I want my MTV...Ooops, wrong forum. I want my right click back! As an artist I frequently save other artist's images as a way to study their technique in the hopes of improving mine. I have gained many hours of enjoyment and pleasure from viewing their work at my convenience. Art is meant to be shared. I certainly hope folks right click on my work.

this whole thing is lame, disabling right click does nothin, all you have to do is check your cache, its not freakin rocket science. I really dont see how people can profit from stealing images anyway, i mean there all low res anyway not much good for print work... anyway my 2 cents.

Well then i will add my 2 Eurocents as well, there is not much needed to get the pictures on your harddisk if you really want to.

Either look in your Cache, a bit of fiddeling in the URL-line, all to easy. Maybe it should be turned into a optional thing wich turn on while uploading a picture, like "Disable right-click-save", but it still won't stop those who are really after the pictures for a more evil purpose.

I do have substantial directory on my HD with pictures downloaded from Renderosity or other 3d-sites, but they are for my own research or just to drool at their quality, no harm is intended other than trying to improve myself and become better than everyone else ^_^;

Uhm... I tend to find this funny. You know, saving a picture that you found on the internet for personal viewing is absolutely legal in the whole EU. I have no idea how it is in America, but it is perfectly legal over here. But I guess, some of our copyright-overconscious-people here at Renderosity just started to call everything theft that doesn't fit into their own view of how laws should work. I am currently trying to get my fingers on a book about US-copyright, but I guess it is perfectly legal in the USA, too. As for your "anti-right-click"-measures: They are pathetic. If I wish to save the picture, it is no problem at all. If I just wish to view a picture, they are a nuisance. If I wish to scan the gallery, they are a veritable pain i.t.a. I also have to admit something: I have a almost complete gallery of hobbit saved to my disk. I do nothing with those pictures but look at them and wonder, how anyone can be so damn good with Poser. If this is illegal, I really wish to see the paragraph that this is based upon.

This is getting a bit like excessive post-Sept-11th airport security where a woman can't take harmless blunt plastic knitting needles on board to pass the flight by catching up with some knitting. Copyright was made for man, not man for copyright. Lawyers were made for man, not man for lawyers. You could disable and block this and that until the system is useless, but people will still find ways to keep downloads of images, even if they must resort to the "Print Screen" button to save a copy of the screen to the clipboard. Many people are on slow dialup lines causing expensive phone bills, and often they must quickly download a copy of something and look at it offline later.

Well i don't think it will work. So many above have mentioned it how to pass the security. What i would like to know is how often does something like this happen? Is it a serious problem or are we doing a "hot air debate" here? My point is, that if people feel the need to protect their work they should do it - by watermarks, signature etc etc. There are enough individual security options available. For all others things should stay as easy as possible. This garantees the success of a place like this. A simple solution with other extra benefits could be to restrict image sizes to 800x600 for example. This would make me as a laptop user happy and would make the images useless for 90% of print work - where money is made. Not for illegal Internet usage i know, but...

I object to this! I was not asked and I have been here a long time! I actually think this is a community not a gulag! If a member wants their stuff protected post it on a private Web not here!

Disabling the right click will dissuade only those that browse the galleries and find something they really like, in other words, the average member. Anyone looking to take down images for commercial use or to build up their own site will not be deterred by this. The membership should really have been consulted first. Its our art, after all. I personally have no problems with anyone downloading any of my pics, but I can understand there are those that do. Even those that remove the sig or replace it with their own are only hurting our pride as long as they dont actually sell the work or charge subscriptions to their site. And for those that do seek to profit from the work of others there are the copyright laws. Ideally I would like to see a short notice on every gallery header stating that the artist has/hasnt given their permission that images can be downloaded for personal use but Im not sure how difficult this would be to implement.

It's not gonna work. You can still view source and look for the image. Other artists splice up their images to prevent it from being stolen but you can still use Print Screen and paste it on a bitmap program, even flash files can be screen captured, same goes for java applets. To try it out Windows Users: "Print Screen" button on your keyboard, Open MSPaint "Ctrl+V" to paste. Sigh! wabe's solution of restricting to 800x600 will help but...

*I admit I haven't read every post here, ignore this, if it has already been suggested. ------- Not sure of it's viability, but a member (catlin_mc) said something that spurred the idea; What if the ability to enable or disable right click saving of my own artwork (to others), in my gallery was an option in my Member Profile? I could turn it on or off as I pleased. This would put the power of protecting each members artwork into the hands of those who wanted it. It would give all the members the ability to take more of a control over their artwork, one way or another. Now, I have NO idea how realistic this idea is to Renderosity's site programmer. It may be do-able, it may be a giant headache, I'm not sure. Just an idea. AgentSmith

Help what? Help sooth the hysteria of some people that their artwork is being stolen? I do not want to restrict my pictures to 800x600 just because some people are paranoid. If those people wish to protect their pictures, they should use watermarks and resize to 800x600 - but I will leave Renderosity the moment that such matters are forced on all of us, because some of us can't live with the thought of someone saving their files and taking a look at them on their harddisk or can't live with the problem, that some people steal artwork for their pages. This whole thing is a hot-air-debate, blown up by a few people. Renderosity always makes a big fuzz about their 144.000 or more customer base. Well, how many made a fuzz about stolen pictures? 100? That's less than 1% of the community. For those of us, who wish protection, there are possibilities: Watermarking or reducing the size. Those methods must be enough. I have no such paranoia and I wish to be able to upload my pictures any goddamn size that was possible up to now, with or without watermarking, the way I WISH THEM TO BE. Not the way that those very few people wish them to be.

Disabling right click doesn't stop anyone who's determined. It might momentarily deter some of the "bored mommy tube makers" out there, or some really clueless sorts, but other than that its no more effective than clearing your throat at them. I think it's good to have as an OPTION. Let the artist choose if they want it or not. Maybe it could be something that's added like allowing comments or ratings. Tick the box, the server writes in the NRC code...? I do realize that it impedes right-click navigation (this is something I use a LOT, so it definitely affects me), but it's possible to find/write JavaScript that will only cause the NRC to work when an image is clicked, but nothing else (In fact, I've got some JavaScript that does precisely that and works in as many browsers as any NRC script does). Using it in the gallery where the thumbnails is... That's overkill. For pity's sake, they steal a thumbnail, big deal. I'm not at all soft on art thieves, particularly when they sell the stuff or claim they made it for some kind of false praise elsewhere, but how much damage can someone do to any artist by stealing a thumbnail? The best they could do with it would be use it as an avatar or something, and if you're THAT concerned, you can fancy up the thumbnail with a border and a logo and all that stuff that some folks do. So I'd say take it OFF the main gallery pages where the images are thumbnailed. That's just annoying and it's useless. For the individual pages, let the artist choose if they want it or not, and look into a script that only disables right clicks when the actual image is clicked. bonni

Wow long arg... I think that disalig right click will only stop the casual theif and people who might have liked to grab an image for personal use, a serious theif will know the ways round it and will not be perturbed. The serious methods to get round imge theft are watermarks or copyright text spattered everywhere. Anyone who seriously wants to protect their copytright should also make a copy of the source files on CD and either post it to themselves registered (the date stamp will prove tim of production) or lodge it with solicitor, these actions will aid if it ends up in court. but you won't stop a good hacker being able to get the images. Personally I miss the right click menu... (and I'm not ragging on anyone, the mods here do a great job and it is appreciated)

Disabling Right-Click is only a major inconvenience for regular users and wont prevent people from saving the images nevertheless. I respect attempts to protect images, but object to implementing this rather feeble and very inconvenient feature. (If, then only as an additional member-option please, with "rt-clk enabled" as default setting). Hubert

Oh, I noticed on the Poll that disabling the IE popup box thingy is apparently part of this. Look, that thing is ANNOYING. There's no reason NOT to disable it. It's an extremely simple matter to disable it so that it won't pop up (you can do it on a "by image" basis or for whole pages) and disabling it won't interefere with anyone's ability to navigate. So on that matter, I say by all means, disable the IE toolbar. It's irritating and annoying and it's so simple to disable, plus it shouldn't impede anyone's ability to browse anything. bonni

I think the biggest thing is : All of this hysteria could have been avoided by a simple member vote. "Holy shit", you say... "A VOTE?!?!?!?" <----Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy.

I'm not going to read all these 118 posts, I've got better things to do, but I'd say it would be a lot better if each artist had a button on their upload form to disable right-clicking if they want to. I like to be able to copy very nice images from the galleries to use them as background on my windows desktop. I don't mind if people copy my gallery images at all and I think a lot of other artists wouldn't mind too. I wouldn't like it if someone would sell the images that I provide here for free without asking permission, but that's a completely different thing. If there are artists who don't want to have their images copied to someones HD they should be able to disable right-clicking, but that doesn't mean every image should have right-clicking disabled per definition. It should be to the artist to make that choice.

It should be relatively simple to put the "anti-right click" script as a wrap around for any image selected.

If the user selects "Yes, protect me", wrap the picture with the JavaScript code. If the user selects "No, do not bother", then leave the code out. Simple, elegant, and it should not cause any undue server load - and both sides are happy, life is good, and you can concentrate on more pressing matters.

Thank You! You have disabled this function! Im a harnlees user looking at this site from zime to time to save a few pics to make my desktop more beautiful. I was very annoyed yesterday experiencing that I couldnt download the pics anymore. I think the critics have caused what they should cause: the reaktivation of the rightclick-function. Please dont`t disable it again. It would make this site much less popular.

I like the idea. If you want people to download your images for wallpaper, direct them to a personal website that serves that purpose!

..As a dialup who uses Rt.mouse extensively, I hope that if CyberStretch's suggestion to let uploaders shrink-wrap their image via checkbox is doable that you will do it. ..Unless you've stuck a watermark on it (or in it), an unsigned work is difficult to prosecute - more work and expense than its worth. It's implicit in the action that uploading a personal work to 'osity with no physical identifier is to give it away. ..When I want to sell something, the prospect only gets watermarked proof sheets until he contracts to buy. Phusical watermarks are removable, but if placed where cropping spoils the composition, all other editing tools leave a trace.

For my two cents: If rt. clicking is to be disabled, it should be set by the individual artist. I will admit to a rather extensive collection of saved pics from many, many artists here. Sometimes when I am in a slump, I just browse my collection and it can fire me up to feel like creating something. If there are people here who feel their work is being stolen for profit, then they need to put a pretty severe watermark on thier images, and if someone would like a clear copy, they can always ask for one or pay for a print. I just recently found a rather juvenile chat-board site (where most of the comments were "wazzup homies"), linking to my own personal web page for background images. The bastards didn't even have the decency to just steal my images - they were stealing my bandwidth too! So I don't like thieves anymore than anyone else.

Disabling rt-click has been rejected as a total solution every time. Tammy's title to this thread indicates clearly that this was intended to be a small step toward protection, not a total solution. We all know that total protection is not feasible, just as it's not possible to prevent the determined burglar from breaking in to your house. But we all take simple steps to protect our belongings; window locks, alarms etc. in the knowledge that it will deter the casual thief but not the pro, and that's what this was supposed to be; something to deter the casual grabber and tuber. Whilst I'm using such words as 'thief', I want to address a point that's come up a lot in this thread, and that is that we DO NOT regard everyone who saves an image as a thief. When we refer to image theft/thief we're referring to the people who were the source of so many threads like "Do you recognise any of your work here", "Tubers stealing my work!" etc. This change wasn't done with the intent to piss people off. We thought we were taking a small but valid first step to stop the misuse of people's work in response to the amount of 'Why doesn't Renderosity do something about it' posts in the type of thread I alluded to in the previous paragraph. Damned if you do, damned if you dont huh?

No, only damned because you didn't think through the consequences of your actions. And that's well-deserved.

Anytime your actions alienate more legitimate users than the few bad eggs you're aiming for, you need to re-think those actions...

Tossing my $0.02, I also extensively use the Right Click Option to navigate the galleries, makes it less time consuming than the back and forth nature of the current system. I have also in the past Right Clicked images to an inspiration folder I have that allows me to go and study images for techniques and styles I wish to pursue. It was my impression that this wasn't a bad thing, but now I'm being made to feel like it is. I've only had one of my images stolen to my knowledge and I do feel bad for the spectacular artists that have their work taken and sold without compensation, but since this method does more to hamper legimate uses and since it is so easy for the thieves to continue stealing images, I feel this decision should be recinded. Thanks.

Colin, we did think it through. A lot. We realised that it would cause some navigation difficulties, but it's clear that we totally underestimated the impact. If we deserve a slap for that mistake, fair enough.

My goodness! I thought there was a glitch in MY IE... until I found this post. I went and voted... to keep the old way.. Many know my feelings on illegal use of models, and I feel the same way about art. It is sickening to see a Michael Whalen Dragon image posted without permission, etc.. BUT I do a save as for images of good friends who are wonderful artists, JUST to put on my desktop to enjoy every time I sit here... AND it is a very convenient way to save an image I DO have permission for, to add to our own store gallery, instead of jamming up my mail box with jpg attachments from those artist who make submissions to our gallery. 7 years ago, as an artist, I had to come face to face with the reality of posting my art in public. It WILL be stolen. So I did three things - I came to the state of mind to accept this rather than not to post my art, and 2) I make my images the default 72 dpi.. then people would get a really messy thing by trying to enlarge and/or print anything they could use to sell and 3) I have a note on my own web site to just ASK, and found that the majority of the folks do ask..then I say yes, thanking them for asking! This way I do have some sort of way of keeping track of where they are. In this age of fancy stationery programs the theft of art and bits of an image is really getting out of hand... but again, posting publicly I have to accept this. I do not water mark (my art is not THAT good) anyway. I am sure that someone doing art commercially would not post a high res final image on the web.. those that sell art and photographs usually post low res, small size images. Well that's my 3 cents worth.

I would slap you, kb, but that would violate the TOS - unless you liked it, I guess; in which case I would have to object. ;0)

So, did anyone bring any marshmallows to the roasting? :0)

There will be NO smacking of ANYONE that doesn't involve me, on either end. And I for one think that "Big Brother" theories aside, the Renderosity staff really was just trying to look out for our best interests. I don't think they meant any harm in this. Therefore I will be the one being slapped, and no one will like it but MEEEE!!!!

It seems to me that there is far too much negative flak regarding Renderositys attempt to protect their members artwork. Whether you agree or disagree with the move at least give them credit for a well intentioned move, and save the flak for those that steal others work for financial gain. I know of a case on another forum I am a member of, where a packaging design company had taken an image without the artists knowledge and it was used as packaging for a well known hardware companies item, without their knowledge either. I am sure that even the most generous artist would find it unacceptable for a commercial enterprise to be using their work in that way. Lets try to be grateful for Renderositys efforts, not resort to deriding good intentions, even if there are many ways to circumvent it. Dave

The picture only serves to reinforce this point.

I do not believe there is a partial solution to that problem anyway. What you are trying to prevent is about what people will do AFTER they saved an image to their desktop... and there is no solution to that. At least, not on a website. If you allow regular users to save images for study or personal use, then there is no way you can prevent someone from misusing that same image. Just like you can't prevent someone to use a fork as a weapon and not just for eating. It is a good thing renderosity's staff is concerned about this issue, but I just don't think there is a solution at all.

guess that'as a big ol' NO for this feature so far... http://www.renderosity.com/polls.ez

That's allvery nice. I have nothign against this decision of RR Adms. _But it would be a very different thing if I was told that thanks to the famous Copyrights Laws, NOBODY today make their fortunes on the back of some precoce Mozarts or some unknown Beethoven-like 's dead bodies. How can I know if your or my artworks are not sold fortune sin Tai-Wan ? Where is the evidence THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY DONE ? _You can do or tell anything, you will never answer this. _It's just simply what I think of most of what I hear and see about some great "Gesticulating Enforcement for showing my Honesty". The honesty would be that the artists, WHO mainly, with some merchants too who act for Art, make this Commercial Company exist and win money, DECIDE of what is good or not for them and their hosts in total reciprocity. But I must be dreaming. Forget it. I love you. Anyway, we'll see...

I do indeed give them credit for their concerns and attempt to do something about them. I just was not happy with this control being applied to me and my works without consulting with me. For that I will fault them. This is why I initially asked first the capability to set such permissions myself for my works. And I must say that given some of the BYOF(lamethrower) discussions I have seen here in the past I am pleased by the adult level of discussion and admin response. Thank you to all for your decorum, it is appreciated! Richard "Incarnadine"

This is stupid. Since a few people are stealing images, you are punishing every single person who visits the galleries? Since a few thieves are stealing images, I can no longer download an image to my hard drive to look at it later? And you call this place an art gallery?? Yet people can't keep copies of the art for themselves? People can't download an image to use on their own computer, as wallpaper?? Stupid, stupid, stupid. But, here I go again, getting fired up about something that doesn't affect me personally... I always use "Ad Subtract" to browse the web. I went to the galleries to see if this new procedure was in place... and guess what? Both the IE "image toolbar" AND the right-click menu appear perfectly fine for me. Heck, I can even save the thumbnail images if I want. But, for anyone else who doesn't run a JavaScript blocking-program, this could be an problem. So, what issue was this supposed to solve- the fact that people are saving images or that it's time for the site to piss people off again? As the poster said above, "The picture only serves to reinforce this point. "

"We will remove the features until we have all the results from the poll." - tammyc, Post#73

Which is probably why both methods are still working. :0)

The general rule is: If you can see a picture in your computer then you can always save it to the disk! The only way to protect from saving to disk is not to send it to the computer, but in this case, you also won't be able to see the picture. I DON'T AGREE WITH ANY KIND OF RESTRICTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING ANY OF MY PICTURES!

no offense but i think this is silly. if someone is making money off of stealing my images, then rest assured that they posess the skill to take them even with the rightclick/image toolbar disabled. there are many EASY workarounds that no code will ever be able to stop. hell, even disabling javascript works. even people that go to elaborate lengths and use the most efficient method - dividing their images into little cubes - are thwarted by the almighty 'print screen' key. i really dont mind if someone uses my images from either this gallery or my Blackhearted one. if someone likes my art, why shouldnt they be able to save it to a folder on their harddrive? hell, i do it all the time. if i really like something in the gallery i will save it to a rosity gallery folder i store all the truly excellent images that i see here in. all (or most) of my images carry a copyright notice. again, if someone really wants to they can remove it in photoshop. other solutions? digimarc -- the 'professional' watermarking solution that costs a fortune? its useless. they neglect to tell you that the lowest level of noise applied to an image (0.01%) will permanently wipe their watermark off with no noticeable quality degredation in the image. so much for their expensive tracking system and protection measures. and no, i didnt read this somewhere - it took me an entire 2 minutes to figure it out when i was contemplating buying a digimarc key and testing it. so where am i going with this? theres nothing you can do to stop image theft, because the thieves are always one step ahead and there are ways to circumvent every protection measure. these new measures will not discourage thieves, theyll hardly slow them down a few seconds. but as a side effect it will be a huge nuisance and possible deterrant to honest folk that just like to browse the galleries and save images they like from time to time. theyre not going to post them on their websites, try to sell them or make money off them - they just want to store them for later viewing or use as a wallpaper. im actually flattered when people comment and say theyve saved the image/photo. but, on the other hand, i applaud renderosity for trying to take measures to protect the artists... its definitely the right attitude, yet this particular implementation i feel will be counterproductive. cheers, -gabriel (Blackhearted)

I almost always put my name on an image. That'll keep most people from using it and saying it's theirs. I don't mind if someone copy's my images to his/her HD or even prints them for personal use. If my name is on it that's enough. If someone sees one of my images and likes it and sees my name he/she might even go search for more of my work. That's also a benefit of marking images.

Strictly speaking, taking an image without asking permission is not theft, but it is copyright violation. Theft would be taking the original article without the intent to give back, which does not apply to digital art. But legally, regardless of whether the artist has given some generic permission, image taking without explicit authorisation is infringement of copyright. Your image has copyright whether you like it or not. That aside, this is a step in the right direction. It's relatively simple to prevent all image theft (I'm using the term loosely) except for grabbing by screen capture and cache trawling (all without the use of scripting). So this is what I'd be in favour of. Just because it would only stop 90% of image theft is no reason to simply not do anything. (Just for the record I don't care whether someone downloads my stuff as long as I get credit if it's redisplayed, but I am aware many people do care, so we should all respect this.) BTW, the argument that it's not possible to exclude 100% of image theft is nonsense. Do the people who argue this way leave their doors unlocked when they leave the house, on the premise that a locked door doesn't prevent 100% of home burglaries? Anything that reduces the liklihood of image theft should be considered. The fact that we'll never stop 100% of it is irrelevant.

And apologies for repeating some of what kbennett's said - it's a long thread!

No, it's not even a copyright violation. That only comes in if you DO something with the image.

" It's relatively simple to prevent all image theft " i think you mean its relatively simple to deter some image theft. stopping it is a joke. even 90% is being very hopeful. there are at least a dozen ways around it. and besides - 'no right click' javascripts dont work in all browsers, and especially dont work if you simply disable scripts in your browser. punishing everyone for a few isolated cases of image theft is only going to serve to alienate the rosity memberbase, and the real thieves will laugh at these changes and go on doing what they have been. in fact these 'no-rightclick scripts' are most often a huge inconvenience to legitimate users since they disable honest right-clicking (not just innocent saving of images but also copy and pasting text and URLs from the comments, etc). i think that a simple auto-generated copyright notice underneath the image would do much more than this no right-click script - like the one on deviantart. -gabriel

"But legally, regardless of whether the artist has given some generic permission, image taking without explicit authorisation is infringement of copyright."

Wrong Answer. :0) If the copyright owner has given permission - even on a "generic" basis - then all is well and good from a copyright standpoint. Copyright is enforced at the behest of the copyright owner.

I don't know if you cancelled the "NoSave" already, but it's still easy to download images by clicking on them in Netscape. To be honest, the only way to protect artists' images is to keep them off the Internet - don't upload them. Whatever method you try to use (watermarks, NoSave, NoCache, background image, javascripts, copyright notice, encryption, etc.), some thief will find a way to steal your image if he wants it.

Right. And disabling caching is not a good idea either. Remember there is a REASON caching was implemented on the 'net in the first place. Both bandwidth and time are saved.

No, it's not even a copyright violation. That only comes in if you DO something with the image. Wrong! A copyright is in place the minute a piece is created. Like it or not. Read the Digital Copyright Act. Taking an image without permission from the creator is copyright infringment!! I see alot of people here that are p'od because they aren't allowed to take images from here as they please..whats wrong with just 'ASKING' the artist if its ok? Just because this is an artists community doesn't mean its a free-for-all. Some artists dont mind their images being taken, and feel its a compliment...others regard it as theft. Some people here are trying to earn an extra income, some depend on the money they make for thier images..Put yourselves in those artists shoes for awhile..say someone comes along and takes your image that you are making money with..and you need this money desperatley..they say, "well I was only using it for a desktop, so I could see it all the time" Later on down the road, they see this artist is making x amount of money for this image, and decides he/she will sell this image too..just a change here, and a change there...sign their name and start making money..Who's to say this wont ever happen?? You people that dont mind your images being taken, fine! But cut some slack on those who do not wish their images taken. Not everyone here is you, nor do they feel as you do towards their artwork being taken. They shouldn't have to be told 'Well ya can't do anything about image theft, so either take your art down off the net, or learn to live with theft. I dont mind mine being taken, so neither should you" That is total BS! Not until we take a step in 'trying' to stop image theft, will it ever be stopped. Im with you Kev, damned if ya do, and damned if ya dont. >:( I cannot believe the artists here who refuse to see the good in this move.. its not perfect, but what is in this day and age? Come up with other soulutions instead of say "Dont change anything, leave it like it is so I can have my freedom to take what I want" We are all artists, and members of a community, and as such we should be looking for ways to keep each others art safe {as some members want}..not biting the hand that feeds.Also remember, not everyone in this community speaks up here..so saying the majority has spoken is an understatement.

Some points: 1) Remember that the Copyright laws are not the same in all countries,was is illegal in one is legal in other. 2) If you add some "protection???" disabling right clicking, this only can be done as an option for the artist, so he can enable or disable this feature, if not, you are against the will and copyrights of artists that don't want downloading restrictions! My images are free for downloading, so any limitation of my will is a copyright violation.

"No, it's not even a copyright violation. That only comes in if you DO something with the image. Wrong! A copyright is in place the minute a piece is created. Like it or not. Read the Digital Copyright Act. Taking an image without permission from the creator is copyright infringment!!" he didnt say there was no copyright on the image. but by simply saving it to your harddrive you have not violated their copyright - a copyright violation has not taken place.