New Tutorial: How to Protect Online Photos

[McQ]

This article isn't yet public on the main site, but I'm sharing it here first:

How to Protect Online Photos

This article covers photo copyrights, how to make copying more difficult, how to find copyright violations, and what to do when you find someone else using your photo.

Left: Original Copyright Protected Photo, Right: Unauthorized commercial use online

As usual, please let me know if you feel anything is unclear, if you notice any typos or just want to add something from your own experience.

Many thanks!

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks Sean,

Well, I've had a read and learnt a quite few things in the process

For most members* (not many can build a website to incorporate the first two ideas) so are using Flickr, PBase, etc., and about the only option they might have is to turn on the right click barring (globally for their account), now this may seem like a good idea, but ...

It might be worth saying that sometimes, for example if image critique is sought, many of these methods will thwart people trying to help them - for example, the right click barring stops me from;
viewing the image histogram,
viewing the EXIF data,
downloading to work on the image and show them.
- which is the intention I guess, but I can't help thinking "foot, gun, bang"

and even if you don't, at least I've said it here

Obviously though, you have readers outside the membership, well initially at least, they might join later

Cheers,

[McQ]

For most members* (not many can build a website to incorporate the first two ideas) so are using Flickr, PBase, etc., and about the only option they might have is to turn on the right click barring (globally for their account), now this may seem like a good idea, but ...

I've added an up-front note to that section which says that one needs to be able to edit their web page's HTML code.

It might be worth saying that sometimes, for example if image critique is sought, many of these methods will thwart people trying to help them - for example, the right click barring stops me from;
viewing the image histogram,
viewing the EXIF data,
downloading to work on the image and show them.
- which is the intention I guess, but I can't help thinking "foot, gun, bang"

Yes, I'm not in favor of disabling right-clicks unless it's for very specific situations (such as photos one isn't seeking feedback/critiques on). In general, I'm actually heavily in favor of permitting usage as long as the website provides attribution and isn't using that image to directly sell a product.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Peter Ryan]

As usual I continue to learn. Thanks Sean.

[jupiterlush]

Thank you Sean this is very helpful. Apparently an acquaintance just downloaded my pictures and made a video out of it, and was sent to me as a birthday gift. I was surprised when I saw the first photo which is similar to one of my photo and got even more when I saw almost all of them were mine. I know she has good intentions but I was upset and offended, thinking that she had downloaded all of them, and kept as documents, I told her that I am selfish when it comes to photos and told to ask permission first and lately she made another video for some friends with some of my photos in it! Can you please help me how could I disable right clicks?

[McQ]

Can you please help me how could I disable right clicks?

How are your photos being displayed online? If you use a photo sharing service such as Flickr, PBase, Picassa, etc., then disabling right clicks may not be possible. On the other hand, if you can edit your page's HTML, then do the following to any <img...> tag that you don't want people to right click on:

<img src="pathtoyourimage">
becomes:
<img src="pathtoyourimage" oncontextmenu="return false;">

...or, if you want to have a notice popup to the visitor trying to right click, you can do this:
<img src="pathtoyourimage" oncontextmenu="alert('Insert Your Notice Message Here'); return false;">

The above code will work for the vast majority of internet browsers.

[jupiterlush]

Yes I have a blog page and I think I can get to it's HTML and try this, this will be very helpful. Thanks Sean and I'm gonna do it now.