June 15, 2001

7:37 PM

Steal my ImagesIE 6 not only will plaster squiggly lines all over your pages but will help everybody steal your images!! Another fine enhancement from the folks who brought you the Marquee tag.
posted by headlemur (20 comments total)

jimminy christmas, is the text, like, 7pt on everyone else's machine?

it's a digital version of a white paper that reads like white paper!
posted by o2b at 7:42 PM on June 15, 2001

What are you talking about? You've always been able to save pictures from web pages you load.

In Netscape and IE, right click on any image and you'll see a "save image as" choice. In IE 5+, you can drag-and-drop an image into a folder or onto the desktop. (Opera has comparable mechanisms.)

They're not adding any new functionality here; they're just changing the access mechanism to functionality which already existed.

How about just a touch less raving paranoia, OK? Let's save our righteous indignation for the things that actually justify it.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:46 PM on June 15, 2001

Before we begin throwing dirt at companies introducing unsavoury HTML tags, let us not forget about Netscape who fathered <BLINK>
posted by chrish at 7:48 PM on June 15, 2001

I'm using IE6 right now and the little hovering popup that comes up is pretty cool, if you ask me. I like it. It's always been pretty damn easy to download images from the web, this isn't going to make it that much easier.
posted by chason at 7:51 PM on June 15, 2001

Also: you can disable this new feature with a simple IMG tag attribute, or a META tag attribute for page-wide disabling. I don't get what the big deal is.

Of course, I also don't get what the big deal is about stopping people from "stealing" images in the first place, so perhaps I'm missing something.
posted by youhas at 7:51 PM on June 15, 2001

As someone who uses IE 6, I've got to tell you that most people will turn the Image Toolbar off. It's irritating as it popups on some images as you mouseover to read the alt/title text. Also when the picture is big, it resizes it. I turned it off in less than 30 minutes after installing IE 6
posted by riffola at 7:52 PM on June 15, 2001

Face it: on balance, MSFT has done more good than harm (lots more, IMHO) in nearly every aspect of desktop computing and opening up the web to the *masses*. (please don't get "smart" about that statement - you all know what I mean). As others have pointed out, there is nothing new here - just a new method of doing what many already do.
posted by davidmsc at 8:21 PM on June 15, 2001

headlemur sounds like one of those types that disables the right mouse button on pages by default. Even if a secure browser existed I'd still screen capture to my hearts content.
posted by skallas at 8:45 PM on June 15, 2001

Stereotypical Troubled Housewife: "Oh. I've been right clicking on images as much as five or six times a day! Then I have to choose an option! Then I have to find some place to save the image! Ugh! This is hard work! I sure wish Microsoft would come up with some way to make this easier!"

[SFX: Wooshing wind wound. Timpani.]

Stereotypical Troubled Housewife: "Microsoft Man!"

Microsoft Man: "Hi! I understand you want us to make your life more lethargic, again!"

Stereotypical Troubled Housewife: "Why yes! My middle finger is almost bruised! Look at that!"

Microsoft Man: "Here! Allow me!" [looks at her middle finger] "Great scott! You're right! I've got just the thing for you! Now with the new and improved Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0! You too can sve any image on the Internet permanently to the hard drive with one less click and you never even have to touch your right mouse button!"

Stereotypical Troubled Housewife: "Oh Microsoft Man! You're the greatest!"

Microsoft Man: "And it's free!"

Stereotypical Troubled Housewife: [swoons. He catches her.]

Microsoft Man: [to camera] "Coming soon! With a DSL or cable modem line, we're working on a way to convert energy into matter with the new and improved MSTeatHose! (patent pending) You attach one end to a Serial Port, and the other end to your mouth, and we'll forcefeed you anything you want! Just point and click and we'll download any kind of gelatinous, partially digested swill you want! Thirty-one different flavors to choose from! If you order today, we'll throw in our amazing MSVirtualBedpan! So surf to microsoft.com today!

The Lenny Bruce Kid]: Hey Masked Man. Why didn't ya just save stuff from cache in a way people c'n actually use from MSIE 1.0 on?

Microsoft Man: Go 'way kid ya bother me.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:59 PM on June 15, 2001

I like it. It's always been pretty damn easy to download images from the web, this isn't going to make it that much easier.

If it doesn't make it easier, why do you like it?
posted by jpoulos at 9:11 PM on June 15, 2001

hey, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get things done faster... i'm all for photoshop and more shortcuts.

and if you're that worried about people stealing your images, digimarc them.
posted by lotsofno at 9:52 PM on June 15, 2001

I think the software that ran The Matrix must've been developed by Microsoft.

I mean, who else would come up with Agents who were by default suceptible to the Neo virus?
posted by SpecialK at 10:36 PM on June 15, 2001

Oh but look, Microsoft gives the developer the option to turn this off:

A Web developer is able to turn this feature off on an image-by-image basis using the GALLERYIMG attribute of the IMG element

I would think that it would be the other way around. Instead of the world having to go back and add an attribute to all their code, the developer should "have to turn this feature on".
posted by tomplus2 at 10:56 PM on June 15, 2001

i agree tomplus2. also, while it is easy to save an image by right clicking, i know people that have had a computer for a significant period of time that don't even know that right clicking is something they can do. when i've tried to explain it to them they dismiss it as something too difficult to deal with or remember.

i think the point is that this *does* make the option of saving images more obvious to a large number of internet surfers who otherwise would not have employed the technology. as well, it gives them the option of printing or emailing the image which is basically distributing copyrighted material. the fact that it is a prominent feature seems to imply a subtle permission or endorsement that it is ok to do this and with microsoft's market dominance you will have millions of existing and new users freely copying and distributing images and photographs. i think that is the point of the original post.
posted by centrs at 11:18 PM on June 15, 2001

I agree with the point that free access to images on the web is a good thing. But there is just a couple of negative comments that I have.

Firstly, how many meta taga does Microsoft want you to use! With one to turn of SmartTag's one to turn this off and probably about 30 more for various other features this'll be my prime reason to get broadband! MS enhances page bloat online, now what is that similar to...

Secondly I don't care too much about taking the pictures,that's cool, easy access and all that. But putting them in a folder called 'My Pictures'? Copyright assignment people! At least a folder called - 'Downloaded Pictures or something.
posted by nedrichards at 12:37 AM on June 16, 2001

you know, one of my favorite and most used features of Explorer 5 (mac) is the ability to drag images to the desktop. it's seriously great. I don't think this new feature is any worse than that. and as we ALL know, there are many other issues with winxp and ie6 that're much more rant-worthy. smart tags anyone?
posted by chrisege at 1:43 AM on June 16, 2001

I use it because i can email images that much easier. :)
posted by chason at 3:37 AM on June 16, 2001

Right-clicking : "when i've tried to explain it to them they dismiss it as something too difficult to deal with or remember."

Insert snide comment here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:08 PM on June 16, 2001

1. It's primary purpose is for people who cruise pron sites, so they can save to disk faster. =p

2. It also adds menu elements between "Save-to-disk" and "Set-as-Wallpaper"...any kid surfing for pron from mom's computer will tell you how useful that is, nothing worse than accidentally wiping out mom's cute cat picture.
posted by nomisxid at 10:40 AM on June 18, 2001

does anyone really expect that the entire world will upgrade en masse to IE6 just because it's been released? look at all the effort all those folk were going through recently just to get people up to 5.0. if anyone's worried about copyrighted images being stolen, i think they'll have a good 4 or 5 years before IE6 is the most common version.
posted by tolkhan at 12:28 PM on June 18, 2001