method. There could be but this keeps the casual thief from obtaining them.

[Ryk]

This has been discussed on many occasions, and the bottom line is that as long as Print Screen exists on a keyboard, then you can not stop someone copying your pics. All you can do is apply a watermark to make it not worthwhile for anyone to bother...and to make THAT effective, the watermark needs to be placed over the image as opposed to neatly below or at the side.

Take a look at the Image Handler mod; this offers automatic watermarking.

[mooncavecrystals]

thanks folks :)

Ok, the image handler mod??? Where would that be or is it something I need to download sep[arately? Will this watermark affect the picture itself?

I think its just that I am always shocked to see folks have lifted my pics and put them on their own sites without permission. I did contact one person in question and sent him a copy of my Conditions of Use statement. We came to an agreement..he can use my pics as long as he gives me credit.

I know this happens alot, was just a bit disconcerting. :)

thanks again
yall rock!

[mlindi]

I have over 500 images on my website of crystals that I sell. It has been brought to my attention that other sites are copying these pics and putting them on their own sites without permission or credit.

Is there anyway i can protect these images from being copied?? I know there is an html code that i could use on my regular pages (which wasnt too effective, they could still click edit, then copy, etc) but what about in the zen cart?

Any suggestions?
thanks!

sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but ...

The only way to keep folks from pirating your images is to not publish them at all. Period.

The fact that the image has been displayed on the visitor's monitor means that the visitor has already downloaded it and it lives in the browser's cache on their hard drive.

http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/all.html#media-nosave