Guest Snelly Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Is there a way/script to stop people being able to download images from my site? I've just had a competitor nick one of my images and use it on his own site. I know its mine as it still has my sites name on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 The answer is yes and no. It's not really a cubecart problem, but sure, it's a problem that affects any owner of intellectual property. Here's some things I can suggest: - Federal copyright protection. The only problem with this is persuing a claim can be costly, mind you, so is your time in creating the images in the first place, and the thief could be outside of the legal jurisdiction anyway. - Prevent hot-linking by making a .htaccess tweak that can swap images over or prevent them being displayed if they're being viewed from a site that doesn't match your domain. - Disable right-click scripts - Doesn't always work on all browsers, nusience for genuine users who want to copy and paste an image for later reference. Anyone who knows about viewing source code can easily extract the file information of the image. However, if you URL encode the file information, then this won't be so apparent. I'm sure a function could be programmed into CubeCart to create ASCII encoded URLs for things like images. - Watermarking - Great if you're selling images, not so great if you're using images to sell other things. - Colour profiling - Stolen images will have distorted colours because there will be no associated colour profile. - Report the offending site to their ISP, and perhaps their domain registrar. If you're feeling really put out about it, I would never suggest using a brute force attach against them to take their site down, but I'm sure it has been known. There's othe ways of protecting your images, I think Google is your best friend here if no-one else contributes much else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Just wondered if there was an addon. I use 68classifieds for one of my other sites, its php based and has built in image protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinetic Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 if its on the web people can get it no matter how you protect it in this case contacting the thiefs HOST and letting them know they are stealing images (since yours is watermarked with your site name) the HOST in most cases will shut them down no right click scripts are easy to beat you can also prevent hotlinking with htaccess see this blog for how http://kineticartist.blogspot.com/search/label/hotlinking but when they copy the file and upload it all you can do is contact their host Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 How do I find out who they are hosted with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 I've found out who the host is... now what do I say?? It's force9 - plusnet... a home broadband supplier, they must be hosting on free space? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Well, there actually procedures to follow... Have you challenged the people who have taken the images? If you haven't, it may be worthwhile informing them that the images are copyrighted, and as such you reserve the right to make a legal claim to costs per image. There is a possibility that they are simply ignorant of the fact that the images are copyrighted. You should specify which images they have used, where they have used them, and give them reasonable notice to remove the images indefinetly. You should inform them that should they not comply with your request, you reserve the right to take legal advice to persue a claim against them, their ISP and their hosting company. The hosting company should be easy enough to trace through a domain whois lookup. If you do any of this, you must use the words "Without Prejudice", otherwise you are actually opening yourself to libel. I was in a similar situation not to long ago, and I added that my server logs and backups could be admissible in a court of law, to prove the existence of the content pre-dating any other use of it. With regards to contacting the hosting company, they may have a Terms & Conditions of useage that disallows their client to use materials on their website that are not legitimate. Check that first if you can. There are programs available that I came across recently at the infoSecurity Europe show that attach digital signatures to anything like images, so the image is still useable, but contains a hidden code, which verifies you are the true owner. The signatures are verified by the companies who provide such software. The validation proves the ownership and the date that the signature was created. This is a wonderful copyright proof, which is hardly ever mentioned, probably because the costs of such software are usually high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 I have emailed them. Nasty twisted man emailed back. Basically seems he doesn't care. If images arn't removed i'll get in touch with the host. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 Some good news. The images have been removed. Not a nice experience and I wonder how long it is until they reappear. Thanks everyone for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disco_ii_disco Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 I am trying to protect images on my website as I have spent a lot of time taking them and editing them. I know that if they are on the web you can't prevent them being copied but you can make it a little harder for people to do so. I disabled right-clicking for a while but I find sites that do that very annoying - and with a bit of know-how it doesn't take long to get round it. I've seen sites that put a transparent gif over each image - that is what I'm trying to incorporate but don't know really where to start. Can anyone help? Cheers, Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bennyuk Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 There's a mod that wll automatically watermark all your images on the fly, don't think I can tell you it's name but it's over at the 3rd party site in my sig... (someone let me know if I'm allowed to actually give more details on this) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disco_ii_disco Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Just cracked it! I'm using KitaBlue skin and replaced line 14 in styleTemplates/content/viewProd.tpl with: <div style="background-image: url({IMG_SRC}); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center; width:300px; height:300px; vertical-align:middle; margin:0 auto;"><img src="images/general/px.gif" alt="{TXT_PRODTITLE}" width="300px" height="300px" title="{TXT_PRODTITLE}"></div> See it in action on my website: Caravan Accessory Shop If someone really wants to steal an image they will but this makes it a little harder for someone to go and take every image. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snelly Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 I had no problem getting pictures off your site... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest marta55 Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 You can use .htaccess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disco_ii_disco Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Hi, You've taken that picture off the homepage. Forgot to say I've only protected images on product pages. There are still lots of ways to copy the images but they take a lot longer than a simple right-click or drag to the tab bar. Cheers, Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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