Prevent Image Copying
   
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GraphicsAcademy.com  >  Tutorials  >  Prevent Image Copying

How To Prevent Image Copying

Introduction

In this tutorial, we'll discuss how to prevent people copying images from your web site to your own.

I'll tell you right out from the start, that it's not possible by purely technical means to absolutely stop people copying images from your web site. If people can see images in their web browser, they can copy. This is because you have no control over what software they might have on their computer, and once your image is in their browser on their computer, you've lost control over what they might or can do.

However:
  • You can make it more difficult for people to help themselves to your images on your site. While the techniques that we discuss are not absolutely totally secure (but neither are the locks on your house - but that doesn't mean you'll want to leave your front door open and unlocked), they do make the "thieves'" job harder, and can be enough to deter many casual "thieves"

  • You can set your site so that if people do steal images, you'll at least have a good chance of identifying them as belong to you.
This tutorial has five chapters. In the first four, we'll discuss techniques that make "thieves'" job harder. In the final chapter, we'll look at a technique which should make it easy to identify images on other sites which have been taken from yours.
  1. Prevent Right Click
    How to prevent people right clicking on your web pages, and simply doing Save Image As... to "steal" your images.

  2. Slice And Dice
    Another technique that makes it more work for people to "steal" images from your site.

  3. Transparent Image Trickery
    In this chapter, I'll show you a technique which causes many "thieves" to save the wrong images when attempting to copy them from your site.

  4. Checking The Referring Page
    Another technique to make "thieves'" jobs harder. This particular one has some issues which may affect some legitimate visitors to your site, so I don't recommend it unless you really need to go the extra mile in protecting your images.

  5. Watermarks
    In this last chapter, I'll tell you about a method which identifies images as belonging to you. This technique doesn't prevent copying, but at least it means you can identify any "stolen" images more easily. If you tell people you're using it, it may also act as deterrent to any would-be "thieves".



  
How To Prevent Image Copying:
 		 
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