Protect images for download

davidalonso · 2014-12-21 06:01:33

How can I protect my images for right click download in descktop devices and mobile devices ??
Thanks.

rod barbee · 2014-12-21 06:17:06

http://ce4.theturninggate.net/docs/doku … ntext_menu

davidalonso · 2014-12-21 06:24:28

Ok i understand, thanks Rod.

AnteroPhotography · 2015-07-11 00:56:27

Just a question (not taking a position in the ideological combat zone that is image protection philosophy . . . ). I've seen several sites and apps that, rather than disabling the right-click menu, let you proceed to "Save Image As" but what you download is a little ten-bit dummy file if the image is protected. Quite a few museums and retail, brick-and-mortar galleries use that method on their website, particularly for high-value or iconic images. Without reviewing, I'm thinking that every site I've seen that on is a high-end development (e.g. current exhibition galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art site) that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, so maybe it's a purchased security package of some kind.

I've also seen a few on-line apps and major photo sites that function similarly to flickr, where the download function is explicit on the page and the right-click menu is modified - these provide clear messages about what restrictions the image owner has set and what files and resolutions you can or can't download. If well done, these are a polite and professional approach to limiting nuisance downloads to only what someone can screen-cap. I don't know that I've seen that on a straightforward HTML site, though.

I'm guessing I could create something like the second approach, with a pop-up message (explaining the terms and conditions in a civil, non-velociraptor manner), by starting with the dinosaur script above. I'm also guessing I'm on my own there . . . which I understand - no such functionality is offered or implied in the TTG literature. I might fiddle with that if time allows. I would be interested, though, if anyone could guide me to any practical approach for the first method, where the right-click menu works normally but the site swaps in a little dummy jpg file as the download from the "Save Image As" option. That one has the advantage that it lets you post a large, high-quality file that supports zooming and various high-end displays, but still limits the unauthorized downloads to a screen capture or a sophisticated thief. If anyone knows where to point me it would be much appreciated.

rod barbee · 2015-07-11 01:18:29

seems like that approach would require a bit of fancy coding.

You'd have to add code that can detect the context menu being activated (listening for a right-click Windows)
jQuery can do this: http://api.jquery.com/mousedown/

Then you'd need to do something about the "Save Image" or "Copy Image" event, replacing the browser's default action with one of your own.

You might be able to Google around and find a jQuery plug-in that can do all this.

You'd then need to add the code to gallery pages (and any other page that contains image you don't want downloaded via right-click) via phplugins. Either the ttg_head_end hook or perhaps the ttg_body_bottom hook
http://ce4.theturninggate.net/docs/doku … bility_api

Ben · 2015-07-11 09:14:33

I haven't come across that type of function. I imagine it could be either implemented in JavaScript, or on the server. For the latter the server would detect that the request wasn't made as part of a page load. I don't know whether that would work like that though, as it's likely that the default behaviour is to save the already-downloaded image without making a further request to the server.

Can you point us to any examples of this right-click function?

Matthew · 2015-07-11 18:49:18

From what I understand of such techniques, they involve setting the image as the CSS background-image of a container, and the actual IMG tag within that container is for a 1-by-1 pixel, transparent GIF. So, in short:

<div style="background-image: url(path/to/image.jpg);">
<img src="blank.gif" />
</div>

This is a semantically terrible way to display an image, and also yields exactly zero juju for SEO. It can also be pretty easily gotten around by using any browser's set of in-built developer tools to view the page's resources. So it takes me maybe four clicks to download the image, instead of two.

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2014-12-21 06:01:33

Protect images for download

#2 2014-12-21 06:17:06

Re: Protect images for download

#3 2014-12-21 06:24:28

Re: Protect images for download

#4 2015-07-11 00:56:27

Re: Protect images for download

#5 2015-07-11 01:18:29

Re: Protect images for download

#6 2015-07-11 09:14:33

Re: Protect images for download

#7 2015-07-11 18:49:18

Re: Protect images for download

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