Prevent images from being copied - pastable code

[ws]

Many people would like to prevent readers of their book from copying their images. We can offer a way you can do this which works for people who are not sophisticated in the ways to use a computer. However, anyone can copy anything on any screen if they know a simple mechanism (which we will describe). So, first you should realize that there is no protection scheme that will work if people know how to use their computer. Then we will tell you about a simple protection scheme.

[ws]

How to copy any image from anywhere:

Anyone can copy any image that is showing on their computer screen in their browser (in spite of any protection scheme the website has in place) by a few simple steps. All anyone has to do is to do these steps:

a. With the picture showing in your browser, click Alt PrtSc (hold down the Alt key and tap the PrtSc button) Prt Sc stands for Print Screen, but we are using it for capture not printing. This captures the screen of the window you are viewing.

b. Then just go into any graphics program (but, Windows Paint will do just fine) and

c. Paste in your clipboard (you will see an image of the screen you were viewing, with that picture you wanted somewhere in there, but with the images of your browser headings as well).

d. Then you just use the editing facility of Paint (or your other graphics program) to select and copy out the picture you are "borrowing" and then

e. Save it as a jpg or other format.

Another way to "borrow:"

There is another way to "borrow" images, where they have the right click disabled. In your browser, go to View/Source. That shows you their html source code for that page. Then look through their code to find the link to the picture. Copy that url and paste that into your browser. You will go directly to the picture which you can download. Or, now that you have the url to the picture, you can just paste that in and "borrow" their bandwidth too. That's a little more sophisticated... than the Prt Sc method... but it works too. Some people have this slogan: "Pictures want to be free."

But, what follows in the next post is a protection method that will fool most readers who want to "borrow" your images.

[ws]

Here is a protection method that will fool an amateur:

The way people copy images is to do a right mouse click and then choose "save picture as" then save your photo or graphic to their hard drives. But, we do a special trick where we show your image (the one you want to protect) as the background image in a table and in front of that background, we show a completely transparent.gif file, which the only image that will be downloaded when people do a right click and "save picture as" on your photo..

This is the code you use to display your "protected" image: