I just went back to the URL I posted below: the software is "no longer
available."   No comment.

One more attempt: Parable's "ThingMaker" was billed in April 1997 as "will
allow designers to 'lock' ordinary graphics and sound files [inside an
ActiveX component] so that they cannot be duplicated or
modified...ThingMaker also allows artists to embed a hyperlink to a home
page with the artist's biographical data so that potental clients can
contact them."  (That could make copyright clearances a dream... and it's a
potentially useful idea for museums as well.)  I've no idea if this one
survived or not...

>Sam:
>You're right: one of the software packages is billed as "a Java applet for
displaying images securely,"  and "removes Save to Disk and Copy to
Clipboard commands,"
>and of course "cannot completely prevent misuse of your images."  There
are other products that supposedly "prevent use of your content and custom
applets," etc.  See:
>
>www.maximized.com/products/imageguardian
>
>At 19:36 01/02/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>On Sun, 1 Feb 1998, FINKELSTEIN RICHARD S wrote:
>>
>>> >There are also companies developing software which prevents image files
>>> >from being downloaded from the server.
>>>
>>> Although I fully believe that someone would market such a thing with such
>>> claims, here is something for readers to consider . . . .
>>>
>>> If you are seeing a web image on your screen, guess what? It has ALREADY
>>> been downloaded!
>>
>>Actually it is possible to 'almost' protect against image theft....if the
>>image was read in by a Java applet, perhaps as a bit map, AND you use some
>>sort of signing, that image ptobably won't end up in the cache, and if the
>>image path was not 'passed' to the applet in the html code, but rather
>>comes from a database accessible by that applet, then the only way to get
>>your hands on that image is to do a screen grab.  Of course a screen grab
>>can be blocked simply by using scrolls, or by having a floating watermark
>>over the images canvas.
>>        The most interesting way I have seen to block image theft, in a
>>low tech fashion was done by some Dallas museum(?) web page in which they
>>broke the images up into several parts.  A person would have to be
>>determined and good at Photoshop to get it back together...
>>
>>
>>        ________________________        ___________________________
>>       /     Sam McDonald      /\      /    Graduate Fellow       /\
>>      / Indiana University   _/ /\    /        for UITS         _/ /\
>>     /   School of Library  / \/     /   Working on: CNI's     / \/
>>    /    and Information   /        /  'Assessing the Academic/
>>   /         Science      /\       / Networked Environment'  /\
>>  /______________________/ /      /_________________________/ /
>>  \______________________\/       \_________________________\/
>>    \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \         \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
>>
amalyah keshet
head of visual resources, the israel museum, jerusalem
[log in to unmask]
fax: +972-2-670-8064
visit our web page: www.imj.org.il