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Thread: Interesting read on copyright and hot linking to web sites

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    Default Interesting read on copyright and hot linking to web sites


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    That was very interesting Roger. Thanks for posing the "deep link."
    Andrew

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    Yes, this is not good news for photographers. Anyone running a web site needs to configure it to not allow hot linking, otherwise it seems that people can hot link to your images into whatever web site they want and there is little recourse from copyright theft claims in the courts. The only solution is block it yourself.

    Check this public library trying to use my images without permission:
    http://www.butler.lib.wi.us/

    I had tolerated hot linking for quite a while, but found people marketing my images, so I had to put on the redirect to a copyright notice.
    Roger

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    On my website, the right click has been disabled. Does that help with this problem, Roger, or is there something else I should do? I am not the most computer savvy photographer.

    Thanks for the advice.
    Marina Scarr
    Florida Master Naturalist
    Website, Facebook

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    Roger, what is the html code that you used to redirect to a copyright notice.
    Andrew

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    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Merwin View Post
    Roger, what is the html code that you used to redirect to a copyright notice.
    Andrew,

    Check these web pages for explanations (or google search for how to prevent hot linking)

    http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/apache-...eeching-howto/

    http://altlab.com/htaccess_tutorial.html

    http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html

    http://www.davidairey.com/stop-image...king-htaccess/

    It looks like a simple cut and paste of instructions into an .htaccess file in the top level directory. But when I did that, it didn't work, so I had to go through the apache configuration files (which the above pages discuss). It still didn't work until I enabled error message logging for the redirect code.

    The problem that I see is that search engines like google images are also redirected. So I added specific code to allow search engines through, like on the page:
    http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/apache-...eeching-howto/
    it shows allowing cyberciti.biz through. Copy that line and change cyberciti.biz to google.com, and other search engines if you want to let them through.

    Testing was also confusing. Browser caches (especially firefox) kept showing the old image, so I constantly had the clear caches.

    Roger

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    Thanks Roger. I will check it out. I am a neophyte when it comes to HTML, but maybe I can figure this out.
    Andrew

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    Quote Originally Posted by Marina Scarr View Post
    On my website, the right click has been disabled. Does that help with this problem, Roger, or is there something else I should do? I am not the most computer savvy photographer.

    Thanks for the advice.
    Hi Marina,

    See my response to Andrew. Right click disable does not stop hot linking. I also found one site that said do not do the disable right click and gave reasons why (see below). They gave a better solution which involves putting a 1-pixel transparent gif image over the top of your image. So if a person right clicks and copies the image, or drags and drops it, they only get a 1-pixel gif image. They used php to do this. Sounds pretty effective but more complex. I'll look into that when I get some time.

    These pages discusses the right click:
    http://dorward.me.uk/www/hide/

    http://htmlhelp.com/faq/html/publish.html#no-rclick

    http://www.sitepoint.com/dont-disable-right-click/

    http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/...ownloading.htm

    This is a pretty good page:
    http://www.naturefocused.com/article...rotection.html

    Roger

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    Quote Originally Posted by Roger Clark View Post
    Yes, this is not good news for photographers. Anyone running a web site needs to configure it to not allow hot linking, otherwise it seems that people can hot link to your images into whatever web site they want and there is little recourse from copyright theft claims in the courts. The only solution is block it yourself.

    Check this public library trying to use my images without permission:
    http://www.butler.lib.wi.us/

    I had tolerated hot linking for quite a while, but found people marketing my images, so I had to put on the redirect to a copyright notice.
    Roger
    Well, your redirect is of the kind kind. It could be worded in a way that it replaces an unauthorized used image, making the issue much clearer to the "normal" person seeing this message, even if it is technically legal.

    Another reason to disable hotlinking ist that website traffic can get out of control if content gets posted on a hip website and goes viral ....
    Or a customer that obtained rights feels ceated by the photographer and takes it to court ......

    Thanks for bringing attention to this often overlooked issue.

    Ulli

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