How to Prevent Magento Image Copy using Htaccess?

If you are a Magento store owner, then you are definitely displaying your products online. Unfortunately, this means you have to deal with your Magento images theft where image thieves copy your work and use it for their own purposes without any credit. These thieves may include – some unintentional visitors who just save images for their personal usage; the real thieves, who want to sell your images further as their own; or your competitors.

If you are feeling unlucky to protect your Magento images even after using Magento’s dynamic watermarks, this blog is for you!

.htaccess – A Bulletproof Solution to Go for Your Magento Images:

So, what’s a Magento store owner to do? Fortunately, there is one best solution, i.e. .htaccess file. It is the file which is capable of restricting access to all original images. It works by blocking the access to the image editor under admin panel. You can modify and use the following .htaccess file in your /var/media/catalog directory:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on

#The next coding line permits the original images to be accessed by admin end directly

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourwebsite.com/.*$ [NC]

#The next coding line permits the watermarked images to be accessed directly. It is according to the rule where the URL does not contain a cache.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(/cache/) [NC]

#It is the page where your store visitor will be redirected if they will attempt to access images directly.

RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_shall_not_steal [R,L]

This security measure will really help you to prevent your Magento images from being stolen, downloaded, and copied. If you have been a victim of Magento Image Theft? Or you have your own tips and tricks to protect Magneto store images from theft? You can share in the comment section below!

Learn Importance of Installing Magento SUPEE Security Patches.