Image piracy

Many artists have found images they have carefully and laboriously created before uploading to the web have been used on other websites either as direct copies or in collage material.

Some creators have found their images incorporated into corporate logos with only minimal alteration. Some have found their artworks advertised online for sale as prints. Others have had their work entered into art contests by complete strangers without their knowledge.

Any such action taken without the consent of the artist is obviously illegal. And without specific protection, the entire body of work by an artist can be downloaded to disk as fast as the user's Internet service will allow. In most cases this is as fast as the user can double-click on all the images.

Bandwidth Theft

Bandwidth theft is the term that describes the illegal linking to graphic images on another site.

Whenever that link is accessed, the creator of the image and web site, not the user downloading the image, is paying for the bandwidth used for viewing the image. As Internet Service Providers (ISPs) charge for or limit access according to bandwidth, such illegal linking can add substantially to maintenance costs of the creator's web site.

Unfortunately however, most people who display graphics on their site are probably unaware that this is occurring. Without protection, attempting to police or prevent bandwidth theft is time consuming and a very inexact science.

Print Screen

All content on a web page can be captured and downloaded to a viewer's computer by simply pressing the Print Screen button on the keyboard.

By doing this, a snapshot of the whole screen is captured at the user's monitor resolution, usually 72 to 96 dots per inch (dpi). When captured at such resolution, most images show little deterioration and can be re-used on the Internet or as clip art by scaling down for use on brochures and leaflets. This is, again, another obviously illegal use of online images.

Screen Capture

Capture programs, although useful as design tools for legitimate intentions, can also be used to capture on-screen images for incorporation into other designs without the authorization or knowledge of the creator and owner of the artwork.

The processes used in screen capture vary according to what the target and end use may be, but without dedicated protection, original images are vulnerable to such theft.

Unauthorized Linking

The very nature of the language of web pages means most content on the web can be linked to from another web site. Such unauthorized linking occurs when a user links to your image from their web page without your consent.

The result of such action is that the unauthorized user is giving the appearance that the legal owner of the image consents to this link and is endorsing the activities of that site.

Spider and Grab Utilities

Even though the links to your files and images are stored within folders that are only linked to or referenced from the main pages and indexes, these items can be downloaded from your website without an unauthorized user ever visiting or calling these indexes or main pages.

By using a freely available spider program, an inventory of content on a remote website can be made and saved on another computer. On an unprotected website this means that the user can gain list every item on your website, save them to disk and use them without even visiting your website.

'Grab' programs are also available that will locate and download all the files in a folder to which it is directed. This means that everything from your Applets and Java class files to your original images can be downloaded and utilized on the illegal user's website.

Inappropriate use of Internet Explorer

One feature of the latest version of the Internet Explorer browser is of concern to those interested in protecting their images from copy or theft. Right-clicking on the mouse on an image in an IE browser window not only prompts the user to save the image to their computer, but also saves the whole page and every image and component on the page, including the background tiles, to a folder created by the browser.

Print Quality

Online images were once thought to only be useable on other web sites or in other electronic media. With advances in tools for image creation and manipulation however, many images created specifically for online use can now be reproduced for print.

This fact, together with advances in printer quality, means many online images can be easily reproduced for print reproduction without substantial loss in quality. By maintaining such quality, downloaded images can then potentially be sold and distributed as prints without authorization or license, which is obviously illegal.

Breach of Copyright

Copyright notices are easy to ignore. 

Images that are uploaded to the web with a copyright notice attached can still be copied or manipulated by an unauthorized user without the consent of the owner of the image. Even when an image owner notices a copyright breach, the difficulty of working in international jurisdictions means few image owners could police every breach of copyright.

The only way a copyright owner can limit their exposure to such breaches is to attach specific tools and applications to their images.