Code to stop photo theft in auction.

[richnerd]

Just cut and paste this code in your description. A warning window will popup.

 

Of course change the Richnerd part to say whatever you would like.

 

< -script>

function click()

{if (event.button==2)

{alert(' RichNerd Auctions ! \n WE AIM TO PLEASE! \n');}

}

document.onmousedown=click

// -->

>

[richnerd]

The code keeps messing up so at the end of the code the last 2 lines should be..

 

// -->

/-script

 

but in front and behind the /-script put the < and

 

>

 

Hope this stops some of the theifs.

 

 

[dadaist]

Hey richnerd

 

Although this code can prevent a novice user from ripping-off your images, it doesn't prevent a savvy/complex user from doing it. The print-screen command, and the caching of temporary internet images is the biggest source of people ripping each others images off.

 

One of the very first posts on this board dealt with this topic. We unanimously agreed that a watermark was the best way to protect an image from getting ripped-off.

 

There is some headway being made by the development team over at Macromedia. The Flash communication server and Flash remoting are two technologies that are making progress in the way people can access multimedia files over the web. It is a step in the right direction for sure, but in no way am I suggesting that this is an affordable way for people to prevent their files from being ripped-off. Advancements like the ones Macromedia are undertaking will eventually give developers new ideas on how to protect images and media files on the web, and that might mean a more effective and low cost way of dealing with this problem in the near future.

[richnerd]

dadaist,

 

I couldn't agree more, I believe watermark is the best way to go. I use them in my business when I show samples of logos or other items I create for a customer. But many people don't have access to a program to do that. So since I wasn't around for the last thread on this subject I thought I would start a new one for the newbies in town.

 

But yes I full heartedly agree with you watermark is the safest way to go especially on the top dollar books.

 

There will never be a complete stop to the madness because there will always be someone out there just waiting for the challenge to crack a code. But anything we do to make their thieving little hearts work a little harder the happier I am. Make their @$$E$ work for it!!

[rob_react]

I just like to point out my frustration with this whenever I see this code being passed around as something "good."

 

For starters, as dadaist says, it's not really all that effective. Something as simple as the "save as..." command will get around it since in the process of saving the whole page all the images come along for the ride.

 

Personally, I hate pages that disable right click. I use right-click all the time when surfing, so disabling it makes my experience frustrating. In the case of ebay auctions, I specifically use right click to copy auction numbers to my clipboard, an act which adds auctions to my personal watch list in Snipe. Disabling right click therefore makes me LESS likely to bid on auctions for two reasons. One is the bad "marketing" that frustratingly designed/coded websites represent- no one wants to spend money with someone who causes them frustration. The second is tied into simple laziness/ pique. While it doesn't take much at all for me to Control-C an auction number, the fact that a seller wants to change my behavior for the sake of something so inherently useless, makes me just not want to bother.

 

Just my perspective...

[comicmankev]

I think that is madness rob, sorry

 

The right click function DOES stop some people. It's a bit like the no-smoking ads, if it stops one in a thousand, it's working!

 

There are several areas on the auction where you can right click to copy the auction number, I know you said it was just laziness, but come on, most of the other ways are easier anyway!

 

Take a look at the guy scamming the photo from my auction (X-men 266 9.8). He's just right clicked the auction and saved the pic. Simple as that. Most of these scammers are stupid enought to list a nice book with zero feedback, I don't think they would be clever enough to save the whole page then copy the pic out?

 

Just my opinion.

[richnerd]

Amen comicmankev,

 

If I stop 1 insufficiently_thoughtful_person from stealing my photos then it was well worth it. And I agree with the point that these half wits are so stupid that they steal images of current auctions and list them at the same time as the legit auction, there is no way in @%#% that these insufficiently_thoughtful_persons are smart enough to save the auction to their harddrive and steal the images that way, or screen capture. I mean we had a thread that some insufficiently_thoughtful_person just copied the complete auction word for word! Do you really think they have any smarts? I don't!!!

 

And if it upsets someone because they can't right click on my auction, I'm willing to trade them off for stopping a thief!

 

I'm not one to turn my head and let [!@#%^&^] happen and pretend it isn't. Maybe if we all try to make these thieves lives miserable it might just slow or stop some of them.

 

Just my feeling.

[rob_react]

I think that is madness rob, sorry

 

The right click function DOES stop some people. It's a bit like the no-smoking ads, if it stops one in a thousand, it's working!

 

There are several areas on the auction where you can right click to copy the auction number, I know you said it was just laziness, but come on, most of the other ways are easier anyway!

 

Take a look at the guy scamming the photo from my auction (X-men 266 9.8). He's just right clicked the auction and saved the pic. Simple as that. Most of these scammers are stupid enought to list a nice book with zero feedback, I don't think they would be clever enough to save the whole page then copy the pic out?

 

Just my opinion.

 

Trust me, changing the BASIC way people surf the web is never a good idea. On the web, people behave in funny ways, but ignoring that behavior because it's funny is detrimental, especially in a case like this where the benefit is so miniscule.

 

I just used the auction number as an example, another place where I right click on ebay auctions is on "view seller's other items" in order to open it in a new window. Again, with right-click disabled I oftentimes don't bother. Right or wrong, that's my behavior.

 

I'm a user, telling you about my behavior and your answer is to tell me it's madness. Here's an interpretation of what you're telling me as a legit customer... "Because there may or may not be an attempt somewhere in the future to steal one of my images, I'm going to use basically useless, but annoying technology to protect my images. If you don't like it- change your behavior for me. Don't just click the "back" button like you do everywhere else you feel frustration on the Net (behavior which makes hitting the "back" button the second-most performed action on the Net.)"

 

This reminds me of the RIAA with their poorly planned CD copy protection schemes, except this is even easier to get around.

 

That's all I really need to say on the matter. Again, I'm just offering my opinion as both a power user of the system and as a profesional somewhat versed in the vagaries of website usability... take it for what you will.

[rob_react]

In case it got lost, my basic point is if this is a concern, people should try to use technologies that are transparent for regular users and more effective in stopping the thieves. An effective solution wouldn't throw a wrench in the plans of legit users. Watermarking and embedding images in flash, while not foolproof on the protection end, are both more effective and are absolutely transparent to the end user.

[richnerd]

In case it got lost, my basic point is if this is a concern, people should try to use technologies that are transparent for regular users and more effective in stopping the thieves. An effective solution wouldn't throw a wrench in the plans of legit users. Watermarking and embedding images in flash, while not foolproof on the protection end, are both more effective and are absolutely transparent to the end user.

 

But not eveyone has the programs they need to watermark.

 

Also you keep saying that the code is useless, I know for a fact that it is not useless it has stopped many people from stealing images.

 

I just graduated last year with a multimedia degree and part of my class did a study on this same subject. We did find many people would "borrow" images for their projects, for the simple reason it's easier then taking your own photo or scanning something. Also most of the people inteviewed when asked if they couldn't right click would they go to other means to get that image.

 

90% said no they would look else where.

 

So even if you keep considering this code useless, I beg to differ because I know for a fact it works.

 

You may argue that it causes you to change your routine and yes I'll agree with that, but no it is not useless code.

 

 

Rich

[dadaist]

Trust me, changing the BASIC way people surf the web is never a good idea. On the web, people behave in funny ways, but ignoring that behavior because it's funny is detrimental, especially in a case like this where the benefit is so miniscule.

 

I don't want to take sides with anyone, but rob_react is right. Useability is the most important factor in producing anything online. And incidentally, rob_react is not the only user here who loves using the right-mouse click command to open a new browser window

 

On a side-note, when I was doing a gig with a major music label a little while back, I was hired on as an IT support consultant. Being that I like music so much, and that the environment was SO laid-back, I got to meet a lot of great people in the music industry. Within my first week, I caught an early glimpse of a web-project the company was funding to allow visitors to catch concert clips, pre-release music/video, and other musical tidbits that cause excitement on the music scene.

 

One of the initiatives was taking streaming video and allowing visitors to view a full-length tracks that were performed either at a concert, or professionally produced for mass-audience circulation on networks like MTV. It was a radical venture, and something that was spearheaded with more zeal than thought.

 

After one of the guys showed me a beta version of the site, I immediately cautioned him at the possibility that the file could be downloaded, and easily circulated with commercially available P2P programs. Being that the song was uncut, and full-length, this may have presented a major copyrighting issues, especially because the band was not due for a release for at least another couple of months.

 

I wasn't taken seriously, and they wanted me to prove this. So I brought my notebook with me the next day (as they wouldn't allow anyone in the company to install a P2P program), and within minutes of visiting the site, I downloaded the song, stuck it on Kazaa, and had 25 people download it (it was just a fake file and not the real file that I had downloaded).

 

I even managed to do some post-production enhancements with Wildform Flix to reduce the size of the file. And this with a file that was supposed to be super-secure!

 

The guys were absolutely blown away.

 

They tried all types of restraining measures to get around the problem, but generally, it came down to useability concerns; pages that took forever to load because of cluttered scripting, and a bad user experience all-together that went against the grain. See, this was not the way this site was meant to run. It was meant to be a "let-loose" kind of place where real music fanatics could get the early scoop on the going-ons of their favourite bands, not a place where users needed to be kept honest.

 

It was because of this experience, and I'm sure many other incidents like it that Macromedia, in its endeavour to deliver one of the most exciting web technologies, was compelled to come up with a Flash Communication Server, and Flash Remoting technologies to protect media rich content that shockwave is more than capable of delivering, from lurking online thieves.

 

Going back to the subject of this post, one of the reasons why I initially introduced the idea of a watermark was because it bothered me to no end when people would rip-off images from my auctions. People will complain that watermarks take away from the aesthetic appeal of the item; others, arguing that you are intentionally using watermarking to cover up the defects of the item. I guess it comes down to dealing with those interested parties on a one-on-one basis, should those kinds of useability concerns present themselves. Similarly, methods like the ones suggested in this post should be used for specifc application, and from a useability standpoint, with the recognition that it may annoy some visitors.

[Joanna]

Please explain to this Mac user what "right-clicking" a photo does.

[greggy]

Please explain to this Mac user what "right-clicking" a photo does.

It brings up a menu that could allow someone to save the pic among other functions.

[Joanna]

Please explain to this Mac user what "right-clicking" a photo does.

It brings up a menu that could allow someone to save the pic among other functions.

 

Ah. Click and hold, got it.

[dadaist]

Please explain to this Mac user what "right-clicking" a photo does.

 

Its similar to a control-click command on your Mac.

[Amazing_Bag_man]

I think there is a much simplier way of protecting ones images on the internet and it's low tech. There are some sellers from Ebay that uses a strip of paper or signing that shows a monogram of that persons name on it that associate with their Ebay username for that particular comic or anything else they are selling. That way you would believe that can only be this person who is selling it at that time. All you have to do is place that name of yours inside or next to the item your selling when you make that photo or scan

[richnerd]

I think there is a much simplier way of protecting ones images on the internet and it's low tech. There are some sellers from Ebay that uses a strip of paper or signing that shows a monogram of that persons name on it that associate with their Ebay username for that particular comic or anything else they are selling. That way you would believe that can only be this person who is selling it at that time. All you have to do is place that name of yours inside or next to the item your selling when you make that photo or scan

 

Do this once and I'll show you in 5 minutes that it won't work.

 

If the name is next to the photo it can be cropped out with no problem.

 

Boy I didn't want to start the debate of the day here, I was just trying to help anyone out who would like to try and stop the crooks, who don't have access to photoshop,dreamweaver,flash or whatever everyone else uses.

[OldGuy]

Boy I didn't want to start the debate of the day here, I was just trying to help anyone out who would like to try and stop the crooks, who don't have access to photoshop,dreamweaver,flash or whatever everyone else uses.

 

Your motive for starting this thread was a good one and I'm glad you posted it. If nothing else, everyone that reads it is bound to learn something helpful. I recently started using Photoshop at work and have much to learn so if anyone has more info on adding watermarks I'd love to read more about it.

[Darthdiesel]

I don't want to take sides with anyone, but rob_react is right. Useability is the most important factor in producing anything online. And incidentally, rob_react is not the only user here who loves using the right-mouse click command to open a new browser window

 

Umm..I right click to activate my esnipe on whatever auction I'm looking at, may of them belonging to the board members, so if you freeze my rightclick - I won't be able to snipe your auctions

 

I also right click and save your images so I can use them in my own auctions, but that's another story...

 

 

I like watermarking best..I haven't put a "darthdiesel" watermark in a scan in a while because I've never had the pics of things that people can perpetrate a huge fraud with anyway...but it seems pretty cool to use the watermark as an advertisement ...

[dadaist]

I can provide a visual tutorial (with instructions, and screen-captures) to walk people through a basic - advanced watermark using Adobe Photoshop.

 

OldGuy, it might also be a good idea to corral a good effects filter like Eye Candy to do some of the more fancy stuff.

 

If there are enough people who would be interested, reply to this thread, and I'll post a tutorial in the next day or so.