I swear I saw this kicked around the forum a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly, someone had a novel idea with a transparent layer that blocked right clicking and downloading an image.
I'll do some searching and see if I can find a link for you.

Adrian


(VLV001 has covered all the high points above though)

Thanks, Adrian
I look forward to anything you find.
Norm

I knew I'd read this! http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/protecting-images-an...

Still no perfect answer but Tony's add-ons look like they address the problem

Thanks, Adrian- looks like these solutions will be the best way to go. Thanks for the help and links.

Norm

As mentioned, there is no great way of protecting images from download.

One option which hasn't been mentioned is Digimarc (http://www.digimarc.com/digimarc-for-images) - this puts an invisible layer across your images so you can detect when an image has been used without permission.

The layer is built directly into the image - through subtle variations in tone / colour that the eye can't see. This means if someone screenshots the image and saves it as a new file the digimarc is still there. Likewise there is no visible watermark to crop out. I haven't used it myself, but it sounds pretty clever.

Then they have a spider which searches the web for infringing uses of the image and reports back when it finds them.

It's quite expensive IIRC, and it doesn't stop anyone using the image at all - it just reports when they do so you can send them a letter.

Hi Sadu, Thanks for the link. This option won't work for me as images can still be copied and it's up to me to contact and pursue the downloaders. That could be time consuming and, just guessing, very frustrating.

Norm

By the way, this option would work great if, when the image is copied, the watermark becomes strongly visible on the downloaded copy. This would prevent usage without extensive editing.