These are certainly not full proof.  You can still look at the source to find the location of images, but they are still pretty cool.

Follow the attached link to http://www.phillipdrawbridge.com/stuff/copyright.htm

Right click and view the top image and you just get a blank GIF.

And the lower one has copyright watermark that only appears when the mouse is over the image.  A nice alternative to ruining a picture with a watermark.  Of course, they don't help us in rosity. But I post more for you own reference.

I found them here and here

i right clicked.. and saved the images..the first..i did get the dot. the second..i cldn't see the watermark even with the mouse over. and btw.watermarks are very easy to delete.  how did you do the first one though?? i'd love that.

on my site..i got the webdesigner to make it not right clickable..a pop up says the images are copyrighted. you can't save them at all..  the secret though..is to save the page and then crop in photoshop.but who's gonna do that?

i really like the dot one. how did you do that??

Depends on the watermark.  Since it only shows when the mouse is over the image (or at least should do) you can make one so obtrusive that no one with any amount of shopping skill can rebuild the photo.  Not sure why the mouse over didn't work for you.   I'll look again.  maybe I screwed up the coding.

Take a look at the two lower links.  The first has details on the little bit of HTML that does it.

I like the watermark, shame it's gone in 1 click if you know what you're doing :D

Your webpage scripting is very neat and like these methods it's a deterent and makes it clear that people who steal images are doing something wrong, but, like the methods I showed,  it's not impossible to get around.

I think the only real way is to not have the source of the image in the HTML at all.  Maybe use a flash viewer.  Then we only have to contend with print screeners.

But anyway, I think the point is to make it clear to people that they should steal images.  So disabling right click does that. 

Quote - I like the watermark, shame it's gone in 1 click if you know what you're doing :D

OK, I'll bite, how do you do it in 1 click?  I can't get under 3 clicks and a few keyboard presses.

Actually I was wrong, using Firefox & the No Script plugin which defaults to all scripts disabled I don't need to click anything to get past your watermark, it took 2 clicks to enable the scripting so I could see it though ;)

Gotta love Firefox.  ;-D

firefox..one click to see the watermark..and then it went away.

mm.. think i'll get them to put that dot html thinggy.

this copyright thing scares the wits out of me. i've put up couple of images on several online exhibits or galleries including sotheby's. sotheby's now asks artists to put up larger sized images up. i haven't done that... and that disqualifies me from entering any contests??? i can understand paint/sculptor artists doing that..they lose nothing.. but a photographer or digital artist???

makes me wonder....

I'm using a method with my images so that if you right click on them you burst into flames and your head explodes.           

Quote - I'm using a method with my images so that if you right click on them you burst into flames and your head explodes.           

how did you test that to make sure it works?

Just turn off javascript (or "disable scripting" in IE)

The .gif for the top one is nice because the person has to be on his/her toes to notice.

 I'm not sure if using flash is all that secure either. There's more and more programs out now whose sole purpose is to save to disk things in flash. Isn't YouTube in flash? I was informed a year ago of a plugin for FireFox that saves Flash streams.

I'm not against security, actually I am a strong advocate of web security in general. It is just that digital information is, by it's nature, portable. It is designed to be copied. You can't change that.
Simply put. If you are worried about an image being stolen, don't post it on the internet. Pretty much any security measure you can come up will be bipassed by a determined thief, or even a casual one. A determined thief will definitely crack any security measure you can put up.

The problem, if that is the right word, is that for a document to be displayed, it is already loaded into the client computer. A Pragma no-cache metatag will stop the page from being cached, but it won't stop the page from being loaded in the first place (and it is hell on your bandwidth). IE can't access html, but most other browsers can, so blocking the source code doesn't help either.

Ultimately, you can't stop digital theft. Which raises the question: Why try?
Disabling right-clicks, water (and other) marks, and most every other security measure do nothing more than deter the average (which I believe is an honest) viewer from properly viewing your pictures. None of them are going to stop a thief. A signature will be painted out, watermarks removed, etc., if somebody want's to steal your work. 

I was really bummed out when I came across one of my pictures with my signature pixelled out and someone else's name there. Why anybody would want to steal my pictures, I don't know. At any rate, I don't even put a signature on anymore, I just do the following:

Never ever post a full size picture. Post the 1024x768, but keep the 2048x1536 for yourself. Or crop the original and post the cropped version on the net. Then if it should ever become neccessary that you prove an image is your property, you can easily produce a larger, higher quality image than the other party in question.

For a professional gallery, I would think that .htaccess password would be the way to go. Passwords will be cracked too, but that is more difficult and automatically a criminal action.

Try embedding your name/copyright notice within the main focus of the image. Like if you're doing a poser girl, but copyright on her leg, or near by. Or some book cover artists I've seen make a symbol of their initials and place that in a rock or on a button of a coat, or a belt buckle. If not not misspelling his name.. the artist "Michael Whelan" do does a lot of covers for Del Rey does this.

Would it make sense to make some sort of database of artist and their works? Like some sort of authenticity database? If ever there's need to prove an artist is the rightful owner of such-n-such art?

What gets me upset is when some thief chooses to remove the name of the artist and/or replace it with their own.

Firefox seems to make the thing silly. All it takes is Tools|Page Info|Media (tab) to get around those scripty kind of things. That's why I don't bother myself. If I was really worried about someone swiping my images, I'd go for the subtle watermark approach.

As neat as some of the script may seem, I'll have to go with dvlenk6 on this one.

Could try using purely CSS instead. For example, have a table with the render in one cell. Then another table with a transparent .PNG image and have it the same size as the render. Then using CSS overlap (z-order) the transparent .PNG over the render. It's not Javascript, so clicking off scripting shouldn't affect it. I'm not sure if FF has the ability to disable CSS.... but doubt it. CSS also can look confusing to someone trying to undo the code.

But no method I am aware of will prevent someone from looking into the code to find the rendered image's filename and path to copy/paste it into the browser's URL and get the image without any codes. Or to fish through the cache directory looking for the image. I think there is an option in CSS or somewhere to have the browser not store the image in cache, but I only read about that once or twice and never was interested in it myself before getting involved with 3D art. Old information might be hard to find again. Anyway, for the more serious thief, they could write their own browser code (free code already exists out there) that have no support for Javascript, CSS or anything. Or they could make their own socket program that functions like a bot which would go to a target URL and download any and all images only. These types of programs are common for web sites maintaining hundreds/thousands of pages where they must test for valid links. Modifying one of these to instead test for the <IMG tag instead of the <A tag is easy. The code for this also exists in many programming books as an introduction to socket's programming.

Flash, although it looks cool and neat, is not on every computer platform and not everyone wants it installed. I know quite a few people who refuse to install any flash on their computers because so many web ads and stuff come through them.

The way I would do it would be to focus on the casual thief using CSS which could baffle them when looking at the code. Put a lot of CSS code and people will be wondering what's going on. They could always take the time to understand what you've done but then they no longer become the casual thief, but someone who understands code and takes your security measures as a challenge to defeat. This type of person would be harder to deter.

IE7 can disable CSS with two clicks.
There are some anti-leeching scripts around that run on the serverside and prevent loading a picture/document/whatever, except from a valid HTTPREFERER. They are normally used to prevent hotlinking images from one sight to another. You would need to have access to your server's root to install one of those. Many free servers already use them to control bandwidth usage. That would stop people from copy/pasting most image URLS. That would also prevent most  bot-like rewrites of pages. But HTTPREFERER can be faked.

The problem remains that no matter what you do, an image that is being displayed on somebody's screen is already loaded into their computer; unless you use the no-cache metatag in your doc. header.
I think with a combination of the CSS approach, a decent anti-leeching script, and using no-cache tags on the image display pages, that you could have a reasonably secure way to show your images.

Still, all that isn't going to stop a determined thief. It would stop the casuals dead in their tracks though. Be prepared to at least double your bandwidth usage, because no-caching means every page view is a complete reload, even for someone just navigating around your site (every visit to a thumb or index page has to reload every part of the page, including all images).

If it really a major concern, I would suggest contacting a professional web security firm and get some consultation.

if u want the 2nd one to work even a little, u'd need to pre-load the watermark so it'll appear immediately, now u have a window of time to save the original image between mouseover and loading of then 1.

Attached Link: Watermark Script

But in essence, anything that comes into your computer you could separate and store. Anyone can always try to make their system thief proof, but all that security comes at a cost. First you have to write it up in code, so it's an inconvienence for the artist. Secondly all those barriers just makes an unpleasant viewing experience for a visitor to the site. The example about the no-cache and reloading even thumbnails is an excellent example--no one likes to wait for a web page. Remember when the Renderosity galleries were slow. It was frustrating, and with that Renderosity has some serious bandwidth muscle.

But if someone is really concerned about it, don't make the image available. :-(

what about the legitimate desire to copy an image for use as a wallpaper (i.e. all mine are so intended!) I have no objection to anyone downloading as long as they leave the name/copyright intact.

kinda cool when you discover one of your images being appreciated, saw my latest as a wallpaper on one of the machines at work, I quite enjoyed the chance to meet a fan and discuss the image.

The same with me. I do all mine for desktop wall paper... that's why 1280x800 (laptop) and 1280x1024 (desktop) and 1444x1144.

The PHP code there is nice and is something Renderosity could use. It's the same as placing a watermark all over the image, though. Every gallery I find like that, however, turns me off from looking at the images. I don't even bother to visit any site that does that any more.

Could try that PHP code for public viewing, then must login for images without the code.