Why Protect Product Images?
Your product images represent significant investment:
- Photography costs: Professional shoots, equipment, locations
- Editing time: Retouching, color correction, optimization
- Unique angles: Product presentation you’ve perfected
- Brand identity: Visual style that distinguishes your store
When these images are stolen, thieves get the value without the investment.
How Images Get Stolen
Right-Click Save
The simplest method - right-click on an image and save it. Anyone can do this in seconds.
Developer Tools
Browsers let anyone view page source and download all images directly, bypassing right-click protections.
Automated Scraping
Bots can crawl your entire catalog and download every product image automatically.
Screenshot Capture
When other methods are blocked, screenshots capture images (at screen resolution).
Who Steals Product Images?
Clone Site Operators
Scammers creating fake versions of your store need your images to look legitimate.
Competitors
Some competitors take shortcuts, using your photography instead of creating their own.
Dropshippers
Dropshipping stores often steal supplier images rather than request them properly.
Content Farms
Sites that aggregate product information scrape images for their databases.
The Impact of Image Theft
Brand Confusion
Your images on other sites confuse customers about where to buy.
Clone Site Enablement
Stolen images are essential for convincing clone sites.
Lost Competitive Edge
Your visual quality becomes available to anyone.
SEO Complications
Duplicate images across sites can confuse search engines.
How SecurEcommerce Protects Images
Right-Click Disable
We prevent the context menu from appearing on your images, blocking the easy save option.
Copy Prevention
Keyboard shortcuts for copying (Ctrl+C, Cmd+C) are disabled on protected content.
Drag Prevention
Images can’t be dragged to the desktop or other applications.
Developer Tools Blocking
We block keyboard shortcuts that open developer tools (F12, Ctrl+Shift+I).
Selection Prevention
Text and images can’t be selected for copying.
What Protection Can’t Do
Screenshots
We can’t prevent screenshots - that’s operating system level functionality.
Determined Attackers
Someone technically skilled can eventually extract any visible image.
Automated Scraping
Sophisticated scraping tools may bypass client-side protection.
Protection as Deterrence
Content protection is about deterrence, not absolute prevention:
- Casual theft: Prevented almost entirely
- Amateur scrapers: Significantly hindered
- Professional attackers: Slowed but not stopped
Most image theft is casual - making it difficult stops most thieves.
Complementary Strategies
Watermarking
Add visible or invisible watermarks to images:
- Visible watermarks deter use
- Invisible watermarks prove ownership
Image Optimization
Serve appropriately sized images:
- Large enough for your site
- Not unnecessarily high-resolution
Legal Notices
Clear copyright notices establish ownership:
- Footer copyright statements
- Terms of use regarding content
DMCA Response
Have a process for responding to theft:
- Reverse image search to find theft
- DMCA takedown requests
- Registrar and host complaints
Enabling Image Protection
In SecurEcommerce:
- Navigate to Content Protection settings
- Enable image protection features
- Choose which pages to protect
- Test that protection is working
Balancing Protection and Usability
Heavy protection can impact user experience:
- Right-click menus: Some users expect them
- Accessibility: Some users rely on right-click features
- Mobile: Long-press behavior changes
Consider protecting product pages while leaving other pages unrestricted.
Best Practices
- Protect high-value images: Focus on unique product photography
- Use reasonable quality: Don’t serve ultra-high-resolution
- Monitor for theft: Regular reverse image searches
- Have a response plan: Know what to do when theft occurs
- Layer protections: Don’t rely on any single method