Warning to web site owners - © vio

[Forrest]

Hi,

I got an email about a new "service" that lets people use your photos on their site, in a forum, their myspace page, or wherever else, without "hot-linking" them. So instead of people stealing your bandwidth, they can have a third party site download and host your images. It's not clear what they do with them, or how they profit.

Their site has no contact info, and the email I sent to info@imgred.com asking to opt-out bounced back. Now, having your photos on the web means you don't have 100 % control over them, but we tend to do easy things to protect our stuff, like watermarks. This is a situation I'm personally not that comfortable with, and an easy one to work around.

Anybody who uses Apache ( probably 85 % do ) can begin their .htaccess file with this text:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} imgred\.com
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

<Files 403.shtml>
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Files>

deny from 64.131.64.202

To block the service from your site. I've tested this - they can't get the image, but it doesn't affect normal surfing. And if you have other mod_rewrite rules, just put them after deny from IP, and they'll continue to work.

[5MITHY]

easiest way to stop people stealing is just watermark them, or make a flash website because then theres no right click, but thanks for the tip!

[MoboHaji]

Watermarks are fine as long as you don't care where you images get used on the net or the person just does not take the 5 seconds to clone out your watermark. There are digital watermarks and services to track where you images show up on the net, but they are really expensive. While using Flash will keep the average person from stealing your images, any one that really wants them can still grab them with just a screen capture. On the other hand, I've not had great success using .htaccess on mine site.

For me, using a watermark that does not impede viewing of the image seems the best way to go. From my research, be limited, if the watermark looks nice and does not cover large portions of the image, people are inclined to leave it there. Then if they use it, at least people that see it will know about you.

You could spend hours and hours each week trying to police your images, but is it really worth the time?

[sfaust]

If you display an image on a screen, 80% of the people out there can capture if they want to. Flash, disabling right click, etc, it doesn't matter. The best protection as Keith said is to watermark it. Further, you should register the image, and make sure the metadata contains your contact info, copyright notice, and a statement that no unauthorized use is permitted, and all rights are reserved.

At $45 to copyright as many images as you want, its the cheapest insurance out there. Even if you only do it once a year, and register all your images shot during that year, its still $45. Make it a news years resolution to do it every January.

At least then if someone takes the image and uses it, you have your ducks all lined up to make sure its painful on the infringer. For 100% protection from infringement, keep it locked away in a safe, and far away from any computer

[wingedpower]

easiest way to stop people stealing is just watermark them, or make a flash website because then theres no right click, but thanks for the tip!

Take a look at a flash site with Safari. That browser has an option to see what the flash is loading. Flash can be ripped, just not easily. Takes at least one extra tool.

On the other hand, I've not had great success using .htaccess on mine site.

Second that. Most .htaccess restrictions are the "referral/referrer" based restrictions. A download tool... actually, most *nix based tools have an option to set a referrer or replay a session cookie. :/

The watermark route really is the best way to go. If you are seriously concerned, in addition to visible watermarks,you can also use stenography encryption to embed encrypted markings in the image itself.

Wing.