How do you protect your published images from online piracy and theft?
Have you ever posted an image online to later find it copied by someone else and used?
Have you ever sent a sample website image to a client to find that the client used the sample to build his or her website?
Have you ever created an image that a lot of people linked to and you wanted people to know what website this image comes from?
if you answered yes to any of the above questions then read on.
There are numerous ways to protect you images from online piracy and theft. Here are some of the mostly used methods:
Disable the browsers right click
One of the simplest and easiest methods to stop people from copying your images is to disable the right click so that people won't be able to save images. This is done by embedding a simple JavaScript in your page.
pros: easy and simple to implement.
cons: Very easy to break. For example, if the browser has JavaScript disabled, the protection won't work! Or the user can simply get the direct image path and use it to get the image, or even get the image directly from the browser cache.
Embed your image into an applet or flash movie
This is a little bit hard to implement since you need to know how to write a java applet or create a flash movie, but this is generally a good way to protect your images.
pros: Harder to break. Usually needs to break the applet and flash to get the buildings units and get the image back.
cons: Hard to implement.
Not compatible with all browsers (some browsers do not have java applets or flash plugins).
Can be broken simply by capturing the screen and using paint to paste and save the image captured.
Watermark Your Images
Using a software like WatermarkIt, you can easily place your stamp on all your published photos so that even if they are copied, your watermark is still displayed clearly to all viewers. You can simply stamp all your images with your URL so that users know the origin of the images, or if you want to sell images online, simple watermark your images with a watermark saying SAMPLE in the middle.
pros: Impossible to break without tampering the original image. Easy to use and very customizable. Batch protect all your images with just one click.
cons: none.
The last method is the best method to use since it guarantees that no one will be able to steal your published images and photos. It is very easy to use and customize. Here are some few samples of how the output will look like.
Final thoughts:
There are lots of ways to stop people from stealing your artwork and images but most of them can be bypassed by users easily. Using a watermark software such as WatermarkIt can help you protect published images with a simple click.
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