How can I protect my images?

Corey Bryant — Wed Apr 19, 2006 5:25 pm

Author: Corey Bryant

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 5:25 pm

Short answer, you cannot.

There is the disable right click:

Code:

but someone can easily turn JavaScript off or view the source code to grab the image path.

Also on Internet Explorer 6.0, there is the image toolbar that will come up. You can also disable this as well by placing this in the <head>

Code:

But once again not a fool-proof method.

You can place the image as a background and then place a spacer.gif over the image. Still, one can view the source to get the path to the image.

Ways around these are:

Viewing the source and then going directly to the image file, for example: http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/graphics/logo.banner.guide.gif
Pressing CNTL-A (this will select everything on the webpage), CNTL-C (copy) and then going into Frontpage and pressing CNTL-V (paste) into a new page. This will copy the images and everything else.
Looking in the temporary internet cache and locating the image there - since all pages / images are usually stored on a user's machine for a few days.
Doing a Print Screen or Copy Screen
Another way around this would be to type into your browser:
view-source:http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com
You can consider placing a watermark on the image which will help some.
Some people also slice the image in a few pieces. This won't help, but might make it more difficult for someone to copy your image(s).

-Corey

HTML Help

How can I protect my images?