How to protect against direct access to images?

Question

I would like to create a web site with many images. But I would like to protect against direct access to images, e.g. direct links to images without visiting the web site.

Answer 1

Add a simple .htaccess file in your site folder with the follwoing lines

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www\.your-domain\.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www\.your-domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(wav|swf|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp|js|css)$ - [F,NC,L]

Note I added also js and css file even if I think it's bizzare to find someone who attempts to scrape them.