Protecting Images

[amylouise]

Hi,

We're getting more and more instances of companies stealing our images and sticking them on their own website. A great deal of time and energy goes into taking the photographs and cropping them etc as our aim is to give a true representation of a product.

I obviously want to avoid the disabling right-click for reasons discussed throughout the forum. We aim to get a watermark and a digital tag put into each image soon, but all this takes time so I'm looking for an intermin solution.

I like Malcolm's suggestion of having a transparent image over the product image which is set as the table/cell's background image. However, having fiddled about for quite some time I can't set the "ExtendedInformationImage" as the background.

I've created the transparency bit "BlankExtendedInfomationImage" without any hitches :

<img src="/images/common/transparent.gif"
width="<Actinic:Variable Name="ExtendedInfoImageWidth"/>"
height="<Actinic:Variable Name="ExtendedInfoImageHeight"/>"
alt="<actinic:variable name="ProductName" />"
/>


I just can't get the product image to appear as a background to the table or cell.

<table width="250" height="250" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td background="ExtendedInformationImage"> BlankExtendedInfomationImage</td>
</tr>
</table>

Is it possible to have the Actinic product image appearing as a background?

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Amy
musthave : the natural skincare store
http://www.musthave.co.uk

[fergusw]

Amy,
If you are going to display the image on the website then you are making it accessible to viewers by default.
All you can do by sticking it as table background image (and other techniques) is to deter lazy image thieves, and even then all they need to do is hit "screenshot" from their computer to capture what they see.

Watermark, VERY low resolution, removing completely or allowing total access are your only realistic options.
I'd focus on spending the time you are currently allocation to these HTML tweaks to batch processing all your images with watermark.

Alternatively, reverse the psychology. If people are wanting your images then give it to them. Offer them a reasonable price for a nicely bundled ZIP folder of all the images. If they buy them then you make some money out of the original investment.

Just a thought.............

[NormanRouxel]

Have you considered that doing this will prevent your customers from being able to print your pages?

PS There was a hilarious thread a few months ago where a non-Actinic site selling power tools was hot-linking to an Actinic users images. Our guy got a fantastic revenge by changing his image to one that said in big red text, "Today Only - this product half-price", or words to that effect. By the end of the day there were even postings on power tool user forums about this fantastic offer.

[gabrielcrowe]

in my previous job, i found that people were stealing images for ebay descriptions a lot.

i changed all the ones on my site and replaced all the images with goatse.

...and for those of you that know what goatse is, i salute you.

for those that dont, DO NOT look it up.

[PaulGrimshaw]

or even better tubgirl, but lets not go there.

[TraceyHand]

...and for those of you that know what goatse is, i salute you.

for those that dont, DO NOT look it up.

well now, I didn't know...but I just couldn't help myself

LOL

[TraceyHand]

or even better tubgirl, but lets not go there.

omg...that's it...I'm not Googling anything else tonight!
My poor innocent eyes

[leehack]

...but I just couldn't help myself

Really? wow i'm shocked....

[TraceyHand]

so come on then, Lee....'fess up
did you know? or did ya Google?

[leehack]

I knew of tubgirl, but not goatse.

[los_design]

Have you considered that doing this will prevent your customers from being able to print your pages?

PS There was a hilarious thread a few months ago where a non-Actinic site selling power tools was hot-linking to an Actinic users images. Our guy got a fantastic revenge by changing his image to one that said in big red text, "Today Only - this product half-price", or words to that effect. By the end of the day there were even postings on power tool user forums about this fantastic offer.

Guilty as charged... I was that man (on advice from the great leeski we also amended it to show buy 2 get 1 free etc before 6pm....hilarious)

On a serious note, if using adobe ps there is a watermark feature that can be used and also knocking about is a nifty bit of code that can prevent hotlinking by means of you specifying a replacement image and once hotlinked it displays the alt image that can say anything...

I would strongly advise against disabling 'right click' if this crosses your mind for accessibility reasons.

[JSnow]

DO NOT look it up.

Ahh come on! With a comment like that, what'd you expect people to do?

Great start to a Friday morning

[Darren B]

Watermark is the best way to go, IMHO, but you may also want to to add something to your htacess file to prevent hotlink aswell.

I use this on a kite site, works well, the person gets a nice 150x150 advert with my site details on it instead of the image they linked to

D

[amylouise]

You're right I guess. I was just hoping to slow the bstrds down a bit. I mean I can't blame them for taking the images, they're often better than the ones the manufacturers send out, but it's so frustrating. We even have an instance of it with one of our main competitors, they are one of the big guys in the industry.

I didn't know that it wouldn't print properly either.

Watermarks can look so crappy, I was just hoping to avoid them for the time being, but you're right it's the only way.

Thanks all... I suppose looking on the positive side, the more work I have to do, the less time I have to browse round www.GabrielsGoatse.com

Amy
musthave : the natural skincare store