Protecting Your Website

There are several ways that people use to protect their website, all of which DON'T work. In case you want to research into them, they are:

- using javascript to prevent right-click -
This method do not work because javascript CAN be turned off anytime. This method will inconvenience legitimate visitors more than protect your graphics. This is because right-click is used by many people for navigation, moving 'back' and 'forward' between pages. Disabling this functionality is likely to irritate your visitors.

- using graphics as in table backgrounds -
This method is effective only in protecting casual 'right-click and save' image nabbers. However, it cannot stop anyone who is determined because he/she can always save the whole web page onto their harddisk and look through the images to find what they want.

- cutting up graphics into many small pieces,
combined with tables. -
This method does not work because it is not practical to cut up all your graphics. If used to protect a single 'tresured' image, then remember that image nabbers can also save the whole page, including the html that puts the pieces together. Alternatively, a screen capture can also do the trick for one with a reasonable graphic software.


So, what works?

If you understand how the brower works, you will see that there is no way you can protect your work. This is because your files have to be downloaded by your browser into a temporary cache before it shows in your browser. Therefore, when you are surfing the net, you are actually looking at files already on your computer! Also, whatever that can been 'seen' on your computer's monitor can be screen grabbed.

1. Gather Evidence of Offence
There are a lot of avenues to pursue when copyright violations happen. Start gathering evidence with screenshots, and report it to the authorities before they could remove the evidence. If the copyright violiation has been made for a period of time, it is likely that the offending site will have been captured by the Internet Archive. Also, look for the site's url in google, and click on the 'cached' to see if Google also have a cached version of their site.
Both the Internet Archive and Google cache keeps old versions of websites they have tracked. The Internet Archive is especially useful because new versions of websites DO NOT overwrite older, cached ones but is appended to the versions list.

With all these evidence in hand, you can pursue legal action and there is no doubt at all that you will win.

2. Track down the offender
All websites have to be hosted and registered. If you want to find the owner of a website, you can contact their webhost or their registrar for assistance in tracking. If they are selling anything, just ask them as a customer. :)

3. Disable the infringing website
" In 1998 the US Congress passed the complex Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which states in Section 512©(1)© that the service provider can escape civil liability for copyright infringement if "upon notification of claimed infringement ... [the service provider] responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity."

4. a. Legal Action
The United States and Canada are both signatories of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic works, so there shouldn't be difficulties in initiating a law suit if necessary.

4. b. Expose to all
Another course of action may be to submit their site to websites that are set up just to expose these offenders. Usually potential customers will look up a site's reputation before buying anything from them. Few people will buy anything from an unethical website.

A very good website for this is called 'Pirated-Sites'. You can find the link below together with direction to the other mentioned resources.