Other engraving business site using my work

[Sara Gould]

I came across another engraving business website that has stolen dozens of photos of my engraving work and used them to make their own website. I have found work from two other engravers included as well - mostly electronics engraving since this is what I am most familiar with. The site in question also has photos for wood, leather, and glass engraving. One of the wood photos is taken from laserbits but I don't know about the rest.

I've sent an email to the site and will be moving forward with copyright infrigement legalities if I don't hear from them. If you'd like to see the site in question drop me a private message.

[Dee Gallo]

Hi Sara,

This is distressing to say the least! If I were you, I'd make sure the photos on my website are not "stealable". I don't know the particulars, but I know my webmaster can do it.

cheers, dee

[Douglas J Miller]

There is no real way to make a image totally 'unstealable' on the web. You can block downloads and all that, but with a screen capture function like most photo software has, they can at least get a low res image. It's still worth making the effort, but totally stopping it, no.

[Sara Gould]

Doug is right. I plan to watermark images from now on but the only way that's entirely effective is to go across the middle of the photo and I hate to do that.

The site isn't linking from my hosting so I can't do much to stop them except document my case and send a cease&desist letter. Their ISP should respond to that by taking the site down.

[Scott Shepherd]

I've kept photos off of my website for 4 or 5 years now for this exact reason. I've had two other shops contact me about it. One actually asked if I could give them some photos of my work so they could put them on their site, and the other one the person actually told me that I needed to put photos on my site so they could use them to show their customers.

One of them got a detailed explanation why they weren't going to get photos of "My" work to use on "Their" site, which was justified because they were new to the business. However, the second one just didn't get a response because they've been in the business for many years now.

I'm about to go live with a new site that does have photos and it was a real labor to figure out what's "safe" to put up and what's not. It's a real shame we can't just put photos up of our work and be done with it, that we have to worry about these creeps.

[Doug Griffith]

You can never stop anyone from capturing your screen but you can make it difficult for them to swipe the image itself by right clicking or drag and drop.

A few things you can do without getting into scripting or server side tricks:
1) instead of an IMG tag, use a DIV tag that is the same dimensions as the image. Then set the background of the DIV as the image using CSS.
2) wrap an IMG tag with a DIV. Then, in the same DIV but after the IMG, place an absolutely positioned DIV on top of it using CSS.

[Tim Bateson]

I have found my work on other sites and find it to be a complement. I loose a few customers over price or competitors, but most come back for the quality. So good luck to those who have used my images. You'll get a few customers, but I'll get them back soon enough.

[Tim Bateson]

...Then, in the same DIV but after the IMG, place an absolutely positioned DIV on top of it using CSS.

I'm a hack at html programming and would always like a few tips, can you give a mock-up example?

[Larry Bratton]

You can never stop anyone from capturing your screen but you can make it difficult for them to swipe the image itself by right clicking or drag and drop.

A few things you can do without getting into scripting or server side tricks:
1) instead of an IMG tag, use a DIV tag that is the same dimensions as the image. Then set the background of the DIV as the image using CSS.
2) wrap an IMG tag with a DIV. Then, in the same DIV but after the IMG, place an absolutely positioned DIV on top of it using CSS.

and then bring in the IRS and the CIA and WE can put a stop to this

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't find people running a business that are trying to take my business and my customers away from me a complement. I have several large customers, and while we have great relationships, they aren't immune from someone with more sales charm than me, offering them cheaper prices. The last thing I'd ever do is to give my competitors help in telling them who my customers are so they can skip the years of hard work it took to get them, and start with the names and data right off, not having done a darn thing, other than basically rummage through my trash, electronically.

[Martin Boekers]

Most vendors such as JDS, Marco etc allow you to use their images. Some give direct links to a web page or let you download
from an FTP site. So for those that is part of their business practice.

Now if this is something that you actually photographed that is another story! First I believe that you can embed a digital signature
in the file so it's easy to trace ownership. Second is this site in the same area as you? If so start with a small claims suit, easy and
cheap to file and will get more attention than a cease and desist letter. If they are in your area or even not check with local authorities
to see if they have a valid business license and are paying taxes. This is public info and should be readily available. Most that will "steal"
like this are probably those "flying under the radar" Chances are good that they don't have the "proper" business paperwork.

It's best to have disclaimers on your website as it reinforces ownership and rights.

You can not only get them to stop but make things very difficult for them. ;-)

[Scott Challoner]

Steve, were you the one who recommended Tineye a few years ago?
I think this would be an easy way to search for your photos on the web. Once you load their plugin, all you have to do is right click on a photo on your site and Tineye will find other examples on the web. It's too bad that we have to do this, but this should be an easy way to look for copycats.

[Doug Griffith]

I'm a hack at html programming and would always like a few tips, can you give a mock-up example?

The basics. I wouldn't code it inline though. Margin, padding, and whatnot may also nee to be defined.

inline for a 100 x 100 pixel image:
<div style="width:100px; height:100px; background-image:url('image.png');"></div>

or:
<div style="width:100px; height:100px;"><img src="image.png" width="100" height="100" /><div style="position:absolute; width:100px; height:100px; top:0; left:0;"></div></div>

[Larry Bratton]

Steve, were you the one who recommended Tineye a few years ago?
I think this would be an easy way to search for your photos on the web. Once you load their plugin, all you have to do is right click on a photo on your site and Tineye will find other examples on the web. It's too bad that we have to do this, but this should be an easy way to look for copycats.

I personally haven't found Tineye to be too useful.

[Adrian Hill]

Are you doing this on your website - you know "the modern one" ?

I ran a quick test and pulled the entire site (219) files with all HTML, CCS & images contained in the /TMF2/IMAGES/CONTENTS/ directory. It took (22:13:29 - 22:15:53) to do it. Of course I wont use the pictures etc - it was just to see how effective the DIV trick is.