Client wants "uncopyable images" on website [closed]

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I need a method to make the product images on a website "uncopyable" - not be able drag and drop them onto desktop or right click and save.

They also need to be links and are in a scrolling javascript viewer (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex4/stepcarousel.htm)

Any ideas?

Thanks, Steph

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If you don't want people to copy images don't put them on a website. Nothing stops people taking screen captures, not to mention disabling JavaScript, or viewing your the HTML source to find image locations.

The best you can do is put watermarks on them, to make it clear where they're from.

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Forget it. You can disable right click and save and do a ton of other tricks (e.g. use them in a background image), but a simple screen shot will render them useless.

I'd try to convince the client that it is impossible to achieve, and that protecting their copyright should be done by, say, frequently surfing the web for any infrigements and, maybe, adding a watermark to the images shown.

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In order to SEE an image, it has to be on their computer. And if it's on their computer, they can find a way to get it.

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There's a few ways to emulate this, but it's not possible to totally stop users from downloading images.

You can:

• Disable right click with javascript
• Overlay a transparent gif or png over the image (flickr does this)
• Set the image as a background image of a container, whose width and height are equal to that of the image.

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You can cut the image in some parts that are touching and producing the whole picture. That way the user will loose his interest to try to right-click save the image.

And many people stop trying after the first failed attempt to copy an image.

Other than that the PrintScreen button works almost everywhere except for video streaming. (not flash-based) You can try to open a movie with MediaPlayer classic for example and try hitting the PrintScreen button - the clipboard has black screen instead a shot of the movie in it. May be there is a way to use this in your case.

edit: Here's another suggestion but is it's not that technology independant. I think that you can create a special restricted .pdf file that doesn't allow copy of both files and text. Not sure about PrintScreen again.

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Impossible to stop them taking images, they can just hit PRINT SCREEN and voila, done.

Your best bet is probably to overlay a transparent to prevent right click save as, but it's not going to stop anyone but the most casual of users, and would the casual users really want to copy your images in the first place?

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For images to be rendered on the user's screen they have to be downloaded to the browser's cache. Any slightly knowledgeable person could retrieve the image(s) from the cache.

Your best bet may be to watermark the image in someway so as to make it unusable in any other context. Watermarking is placing an image or text into the actual text that is visible. While it won't stop people from copying the image, it will make it more difficult for them to make use of it in another context.

You need to work with the client to understand why they want the images to be "uncopyable" and then to educate them about how the technology of the web actually works.

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The only good way to do this is to either display the images using only css. (This kinda of keeps people that know nothing about browsers from right clicking and clicking save images as... Simple enough for that. However, this won't stop an advanced user from looking at the css and going directly to the url to save the image. So the only good way to keep people from taking your images is a watermark. ;) Good luck.

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You can make it harder (but not impossible) using something like Microsoft Rights Management Services with IE. That usually uses Active Directory infrastructure - not suited for public facing website, only intranet.

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A "solution" for the screenshot problem: The image is an animated $whatever and each frame shows a different part of the image...

If the user has enough time, he can get a clue of the whole picture, while the copier would have to press print-screen very often and combine the pictures...

Perhaps we need magic-ink printers with the crypto-chip right in the head?

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A decent solution to use would be Copy Safe. Works for both images and videos. It currently does not support MAC. You can restrict MAC users for an intermediate solution.