Forum Moderators: not2easy
Now, I am well versed in what to do when I have an infringer. But the problem is getting out of hand when everyone it seems wants to make a site to compete with mine. But unfortunately, those people think the way to do it is to take my content or entire sections from my site and place it on their own site and then slap their own copyright notice on it. I don't know if this is a particular problem in my niche, or if this problem runs rampant for other sites with a lot of unique content.
Yes, I do have a copyright notice on the bottom of each and every page. I use the "ondragstart="return false" onselectstart="return false" on some of my pages (and am now adding it to all of them). It is not the code I am worried about, but rather the articles and content.
Does anyone else have any tricks that have worked for them? Yes, I know there will always be those who will take for free, I will always have to send out these darn C&Ds and DMCAs. There is nothing you can do that will prevent someone from stealing who is determined to steal. But I would just like to make it harder ;)
I should add that some of these thieves aren't the most tech savvy in the world - some have left my hardcoded links intact, some have pasted my own tracking code into their own pages, you get the idea. So even basic deterents will work in some of these cases.
So what has or hasn't worked for others who are trying to protect their content?
There aren't any great technical solutions - if people can see it in a browser, they'll be able to copy it. I suppose you could make your content into images - that would slow them down a bit, but wouldn't do much for your SE performance. You could cloak the image pages and feed the SEs text, but that would entail risks that probably aren't justified.
Damage control may still be your best approach. I'd insert a few errors or unique text strings that will serve a dual purpose - careless ripoffs will be easy to find, and proving that the content is yours will be easier, too.
Anyone have a more elegant technical solution to slow down unsophisticated copiers?
On right mouse click pop up a nice big message:
This material is copyrighted. If you steal from us we will know and you will regret it. Ask us about licensing our material. See out copyright notice link for further information. Thank-you.
If it's possible imbed a link to the copyright page.
I would guess this will reduce theft by 3 to 5 cases out of 10, possibly more.
Let me know and send me the code for contributing the idea....or at least send me flowers ;-)
Now, thieves being thieves, this might not do the trick, but it may work - like I said - 3 to 5 times out of 10. I'd be interested to know the results if you ran it as a test for a little while and what you observed about a drop off - if any - in pirating.
I've observed that thieves are somewhat deterred when they know that they are being watched. I've represented more than a few shoplifters in 20+ years of being a country lawyer. They don't like the stores with video cams and the more conspicuous the cams the more likely they will shop elsewhere. Of course, some are pretty dumb and if you don't hit them on the head with the camera they don't notice it.
Your right click notice might include a "your IP address is....." notice.
Just a question of cost/benefit analysis. Do you worry you will scare more friendly users than theives? How much time will you have to spend protecting your property if you don't deter thieves?
(Disclaimer: I don't know how many people still browse the web with JavaScript disabled, so this may not be practicle if the number is too great).
if(the.site.youre.on == 'http://www.mysite.com')
{
document.write("...content...");
document.write("...content...");
document.write("...content...");
etc..
}
else
{
document.write("This content has been stolen");
}
The code is checking to see that the page is being viewed on your site. If not, the user will get the latter message. This would occur when the previously-mentioned not-so-technical people simply view the source and copy the entire thing, or copy what they think to be the code. They'd have to manually parse all of the actual content out of the document.write() functions.
Someone savvy enough may simply change the URL in the if() function, so you can probably have it hex-encode the URL so it is unrecognizable to them. In fact, I think you could also hex-encode all of the content within the document.write() functions.. so it'll look fine when it is printed to the browser screen (which they already can't copy and paste), but it'll look like gibberish when one views the source.
I'd be curious to know if this works for you.
I'll see if I can get a workable code going.
The only trick I've come up with to deal with this issue is to copy/paste phrases into a search engine to see if others are using them. Try it and you might get an unwelcome surprise.
If your worried because these people have mirroring your content and hindering your SERP's as a result. Try cloaking..
furthermore, disabling the right-click is widely regarded as being in poor taste. Many many people legitimately use the right-click to navigate and access other functions. You may end up ticking people off.
One way to deter is disabling highlighting, i think you can do this:
<body onSelectStart="false">
Cheers.
In any case (encryption or JS alike) you should consider what happens for some "special" browsers, eg. Googlebot/2.1
