subject: 4 Reasons To Prevent Users From Stealing Your Website Images [print this page] 4 Reasons To Prevent Users From Stealing Your Website Images
If you have your art posted online, there's a good chance that users will try to lift your art off your website for printing or saving on their computer. Here are some reasons you may want to t some roadblocks in their way.
Reduced Image Quality
While some images are put online as full resolution files, the websites that actually care about pages loading quickly will use web quality pictures on the website. This usually means resizing the image, then using Photoshop or another editing program to optimize the image for the web. With lower quality files, any prints or other products made using the stolen file will be a bad representation of the artist's work.
Loss Of Sales
For photographers who sell pictures, users who make prints from stolen website pictures means less income for the photographer. People who print themselves may rationalize that the prints from the photographer is completely overpriced. Just because the prints are priced outside of someone's budget, that doesn't give them the right to break the rules.
Unauthorized Reuse
Even if you won't be making money off a picture, the content on your website is still yours. You may not want other people to benefit from your hard work. Just because something is on the web doesn't mean it's free game for anyone. If you do good work, people are likely to try to use your work for themselves.
Loss Of Company Branding
You may be ok with your content being used on other people's websites as long as they give you proper credit. If you aren't keeping in mind that users could be easily reusing your images if you have no safeguards in place, you could be missing out on any credit that is due to you.
