V4.1.x simple watermarking trick (css)

This is fine if you simply want to add a note over the top of an image but it in no way protects the image because the "watermark" is simply displayed over the top, its not actually part of the source image so offers no protection at all if thats your goal. On that same note, because its css controlled if I hot link to an image on your site to have it displayed on mine there wont be a watermark when the image is viewed on my site.

If your goal is just to add a neat message over the top its a good quick trick for sure.

The correct way to do it is to protect your images directory and to use a piece of code to put a water mark on the fly without touching your images. If anyone is interested? I can show them how to do it. It works well and you can place any watermark on you like and in any position. The only thing you will need to do is display your images full size on your viewlisting urls. At this time you cannot put the watermark on through lightbox or thickbox or our gallery without considerable changes. This technique also prevents robots harvesting your images which is the main problem and not people right clicking.

contact me at at sales on our website . I can then show you an example.

right click disable is java script which runs oin the client, disable javascript and guess what...yep you can right click. Not to mention you can always just view the source to see a link to the image.

Exactly.

Every image with the correct way of doing it, gets a url in the source which is not the url of the actual image. They can harvest or right click as long as they like. What amuses me the most is the harvesters will fill their servers with dud images - kind of a little revenge on them.

Right click gives this url also which is not the true source of the real image. The harvesters or right clickers will need to modify the urls.

Now if someone is really determined they can right click and modify the url after getting the dud image. They will need to see how to modifythe url that they see - you can play lots of games with them on this. The real ones to watch for are not right clickers but harvesters who will strip your site and represent it as their own material to google and plaster their site with google ads.

The way round this is to actually use .htaccess to prevent them but to be frank if they have gone to this much trouble already then whatever you do, a person will find a way round. Its like spamming.

All I can say is I have a nice easy way to watermark in a professional manner without presenting urls which are directly linked to the raw images.

Not a lot unless you wish to protect your images from being copied and used somewhere else like a photographer or artist might want to.

The goal behind watermarking is to protect images from those breaking the law not those that follow the law. If everyone followed the law we wouldnt have to worry about watermarking to beging with.

which your method wont do, but its great for placing messages over images. This would be a good way for people to make use of a "sold" word over an image.

Do you want my the little script to do this properly or not?

You can right click for ever but you will only get a download of the watermarked image, it doesn't modify the original image at all, in the source the path also goes to the watermarked image. Isn't that what you are trying to achieve? Does it not meet all the requirements? The only thing you may have to do and you would do anyway is if you start passing the image through some jquery type gallery or a thickbox. Then you will have to work that bit out. if you wish to protect the path of the original images because someone modifies the url manually after right clicking then just do a mod rewrite in your .htaccess. That will certainly confuse them even more.

Now that the legals have started to crop up in this thread, what hasn't been stated is the simple fact that the law also protects the copyright owner. In this case, the copyright owner is the seller that uploads the image.

Depending on what country and/or state you live in, putting a watermark on the poster's image is a copyright violation in of itself, because you as the site owner are NOT the copyright holder. Many laws require that you post in the terms agreement that you will be watermarking their pictures. Some places go so far as to not only do you have to state that in your terms, but you also have to give a warning/notification during the process right before the watermarking actually takes place.

Just one more thing to consider when you are deciding to watermark your USERS copyrighted material. At least here in the states this has become a huge issue. Just look at the issues that the social networks such as Facebook and Myspace have been faced with in the use of the items posted by their members.

Copyright laws are basically international and there are very few jurisdictions that require formal registration of copyright. I think you will find that providing the owner of the image has given permission or has indeed placed the image them-self then the owner of the website cannot be held responsible for people copying images from their website. It would not make much sense otherwise or practically every web site in the world would be in violation and at risk. The person who submits the image is in potential violation if he knowingly posts an image that he has no rights over. The owner of a website could only be breaking the law if he knowingly encouraged it, knew about it and after due warning, failed to stop it. That would be the basis of the argument against YOU KNOW WHO.

Now if you start watermarking images then it should be clear to the person submitting images that you intend to do this. Even if it is for temporary display because as Mike points out you are changing their image. However, I do think it is all a bit silly over a watermark as it could be said that scaling an image or trimming it is in violation. Where do you draw the line.

"I call this a storm in a teacup or much ado about nothing. "

My Dear Dominique, I like Holland a lot, I have visited about 20 times but you do have some rather strange laws. However not in this case as you are members of the Berne Convention. You are also members of WIPO. You do what you think is right.

I just replied to your email so you should have the watermarkng script by now.