• Registered: 2015-01-09
  • Posts: 10

Topic: htaccess

Hi all,

Can someone help me please to protect my gallery from image copying?

I tried to do that with a htaccess file with the following content:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?localhost [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?localhost.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ - [F]


But this works not. The gallery itself is affected too from this rule and do not work any more.

How can i protect my pictures without affecting the gallery itself?


Thanks for your help,
Best regards,

Toni

  • Registered: 2012-04-24
  • Posts: 5,924

Re: htaccess

Please see this FAQ:
How do I allow or prevent users from saving gallery images?

When viewing a gallery, a user will not be able to simply right-click and save an image.
However, it is not possible to prevent a user from taking a screenshot of your gallery.
To deter users from doing so, you might like to watermark your images. JuiceboxBuilder-Pro (which comes with Juicebox-Pro) features the ability to watermark your images when creating a gallery. Please see here for details.
You can also set showOpenImage="FALSE" (as noted in the FAQ above) to disable the 'Open Image in New Window' button in your gallery.

The image URLs are stored in an XML file.
If a user is determined to track down your image and is familiar with the structure of a Juicebox gallery, it is possible to view the source of the web page in a browser, find the URL of the XML file and view this file to find the individual image URLs. There is nothing that can be done to prevent a user from doing this (as the 'View Source' functionality is built into each browser).

Anything you do to try to prevent a user from directly viewing an image will also prevent Juicebox from doing the same.

Watermarking your images, setting showOpenImage="FALSE", not being able to right-click the images to save them and ensuring that your images are of a file size suitable for web gallery use but not large enough for other purposes (such as printing) should hopefully be enough to prevent the casual user from copying your images.

  • Registered: 2015-01-09
  • Posts: 10

Re: htaccess

Hi Steven,

Thanks for your anser. I already set showOpenImage = False.
The Problem is exactly what you describe, viewing the source code and then open the picture per direct url. Its so simple to do it with the developer tools which are included in each browser.


I will post it if i find a solution for that.

Thanks anyway,
Best regards,

Toni

  • Registered: 2012-05-02
  • Posts: 161

Re: htaccess

@Toni:

Not sure what you're guarding against. If you want to let the public view your images, at the very least anyone can do a screen capture of any area on a high resolution monitor. And it's trivial to disable javascript on a browser, too.

There's what I think is a very reasonable discourse on this at http://www.dwuser.com/education/content … ur-images/ . It discusses the pros and cons of large vs. small watermarks, as well as overlaying transparent images. As it notes, you have to ask yourself why and from whom are you guarding your images, contrasted with what you want people to see.

A more technical page that also touches upon these issues -- without the basic philosophical underpinnings -- that you may want to read is http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2111 … e-download .

Cheers,

Bill P.