[willifred]

> Flash does absolutely nothing to prevent someone from saving copies of images.

This is only true if Flash is loading external jpegs. If they're embedded in a swf, you would have to go through a great deal more trouble to extract image files. But a right-click 'Save image as' is about all the trouble that most people are willing to go through, and as such, I'd guess that Flash is an effective deterrent much of the time.

I know a few photographers and illustrators, and based on what I hear from them, there is a shockingly pervasive attitude that any image on the web can be appropriated for any reason whatsoever. Even corporate types who should know better think nothing of grabbing images from portfolio sites (or flickr) to use in marketing campaigns, etc. I think it's wise for photographers to do what they can to protect their business and their work.

Also, consider the audience. Often portfolio sites exist solely to impress art directors at ad agencies, who (in my experience) aren't as hostile to flash as, say, developers at startups. And clumsy animated or skeuomorphic interfaces are often totally acceptable in that world. Many of them are still building flash 'microsites', after all. Real sales and commerce are taking place elsewhere (corbis, veer, getty images, et al).

[ZenPsycho]

A great deal more trouble? brew install swftools; curl [your swf] > yourswf.swf; swfextract yourswf.swf;

[jrockway]

This is beyond most people's capabilities; most people are thwarted by "right clicking is not allowed". (Do browsers let sites disable right-click anymore? I don't think so. But there was a time when they did.)

Someone should make swfextract a browser extension.