Copyright and websites

[LostWolf]

My apologies if this is the wrong forum to post this - please feel free to move/delete as appropriate - this is my first posting here.


I am in the process of building my first ever website and it is a personal site so I can practice techniques and SEO and things like that. My only issue is how secure will my content be? I understand that people copy sites and things like that but I was wondering if there was anyway of preventing people from copying certain pages or text? Or do I just have to register it as copyrighted and put on the site that people mustn't copy?

Sorry if this is a bit garbled...and sorry if I sound dumb.

[schachin]

unless your site contains photos, art, writings, copy etc that are part of a larger picture (ie you are a photographer) I wouldn't bother worrying a lot about people stealing off your site.. - there are programs out there that can steal the entire site (inc images- or just copy or just code ETC) and you wouldn't know - no matter what you do.

Just post a copyright notice on the site and then let it go - you will spend a lot of time that would go to making you money on pursuing possibly copyright issues.. but put the notice up because it will protect you should someone be blatant about it..

[Beatle]

It's very hard to keep people from stealing your content. There are things you can do to make it less appealing to steal. The first thing that comes to mind is, as you said it's a personal site, so in your content mention your website and your feelings. In other words personalize the content so it would look stolen on another site. I find this works best.

[davebarnes]

LostWolf,

1. This topic has been covered (more than once) here at WebProWorld.

2. Don't waste any energy on "preventing people from copying certain pages".

3. No matter what steps you take, you have to remember that if it is displayed on a monitor, then anyone can take a screen shot of the content. Yes, they would have to rekey the text and redraw the art, but they could do that.

4. Beatle's suggestion is good.

,dave

[ronbaker1]

The bottom line with web development is it's nearly impossible to prevent your images from being copied, unless you're using a delivery tool such as Dreamweaver. But you can make it much more difficult with some fairly simply page development techniques. For example, you can disable the "right click" copy option in Internet Explorer. Or, you can place your image underneath another transparent image, so that the person copying it get's the transparent image (and not your image).

None of these techniques will stop an expert (because there are other ways to get the image). But they work for the less experienced person. And, some level of protection is better than none.

Search the Internet for "Web Development - protecting your images" and you'll find a lot of discussion about these techniques. Here are a couple of links that I've found useful:

Copyright: Image Protection
http://www.wildlifephoto.net/article...rotection.html
Web Development: Protecting Your Images On The Web
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/p...icle.asp?ID=41

Beyond these techniques, use a copyright on all of your unique image and text content. A copyright won't stop someone from making a copy. But, at least you'll have some level of legal remedy, if you want to use it.

I personally think it's good practice to use the meta tags for copyright as well as displaying a copyright on each page. I place my copyright in the footing of each page.


Ron Baker
http://www.apex-systems.net
http://hilton-head-property.com

[bj]

Personally I don't worry about it much at all. I do, however, pursue people who do steal my work.

This is the tool I run every couple few months--

Copyscape

The couple times I found scrapers using my content I had a friend who's an attorney send the domain owner a very strongly worded letter. That's all it takes. Sites are usually gone within a few days.

[Keimos]

Hi LostWolf,

Anything that you personally write and produce is automatically your copywrite.

But to be honest do not worry about it. Take it as a compliment that somebody has taken the time and effort to reproduce your thoughts. (personal sites only) As bj pointed has pointed out there are ways of dealing with people if the mis-represent you. An attorney is in some cases taking it to far, or last resort, a simple polite email or letter will for most cases work.

It really boils down to how important it is to you.

Keimos

[LostWolf]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

LostWolf,

1. This topic has been covered (more than once) here at WebProWorld.

Sorry davebarnes - I did try to have a look around before I posted but there are so many posts here it got kinda confusing. Sorry.


And to everyone else, thankyou for your help. I think I shall have to use my judgement in terms of the content I put on my site because it would matter a to to me if someone took any of it. But thank you for your help.

[andy_art_trigg]

Originally Posted by bj

This is the tool I run every couple few months--

Copyscape

The couple times I found scrapers using my content I had a friend who's an attorney send the domain owner a very strongly worded letter. That's all it takes. Sites are usually gone within a few days.

These days, theft of copyrighted work is becoming far more prevalent because people can copy and paste your work, and then stick Google ads in there. I don’t know if they can really make much money, but enough people are doing it to suggest they can.

I agree with the comments above, that on a personal site it shouldn’t usually be such a major concern, but then that does assume a few things that may not be the case. If you put a lot of hard work into something – and use your knowledge, skills and experience – then it shouldn’t be allowed to be stolen by others. The copyscape tool allows free checking of web pages.

I use Copyscape as well, which although limited, and in ways, very underdeveloped, it's the only one I can find. You can display copyright warning logos from them.

The first time I used it I found 2 major infringements, where entire pages of mine were ripped off and presented as their own work. One was full of Google ads. Most of the copyright theft I find is done by so-called web designers who are doing it without the site owner’s knowledge and when informed, the site owner is usually embarrassed and not best pleased with the thief.

[sdrury]

A client of mine had similar concerns and after much research I agree that copyscape seems to win hands down.

Essentially once your work is in print, you are considerd the copyright owner - so simply place a line of text stating so.Unfortunately there will always be applications that provide a way of lifting content and transferring it elsewhere - even if you password protected your site - so it's not really
worth getting too hung up about - it obviously means that someone considers your work more worthy than their intelligence. However you can have great fun with the SEO aspect!

Good luck with your site

[simonm]

Being in the position of commissioning and paying for website development I had one company send a web design on spec. We rejected it and they then started threatening us when we finally released our website developed by another company claiming it was plagiarised from their design. I suggested that they actually looked at the web and show me a website that didn't have a menu bar with buttons down the left hand side and a central image on the home page with a repetition of parts of the menu and that the colour scheme was anyway our coporate colours so of course it was the same colour as their spec site!

My point?

It is exceedingly difficult to come up with something that is so distinctive and unique that it cannot be found already on the web. If this is your first ever website, it is unlikely that you will develop anything that is protectable or even worth protecting from copying. There are exceptions, but you specified that you were looking at SEO and web techniques! Keep trying to innovate though, that's what makes the web such a great place and ultimately you will come up with something that is worth getting paranoid over!

[LostWolf]

Thanks for the input - I know for a fact that my design is not a problem because I am using a copyright-free skin so anyone can have the same design. I work for a web development company and as the SEO in training, I have mentioned that perhaps building my own site and optimising it myself would be a good way of putting the stuff I learn into practice (my boss isn't ready to let me loose with client sites yet!)

I'm re-thinking what I will use as content with all your suggestions in mind - and I will be writing some text to make clear to visitors that it is copyrighted. I know you can't stop people lifting stuff, but I shall use Copyscape as recommended. This site isn't just going to be my own personal playground - I am eventually adding a forum to it as well - but some of the things I have been toying with are actually worth protecting if possible, so I wanted to do what I could (if possible) to protect my work.

[wuxingrun]

Refresh content is very helpful to your site, don't mind other things.