This is a suggestion for owners of copyrighted graphic image files,
whether they're being archived, indexed, browsed, or whatever, that I
read about on a newsgroup months ago...but it was a good suggestion.
In a teeny tiny little font, write your copyright information in one of
the corners of the graphics file. That way if someone steals the
picture, and doesn't simply crop that part away, you could prove that on
such and such a date you'd copyrighted the work.
Also I think some, perhaps most, grpahics packages allow a file to be
saved with "meta-information", such as copyright info and creation date,
as well.
It is my belief, however, that a document on the world-wide-web has been
made public, and therefore it shouldn't matter whether a web browser
caches it, or simply views or prints it, or whether a robot references
the file, or whatever...that the web should mean free sharing of ideas.
All your copyrighted materials or intellectual property should be behind
some kind of authentication or security barrier, beyond which a
traverser agrees to certain terms of non-disclosure before getting
access to the information. Then if you need to hold someone accountable
for doing something inappropriate with your sensitive information you
can go to your logs and say that "You signed this agreement by entering
this web space...so you can't do that..."
That's my ol' $.02, anyways...
-- Rob Turk <mailto:rturk@austin.ibm.com> Always Un-Officially Speaking Web Work <http://toolbox.austin.ibm.com/~rturk> http://www.megalith.com It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.