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...
>
>
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amalyah keshet
head of visual resources, the israel museum, jerusalem
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fax: +972-2-670-8064
visit our web page: www.imj.org.il