I am an avid code thief. I surf the web, find interesting stuff and shamelessly right-click on it. I then proceed to select “View Page Source” and take a long, hard look at other people’s code. I dissect it, follow the internal links to find their CSS file, examine it, turn it inside out and, if I find particularly interesting techniques, tinker with them until I get the gist of how they’re implemented. I guess I must be a horrible person. Then again, maybe I’m just a curious web surfer.

Interestingly enough, there are those who firmly believe that other people shouldn’t be allowed to take a look at their pain-stakingly crafted, sweat-filled HTML code. From time to time, I’ll run into sites that use awkward javascript tricks to block the right button. Sometimes they go as far as displaying a dialog stating their copyright instead of the expected menu, thus breaking browser functionality and annoying the user. Other times they stuff things in an intrincate maze of frames. One complicated enough to baffle a blind monkey on an acid trip.

The funny part is that when you circumvent these laughable “security” measures, it usually turns out that these people either copied their html verbatim from other sources, or their code looks good enough to have been implemented by my fucking Pet Rock.

A basic truth is that html code on the Internet is not unlike speaking in gibberish. You may think you’re doing ok and no one around you understands your cunningly crafted *secret* message, but in reality, more than half the people listening to you are giggling as you openly confess your profound fascination with Pokemon.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe stealing other person’s work verbatim - as in: changing the background color to the most offensive shade of fucsia you can find and calling the resulting beast “my r0xx0ring WeBsItE, yo!” - is not only wrong. It’s stupid. And dumb. And should qualify people for neutering. But these techniques do nothing more than annoy the legitimate visitors and provide joke fodder for the people who would really be interested in seeing the code.

We all have to accept that we’re working with an open medium. Great designers don’t seem to have a problem with it, and make their techniques freely available (the keyword here is learning).

So, for all you prepubescent paranoid freaks who keep using those right-click blocking scripts: If you’re like, totally sure that your code is the freaking shiznit, don’t put it on the web! It’ll be better for everyone.

Just a thought.

— sergio on September 22, 2003