Protecting Your Blog Images

There are different schools of thought on protecting your images.

(If you want to skip the yabber and just protect your pics, flic to the bottom of the post. Copy the html and drop it in an html widget in your side bar. Change the highlighted text to suit your blog, save and you're done.)

THE DELEMA
I went to PD recently where they discussed creative commons and copyright. The speaker's opinion seemed to be that work should be placed in creative commons as the default licensing. She said that teachers where particularly bad at wanting to keep things tied down.

I've thought about it for a while and I'm sorry but I'm going to add to the stereotype. I'm generous in many things but if I come up with a decent concept, I want to protect it.

I had a time recently when I was sitting in a PD session and someone presented a reading plan they'd been given by one of the Literacy Advisors. I looked at it and my first reaction was "Hey wait! Isn't that mine?" As it was slightly different from my version, my next thought was "Or is that the one I worked from? Did I copy that one?"

In this case I've been left wondering and at the end of the day I'm not actually fussed, but it has highlighted to me, the need for copy right or creative commons licensing on my work. I will also be a lot more careful about recording the resources I use for motivation. That way I'll be able to track backwards too. Kind of like a bibliography.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES
Check out http://creativecommons.org.nz/choose_and_apply_a_cc_licence for the resources to help you apply creative commons licences and logos to your own work. You'll see in the side bar that I've used one of their licences on my blog. You can also link to their legal wording of the licensing. I have put in my own little blurb in human speak as well.

THE IMAGE ISSUE
I'm a little more concerned about images on my blogs though. I wanted them protected a little better than a bit of legal babble that requires the reader to acknowledge, understand, and respect.

When it comes to the photos, sometimes the photos are of kids in my class and I don't want third party people getting their hands on those. Some photos may also be of resources from friends and colleagues and I may only have limited permissions to use them myself. So I don't want people right clicking and copying/saving my images.

RIGHT CLICK; TO DISABLE OR NOT TO DISABLE?
Some people think it's rude to disable the right click function but, personally, I can't see how it is 'rude'. It is a little annoying when you want to right click a link and open it in another window or tab, but otherwise it's only annoying to people trying to nab your images. So... here's what I did.

MY SOLUTION
I found the following script and copied it into an HTML widget in my side bar. Nothing appears on your blog except a little space, but the widget then prevents people from right clicking on your page. I used a combination of html because one produced a message but didn't actually prevent the right click. The other prevented the right click, but the message didn't work.

For the original html codes go here;

http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/no_right_click.html#how
Rainbow Arch-Scripts - Protect images (no message)

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/html-tutorial/rclickcode.htm
Angelfire - warning message but right click still works

This is the html code in my widget;
(You can customize the 'error' message by changing the highlighted text.)

<script type="text/javascript"> 

<!-- 

//Disable right click script 

//visit http://www.rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/scripts/ 

var message="0"; 

/////////////////////////////////// 

function clickIE() {if (document.all) {(message);return false;}} 

function clickNS(e) {if 

(document.layers||(document.getElementById&&!document.all)) { 

if (e.which==2||e.which==3) {(message);return false;}}} 

if (document.layers) 

{document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);document.onmousedown=clickNS;} 

else{document.onmouseup=clickNS;document.oncontextmenu=clickIE;} 

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("return false") 

// --> <script></script>

<script language=javascript>

<!-- http://www.spacegun.co.uk -->

var message = "Sorry. This content is copyrighted. Please feel free to contact me and I may be able to make copies of some images available to you depending on the intended purpose and on copyright/privacy issues related to each image."; 

function rtclickcheck(keyp){ if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && keyp.which == 3){ alert(message); return false; } 

if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && event.button == 2) { alert(message); return false; } } 

document.onmousedown = rtclickcheck;

</script>

I've tested this html in Blogger AND Edublogs and it works in both. I've used it on my class blog and I'm going to get the kids to put it on their own blogs as an extra protection in case they upload something they don't intend to be shared.

So there you have it. Go wild.