Hi,
Protect stack disables the click function on desktops, but it allows copying contents on mobile devices. How can this be prevented on mobile devices?
Regards
Hi @Sree,
Let’s get something out of the way first: no stack can protect your content against theft. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news.
Stacks like Protect (and built-in protection features of other stacks, like Foundry) only disable the right-click and drag option. This might thwart people who are not very tech savvy, but there are still ways to get to the content for those who really want to.
For example, one could take a screenshot, or use CMD+A to select all content and the copy/paste into (for example) Pages. Or one could use the browser’s console to get to the content via the backdoor. Scraping using tooling is also a popular way to get all images, videos and text of a website.
Anyway…
Because those protection stacks you mention only disable some mouse functions, they don’t work on iPads and iPhones like you’ve experienced already.
As a webmaster, you need to realise that the web was built with sharing in mind. You’ll need to accept that all content is accessible, regardless of minor speedbumps like those protection stacks.
If you feel the need to prevent redistribution, watermark your images and videos. This will at least lead viewers back to your website if they see it.
Cheers,
Erwin
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Hi @Heroic_Nonsense
I agree with your points and am aware of them, but the whole point is that copying images shouldn’t be easy. A website showcases information, and I have given watermarks to the images.
Joe’s Image Safe stack does block the copying of images directly on mobile devices. Text will still be copied easily, but that’s okay.
Regarding the screenshots you mentioned, Whatsapp recently introduced a feature that prohibits screenshots of certain information. When I take a screenshot, the result is a default WhatsApp page. I am not sure about the technology behind it.
Blockquote
WhatsApp monitors the screenshot buttons - if it senses that they’re pressed, it quickly pulls up that default page (which then gets screenshotted). A webpage can’t do that, as it can’t monitor input (not allowed by the OS).
WhatsApp’s protection (and others, like Snapchat’s) can be easily circumvented too, by the way.
, but the whole point is that copying images shouldn’t be easy.
The problem here is that the web wasn’t designed this way. Initially, the intention was that everything on it, was to be freely shared by everyone. That’s why you can deeplink to an image, without having to refer to the website itself.
The protocols used on the web are inherently open, which makes it hard to protect your images and text from those who really want to get to them.
A little anekdote:
A few years back I was part of a team that designed a video content website. Our developer got the mission to make it impossible for a visitor to download the material offered on that site. He came up with a nifty solution where the videos were stored in little chunks on several servers. The Javascript videoplayer only got the chunk in question moments before it needed to be decoded and displayed, making it impossible to get the full file from the browser’s console. Even if a visitor was to figure out the URI of one of the servers, they’d only get a few useless bits of data instead of a video file.
You’d think the vids were safe, but the whole systems was cracked within a week of the site being updated. Smart folks figured out what our dev did, and simply wrote a Javascript applet that did the same as his, only to reconstruct the video instead of playing it chunk-by-chunk. The whole investment was useless (well maybe - it perhaps did thwart a few people who didn’t know of the downloader that was offered in the shadows of the web).
Long story short: if you don’t want your property out in the open, don’t put it on a website. If you need folks to pay for the property, put it behind a good paywall and make sure you can trace any “spotted in the wild” copies back to the person who stole them (just-in-time watermarking solutions exist that can do this and stamp each image or video with a unique watermark, traceable to the logged in user that downloaded them).
Good paywalls for RapidWeaver are those made by Vibralogix (VibraCart combined with LinkLok URL and perhaps Sitelok).
LinkLok URL can even watermark your files with the logged-in user’s email address.
Cheers,
Erwin
@Heroic_Nonsense
Thanks for the explanation. I watermark my content. I don’t want to make it easy for others to copy the content(photographs of works). We invest our time to create those.
I don’t see the need for a paywall, as the website’s purpose is to showcase our work. It’s better for me to realise that the content on the website will be copied at some point.
Thanks.
Hi Erwin,
I checked the website on an android phone. The long press is disabled with the protect stack.
Regards