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MacSense Special Report: Copyright protection on the Web [Image]

Friday, October 4, 1996. Let's say you've prepared The Perfect Graphic and you've posted it on your Web site. You don't want anyone to download it or otherwise use is. Is there any way to protect it?

SiteShield claims it is the answer, "enabling content providers to place copyright-protected images on web pages, while reducing the fear that they can easily be stolen and reused."

Venanzio Jelenic, who addressed the issue of image protection in the WebSTAR talk list, insists the only way to keep someone else from using your image is not to post it in the first place. On a more practical note, he says the best offense is to make it difficult to reference, copy or modify graphics.

Jelenic said he posted the failings of SiteShield to the HTML writer's guild mailing lists over five months ago.

SiteShield, he said, modifies the cache header so that the image is not cached and it adds some lines to the GIF header, making the file not easily read using standard GIF programs.

This can be easily defeated, Jelenic wrote. He listed the following barriers although none will protect the image.:

-- Watermarking which adds an invisible information mark on the graphics. The watermark is not easily removed (not everyone would have the software on hand to delete it) but it does not prevent hijacking. Anyone can download the image, although it will carry the watermark.

--Realm/Protection which requires a password-protected directory for all images. Jelenic warns, "Do not use this for your home page or page of first entry to major sub-areas." To do this, he said, on the home page put a "log-in" button which reloads the homepage with graphics if the user successfully logs in.

You can view and test at http://i-site.on.ca/closed.html.

Hit "cancel" the first three times you are asked and the page downloads. Any image you wish to view will require the name and password indicated on the page.

Realm/protection, he said, does not protect against copying.

--Interaction which stops other sites from referencing your images from "off-site" pages. But again, this not not protect against copying, he warned.

Watermarking or copyrighting images is still a smart thing to do Jelenic said. If the images are downloaded and you can prove an appreciable loss, you can at least prove that you took steps to protect your work but they still were stolen.

Venanzio Jelenic can be reached at: Venanzio@i-site.on.ca

Information on SiteShield is available at: www.siteshield.com

View and test Realm/Protection at: i-site.on.ca/closed.html

[E.Martin]

© 1996 MacSense Communications

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