Hello Cliff, I believe that you've already been given a number of excellent examples of how one can--unfortunately--defeat any means you use to disable a right click. In the case of your JAVA script to defeat a right click, I was able to simply highlight the photo with a LEFT click, then copied & pasted the photo into a photo editor, word processor, etc. I was also able to print the entire page as a PDF document, something I routinely use when researching because it is a quick and simple way of obtaining a page's info. So one can actually defeat a right click in any number of ways, just as you can code to prevent somebody from harvesting your pictures using different methods. For example. besides JAVA you can code the pictures using Flash http://www.macromedia.com. This is one of the most secure but also most involved and expensive methods. Flash is routinely used by cartoonists, professional photographers, etc. when their works are placed on webpages. I think that protecting my photographs is like making my home "burglar-proof". You should likewise spend whatever amount of time and money you deem necessary to protect your "valuables". But just like your home, if somebody is unscrupulous enough there's always the chance they'll do whatever they can to get at your property. However, if those persons go to such extreme means to illegally obtain copyrighted materials, it would only make it that much grievous and obvious an offense if prosecution were required. (Just because I have a $100 bill I do not expect to get robbed, but I also won't walk around with it taped to my forehead.) Likewise, if another party cropped my photo to remove the copyright and source information after downloading it, it would seem to leave the stain of ink on their hands a second time. Even if the photo is cropped and decreased in size, it is usually quite obvious that they are clearly the same photo (in the case of tombstones, which I believe what most of us are referring to here) and therefore quite easy to visually prove infringement. To be quite honest, I could care less about any downloading of my photos unless somebody is seeking to profit and is clearly being deceptive to do it. However, I always want to be attributed to those photos as the "author" because I would like to be contacted by other researchers. To that end, I would actually encourage my photos to be downloaded and spread around. If you think about it, if your materials are freely available everywhere then how could someone else profit from it? And if they're available everywhere, then it becomes just that much more likely you are commonly referred to and known as their source. All the Best, Dennis Lohr Milwaukee, WI COPYRIGHT-D-request@rootsweb.com wrote: Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 16:25:02 -0500 From: Cliff Lamere <clifflamere@nycap.rr.com> To: COPYRIGHT-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Protecting copyrighted photos <EDIT> I believe it would be appropriate to discuss methods of protecting photos on this mailing list, so I welcome comments. Here is the URL for the webpage I made. http://grandpacliff.com/Animals/Albinos-TEST.htm Cliff Lamere --------------------------------- Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

Dennis, A few people wrote to me privately with methods that would overcome attempts at protecting photos. I'd like to thank them and those who wrote directly to the list for their responses. Everyone seems to agree that no matter what is done to protect the photos, a savvy computer person can copy them nonetheless. Frankly, I knew little about the subject, so I did some research. There are two programs by the same company that should be mentioned. http://www.protware.com/ HTML Guardian is a free program, and it encrypts webpages so the coding, scripts, text, etc. cannot be copied. It also gives a fair amount of protection to the photos. This program has options to disable the following: Print Screen, Clipboard, Save As, right click to save an image, and Internet Explorer 6 Image Toolbar. This free version will prevent a lot of copying. It may fulfill the needs of most people. If you want even better protection you have to buy a program. "To protect images on your website, you have to purchase HTML Guardian Enterprise Edition." That purchase costs $70 plus shipping. Even though the photo is stored in the cache (as was previously mentioned), it is stored in nine files that have to be reassembled before viewing the photo is possible. This makes it much more difficult for someone to copy the photo. It will prevent 95-98% of the copying. It may prevent access in other ways as well. http://www.htmlguardian.org/help_main.html I'd like to point out something else that can help to protect your photos. I have a large genealogy website with over 1300 links. Some of them get broken. In case a webpage has been renamed or put in a new location on the same site, I have to look for it. Look at the following long URL. http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/tn/gibson/court/wallace1846.txt If you chop off the last part (wallace1846.text) and then hit enter, it will give you an index (directory) of the files and images in "court". Chop off back to the next forward slash / and you will see the index of gibson. You can chop off three more sections until you get back to the host's URL. Each step will show the contents of that folder. If you can see the name, you can open the file or image. Then, you can copy it. I mentioned this problem to a computer geek who told me about the following method of prevention. As a webmaster or person who is putting webpages online, you have probably learned that your home page is named index.htm or index.html (there may be others, but I'm not certain). If you create a file with one of those names, you can put it in a folder. It acts like a home page for that folder. You write a message in the index file. Mine says Access Forbidden and gives a link to my home page. Instead of seeing the contents of my folders, you will see the index file's message instead. If the folder has photos, you won't be able to see the names of the photos, so you won't be able to open them to copy them. (Thanks, Larry) Here is the URL I sent you earlier so you could see my message that prevents copying a photo by using a right click. If you delete the last part (the file name), you will no longer be able to access the index of the contents of the "Animals" folder. http://grandpacliff.com/Animals/Albinos-TEST.htm I was surprised and disappointed today when I was looking at that webpage using Netscape 7.0. The script I mentioned recently did not disable the right click box in that program. Cliff Lamere ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ D Lohr wrote: >Hello Cliff, > > I believe that you've already been given a number of excellent examples of how one can--unfortunately--defeat any means you use to disable a right click. In the case of your JAVA script to defeat a right click, I was able to simply highlight the photo with a LEFT click, then copied & pasted the photo into a photo editor, word processor, etc. I was also able to print the entire page as a PDF document, something I routinely use when researching because it is a quick and simple way of obtaining a page's info. So one can actually defeat a right click in any number of ways, just as you can code to prevent somebody from harvesting your pictures using different methods. For example. besides JAVA you can code the pictures using Flash http://www.macromedia.com. This is one of the most secure but also most involved and expensive methods. Flash is routinely used by cartoonists, professional photographers, etc. when their works are placed on webpages. > > I think that protecting my photographs is like making my home "burglar-proof". You should likewise spend whatever amount of time and money you deem necessary to protect your "valuables". But just like your home, if somebody is unscrupulous enough there's always the chance they'll do whatever they can to get at your property. However, if those persons go to such extreme means to illegally obtain copyrighted materials, it would only make it that much grievous and obvious an offense if prosecution were required. (Just because I have a $100 bill I do not expect to get robbed, but I also won't walk around with it taped to my forehead.) > > Likewise, if another party cropped my photo to remove the copyright and source information after downloading it, it would seem to leave the stain of ink on their hands a second time. Even if the photo is cropped and decreased in size, it is usually quite obvious that they are clearly the same photo (in the case of tombstones, which I believe what most of us are referring to here) and therefore quite easy to visually prove infringement. > > To be quite honest, I could care less about any downloading of my photos unless somebody is seeking to profit and is clearly being deceptive to do it. However, I always want to be attributed to those photos as the "author" because I would like to be contacted by other researchers. > > To that end, I would actually encourage my photos to be downloaded and spread around. If you think about it, if your materials are freely available everywhere then how could someone else profit from it? And if they're available everywhere, then it becomes just that much more likely you are commonly referred to and known as their source. > > All the Best, > Dennis Lohr > Milwaukee, WI > > >