Protecting Your Pictures from Image Theft


While we're on the topic of product photos, it's appropriate to address the issue of image theft. You may have had it happen to youanother eBay seller stealing your photos for use in his auction. This type of image theft is against eBay's rules, of course which means you can always report the offenders to big brother. But wouldn't it be better to keep the problem from occurring in the first place?

Template 7.14. Picture with Watermark

One way to prevent image theft is to place a translucent watermark on top of your product photos. As you can see in Figure 7.14, this is a piece of text or an image that appears on top of your photo, identifying it in a way that discourages theft. You can create a watermark on the photo level, using your picture editing program to add a layer of text on top of the main image, or you can use HTML to add a watermark on the code level.

Figure 7.14. A picture with a translucent watermark.


The key to using this template is to create two image files. The first file (URL-MAIN) is your main product photo. The second file (URL-WATERMARK) is a transparent GIF file you have to create separately. The transparent GIF file should include the watermark text you want to display on top of your image. This code stacks the transparent GIF on top of the main image, using HTML tables, for the nifty watermark effect.

<!--REGULAR TEMPLATE CODE--> <h1 style="text-align: center">This is the title</h1> <p style="text-align: left"> This is the first paragraph of the description </p> <p style="text-align: left"> This is the second paragraph of the description </p> <!--END OF REGULAR TEMPLATE CODE--> <!--BEGINNING OF WATERMARK CODE--> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center"> <tr><td background="URL-MAIN"> <img src="URL-WATERMARK" border="0"> </td></tr> </table> <!--END OF WATERMARK CODE-->


This code has the added benefit of rendering your main image as non-right-clickable. When a visitor right-clicks on the image to initiate copying, he's actually right-clicking on the transparent GIF layernot your main image.

Template 7.15. No-Click Picture

An even more effective anti-theft method is to employ a no-click script within your HTML code, using JavaScript. This script prevents any users from right-clicking on your image. As you can see in Figure 7.15, when someone does right-click, they see an alert window that tells them that right-clicking is disabled.

Figure 7.15. A photo displayed with a no-click warning.


This no-click code displays a single photograph. You can add more pictures by inserting additional <img> tags; make sure you include the onMouseDown="noclick()" attribute with each tag you add. (You only have to insert the subsequent JavaScript code a single time.)

Note

This no-click code works only with users with Windows-based computers. Mac users will still be able to right-click and copy the photo.


<!--REGULAR TEMPLATE CODE--> <h1 style="text-align: center">This is the title</h1> <p style="text-align: left"> This is the first paragraph of the description </p> <p style="text-align: left"> This is the second paragraph of the description </p> <!--END OF REGULAR TEMPLATE CODE--> <!--BEGINNING OF NO-CLICK CODE--> <center> <img src="URL" onMouseDown="noclick()"> </center> <script language="JavaScript"> function noclick (scx) {    if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && scx.which == 3)     { alert ('Right-clicking is disabled. Do not copy this picture!');        return false;     }    if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 &&            event.button == 2)     { alert ('Right-clicking is disabled. Do not copy this picture!');        return false;     } } </SCRIPT> <!--END OF NO-CLICK CODE-->





eBay Auction Templates Starter Kit
eBay Auction Templates Starter Kit
ISBN: 0789735636
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 101

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