Thieves are everywhere. Not only in real life but in the digital world too, there are some lazy people who are trying to steal some of the valuable images that are copyrighted. Photographers and Graphic Designers are the biggest sufferers of the problem. Many hours of hard work is being stolen in just some seconds. So, preventing the image theft is a very serious matter. In this article, I am sharing you some useful methods to protect your images from being copied. So, let’s have a look at them.
Even though this article is targeted towards WordPress users, some of the information maybe useful for general webmasters who might be using other technologies to run their websites.
Why should you protect your images?
There are many reasons why you should always look for the ways to protect your images from being copied or reproduced –
- You can earn all the money that someone else could if they keep reproducing your images.
- You will protect your identity, which could be damaged if others misuse your works.
- Set an example for others to protect their works as well, unless they really intended it to be public domain or open source.
- You do not want to overload your servers if someone else is directly linking to your images and sending too much traffic to the file.
Methods to Prevent Image Theft
There are several methods for protecting photos from being copied. They are very easy to execute and follow. Carefully read them and choose the best method that sounds easier for you.
Method 1. Disable Right Click on Website
Disabling right-click on your website may block people from copying your content. It can block all average users from stealing your content who aren’t capable of trying any advanced methods.
This simple JavaScript will disable the right-click feature on your website.
<body oncontextmenu="alert('You may not right click'); return false;">Note: This code is working on Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Opera may skip the code and allow the right-click future, even after implementing the script.
You could also use some plugins like the Envira Gallery to disable right-clicking on your images.
Method 2. Use a Watermark or Logo
Using branding on your creations are far important than just a sign on your creation. It can prevent people from downloading your images when they see your watermark or logo on them. Because, if they download it, they want to deal with the content and may need to spend some time by editing it. As such people are already lazy, they will go for an image without the watermark.
You can simply add your logo at any corners of your images or entirely as a transparent text. Putting an entire transparent text will be better because they can’t easily remove them with cropping or resizing. Be sure to use highly transparent text that won’t affect the image visibility. You could use the Easy Watermark plugin to easily add watermarks to your photos.
Method 3. Disable Image Hotlinking in WordPress
If the image thieves are smart enough, they can still load your images from its source. They can display your images on any of the websites using the source link. Disabling Hotlinking of images on your website will block them. To do this, simply add the following code to the .htaccess file in your web server.
# disable hotlinking of images with forbidden or custom image option
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?wpthinker.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?google.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ – [NC,F,L]Replace the wpthinker.com with your website URL. This will block hotlinking of your images thus protecting it from being displayed on other websites than the specified ones on the .htaccess.
Method 4. Add Copyright Notices on Your WordPress Site
Copyright Images Protection is very important if you are really caring your hard work. As per the reports, 80% of the content scrapers are copying content from small websites without any copyright notices or warning. If you can spend some money, it is better to go for a good copyright protection service like Copyscape. If you don’t have money to spend on it, they are offering some copyright protection banners and images. Just put them in your footer as visible. Or at least, have a copyright text, as you can see in this site’s footer.
Method 5. Add Metadata to the images
Metadata on images provide more information regarding the actual creator of the file. Most people are unaware of this. This information can be useful while filing a copyright notice and similar legal actions. So, always make sure that you add accurate metadata to all of your valuable creations. There are many types of metadata you can use such has EXIF, IPTC, Tag, etc.
But still, completely protecting your images maybe impossible
To be honest, protecting your images completely is impossible. If the copying person is smart enough, he can easily get your files either by taking a screenshot or accessing it using the inspect element tool is browsers. But, the above-given ones are the best way to protect photos from being stolen. They, at least, make it tough to copy the images. We hope this article helped you to protect images on your website.