Preventing Product Stealing Through Images

[Colin Molloy]

I have a forthcoming sponsor who makes clothing and material based products.

She advertises on Facebook and has found that people pinch her images, then copy them and undercut her price wise (when business walks in the front door, scruples run out the back door  ).

Now, she will be advertising on her own board with java code that will allow a browser Tab break (within the same browser session) of a larger image.

I may be asking the impossible here, but is there a way of presenting a display of the image good enough to see the product but in some way able to prevent copying of the design?

 

 

[Tumbleweed]

Oh, one of the pains of the internet. Just a week or two ago a member here was showing me a site that had copied her design exactly, from Deviant Art, and were doing just as your sponsor said has been done to her, selling them.  It just ticks me off people do this. I guess the question is, does she think they are actually using her graphic image by downloading it or are they just looking at her design and doing their version of it, you know by just eye-balling it.

This question may be better answered in the programming board since it involves what you say, a browser tab break within the same browser session.  I'm sure she has already done the research about what you can do to at least make it a bit more difficult to copy an image, provided that is what they are doing. 

This site has pretty much the run down of different options.

Although I don't have my images open in a new tab with a larger image I just do 3 things.
I watermark my images.
I make my image a background so you can't just right click and save although a couple more clicks and they have the image.
I put a transparent image over the top of the image I don't want stolen and hope they don't realize this until later and then never bother to come back to get the real image. 

The thing is, thieves can get around anything if they want something bad enough but I can move this to the programming board if you think it may help since it sounds like the larger image would then no longer be on ProBoards...I think anyway by your description.

[Colin Molloy]

p????lq?n? - Once again, you are an absolute Gem! Putting all of that into effect on a website is relatively easy, the trick is doing that when an image is within a Proboards forum? For instance, is their code that will overlay a transparent image to deliver a totally useless download?

UPDATE - Of course one solution is to combine them both with a html link in the thread - linked to web space that I provide the sponsor - then a "wrap" (of an overlayed transparent image) would be easy. 

[Tumbleweed]

You can make a blank page on ProBoards for the bigger image, if that helps, whether V4 or V5.

[Colin Molloy]

Mar 25, 2013 23:50:14 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

You can make a blank page on ProBoards for the bigger image, if that helps, whether V4 or V5.

Nice idea  p????lq?n? but how to over-layer a transparent image? Much easier with a web page - for me anyway 

[Tumbleweed]

You can do it pretty much as you'd do a web page but can't use and thus don't need doc types declared and all that, so it is really a lot easier. You are talking a V4 forum for now, right?

To make the new page create a new board and disable posting and then add this code to the footer of that board: (Oh, almost forgot, go to the board, copy the url in the address bar and then you'll of course want to hide that board. 

socal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=PBCODES&action=display&thread=7236

And then I just put this css in my new board header....
<style type="text/css">
.image1 {
positon: absolute;
top: 400px;
left: 200px;
width: 500px;
height: 647px;
background-image: url(http://i241./ff318/Shacktoshowcase/Honorable%20Mention/HM1-1.png);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
z-index: 1;
}
.cover1 {
positon: absolute;
top: 400px;
left: 200px;
margin-top: -600px;
width: 500px;
height: 647px;
background-image: url("http://i657./uu300/EliteList/Trans/1x1tex/tex2/ii.png");
background-repeat: repeat;
border: 1px solid #ff0000;
font-size: 3em;
color: #ffffff;
z-index: 100;
}
</style>


And then where it says to put your html I just did this:
<center>
<div class="image1"></div>
<div class="cover1"></div>
</center>

You can see it here.

putteraroundix.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=sp1

I didn't have a totally transparent image to test and I left it so you can see part of the real image. I'd just need to set that margin-top to a negative -647px (the height of the image) and it would be totally covered. Of course this aspect, you'd have to be doing for the sponsor.

[Colin Molloy]

OK - will have a look at that - ah relative x/Y positioning - the bad old days of website design 

[Tumbleweed]

By all means, do it they way you'd do it. It should work just fine. You can even use javascript in the header if you prefer. I'm so not a web designer so I just get by with the bits and pieces I know works. 

[Colin Molloy]

and extremely well I might add p????lq?n?