The ease of saving images off of the web has caused a very
real problem for artists and content providers alike. If
you have placed your intellectual property on the web chances
are that sooner or later someone is going to 'borrow' a little
bit of it... without your permission.
Additional Options
Web Guard, established on April 23, 1997, exists
to spread awareness of bandwidth and copyright issues. Founded by Shena
Delian O'Brien <shena@darklock.com> and Danie Powers
<powers@fastrans.net>, it is the goal of Web Guard to stress to the web community that it's wrong
to steal original images and files from each other, and it's especially
wrong to do this by "stealing bandwidth" . Not only can it have a possible financial impact, but it often
causes a lot of grief to the originator. Perhaps it's poetic justice, but the thief also loses, as
invariably sites change and he/she finds that an image or file they have helped themselves to no longer
exists on the original server leaving a broken image on their own page.
It seems like an awful lot of people are stealing files,
bandwidth and graphics and we realized that most of them are doing it
out of ignorance. We thought that with Web Guard, we might be able to
educate those who didn't know better, and persuade those who did, to
stop.
Also, we (Danie and I) had fought a lot of battles against bandwidth
thieves, and we'd found that it was often a lonely war. There was
nothing to pull on except yourself when the going got tough - and so we
decided to build an organization that would back our fellow netizens,
let them know that they were supported. Shena Delian O'Brien
[Graphic purloining] is such a common practice however, people just can't seem to
grasp that [it is dishonest]. Most graphics designers don't spend hours and hours on
projects to supply the whole web with graphics. They do it for
themselves and or their clients. Common courtesy dictates if you "want"
something you should ask for it and nine times out of ten you will
receive it and if you don't you should be courteous enough to respect
the wishes of the creator. Danie Powers
Along with instructions on how to discover if your images
are being used without permission, Web Guard offers several
options to 'victims' including pre-constructed letters that
you're welcome to use if you find it difficult to be polite
to the alleged thief. Replacement images that would-be
borrowers will not want showing up on their sites if they get
caught are also available for your use..... but download them,
don't link to Web Guard's site!
As added protection as well as to help in their efforts, you can
join the Web Guard Ring, displaying their banner on your web site.
The Web Guard group, while small now, is growing rapidly and will
continue to do so as the word spreads.
