Is there any way to stop people copying text from web site?

[hypno]

Hi people, i was just wondering if any one knows how to prevent viewers copying text from a web site? I am using Dreamweaver and as I ask this question I just had a thought that maybe i should ask them :) Anyway I am here now after just joining so if anyone can help I would be grateful.
Thank you.

[carju1]

Hi Hypno,

There are lots of ways of making it more difficult, but stop them copying next the anwer is NO. You can always just run your mouse over text with the LH button down then press ctrl c and you have a copy. You can stop them by making all your site an image but if they can read it they can always re-type it anyway

regards
Julian

[jScott_Harris]

You can disable right-click and you can disable "view source" but that's about the extent of it. They might discourage a few and let them know you really don't want content taken from you site.

You can have your site completely copyrighted (is that even a word?) so if someone does steal content you can persue things legally.

Although, what you could do is to make some Flash that covers the entire size of your site, from top to bottom and left and right, make it transparent (tutorial (http://www.designnewz.com/designnewz-2-20030528TransparentFlashandDHTMLLayers.html)) and set it as a layer over the top of everything, and then if you disable right-click and "view source" the only thing they'll be able to highlight is that flash file. hmmm....

[SandyinMiami]

Scott - that's brilliant! I think I see that solution in my future....

I had another online cigar etailer steal some of my images and copy. He just copied word for word what I wrote. Everything on my site is handwritten by me - most other sites in this area just copy straight from the mfg data. 90+% of my images are my own work product too, so I was not happy.

I called and asked for the owner and after speaking with him for a few minutes, he agreed to remove my copy and pics. Since he did not remove it within the 21 days we agreed upon, I wrote him an email conveying a stronger message. It was all removed by that weekend.

But this is a most excellent idea and it looks like learning Flash is in the near future.

Thanks Scott!

[backslash]

Another idea is to add "invisible" background color text in a small font within the real "visible" text, say between the words to create the word spacing. That helps to stop copy/paste because what ends up in the clipboard is jibberish.

e.g. HTML:
This<font color="#FFFFFF">hq</font>is<font color="#FFFFFF">zi</font>it.

Copied text = Thishqisziit.
[Note: better to use CSS for this]

If the person has a regex search and replace tool then they could take the HTML and remove the hidden text with a bit of work.

There are a few shareware programs that provide the functionality of entering your copy and hitting a button to add the hidden jibberish.

The biggest problems with this approach is that SE's like Google don't like hidden text, and all that jibberish will result in poor search matches.

Cheers,
Jarrod

[SyrenSong]

Another idea is to add "invisible" background color text ...

The biggest problems with this approach is that SE's like Google don't like hidden text, and all that jibberish will result in poor search matches.

Better take that SE problem one step further, backslash. In some cases, the search engines will treat using same color background and text as spamming and you could get banned (at least temporarily) by the SE. Not good for any business site!

[hr]

Hey, Scott.

Anywhere I can see that Flash function in action? I'm trying to visualize it in my mind's eye, but it's late and my eyes are awfully tired.... I'm just wondering if there might be other applications for this method. Maybe image protection.....?

(a bleary-eyed) Syren

[backslash]

Better take that SE problem one step further, backslash. In some cases, the search engines will treat using same color background and text as spamming and you could get banned (at least temporarily) by the SE. Not good for any business site!

Exactly. That's what I meant. I bet that the shareware tools that do this don't mention it though.

Cheers,
Jarrod

[valk97_goose]

I would take it as a compliment that someone would copy my text.

Why publish something on the web if you don't want people to copy it (or for that matter read it)?

With all the fancy ways of preventing someone to copy your text you will find that no one will be able to print your pages.

Don't be so paranoid, share your knowledge.

[jScott_Harris]

http://www.webproworld.com/1x1.html

see tutorial above for the layer and transparancy part...

here's an example of what I'm talking about. I've never seen anyone try it, so I threw it together myself. What I did was make a 1 frame SWF (flash file) that is 1x1, so it's very small (just 25bytes). I made my layer, set it to 100% wide and embedded my Flash. I made that 100% wide as well, but I did have to give it an absolute value in height. Anyway, I made sure the layer was visible, and viola..Now when you try to highligt something, you get a big block of nothing. Every browser I tested on(IE, Netscape and Opera, all for Windows) would only allow you to highlight the flash and not the text. There's always exceptions, I'm sure some browser somewhere will let you highlight, but thats the way it goes.

You could just place the flash and layer over certain areas. Meaning, if your running an etailer, place layers everywhere you've got text and images you don't want stolen, and leave you navigation area alone. I've not found any problems with either method, but I have thorough testing either.

So once you've put the java script in to disable view source and right-click, you should be good to go, and keeping the search engines happy!

[SandyinMiami]

Valk - no offense intended, but that's a ridiculous thing to say!! If I take the time and effort to write original copy with my own personal opinions on certain items, I do not take it as a compliment that someone else who is too lazy to write their own reviews copies mine verbatim. To make it worse, this was a guy who was also competing with me in SE placement and he was directly above me. We all carry approximately the same items, so anyone looking at his descriptions, then seeing mine would think I was copying him.

In addition, if someone wants to use my copy or the images that I created, I am due a royalty for their use of my labor. Why should they get it for free when it has cost me months of long nights to create it?

[carju1]

Valk and Sandy, you are both correct because it depends on the purpose of the content and how it is used.

We spend hours writing press packs and race reports which we want people to copy. We send them to a couple of thousand Journalists a day and almost beg them to use our words. Why? because we liberally sprinkle our copy with Nissan this and Nissan that and every time they use our copy it brings our product to the notice of the public. It 'free' advertising it helps us sell cars and make us money.

However if you write the words in order to better sell your product and then a competitor uses your words to sell his rival product that is no better than theft. You have spent time writting words to sell your cigars to make you money. If a rival then uses the same words to sell his cigars he is costing you money (assume there is a finite number of cigar sales per day) he may as well just steal your stock. Now if a cigar magazine had used her words and said it was from Ocean Cigars, Inc. and given her URL I'm sure Sandy would have been both delighted and complemented ( but a competitior - sue 'em)

So its a case of - Different text, different purpose, different outcome.

Then there is the middle ground which happened to me the other day. I tend only to write the factual stuff for my site (I'm a knowledgable Rally Raid fanatic and webmaster not a journalist). For a Rally like Dakar I get paid to spend several days pouring over detailed maps, researching and talking to people to find out what the route is going to be like for each stage. I then write a factual piece (usually about 20 lines) describing what each stage will be like (fast, technical, difficult navigation, high dunes etc.). This is content used to incorrage people to visit our site not a rivals because it has the best content. Much to my surprise the other day I tuned into the tv coverage of a rally (by a pan-European sports network) and heard the commentator introduce the stage using my copy word for word. Now as a person I was complemented as they used my words (which I had been paid for) but at the same time annoyed as there was no product placement and they didn't ask permission. That's the middle ground it didn't hurt me financially but it didn't help either. The lesson is make sure all content contains product promotion, make sure all pages contain a copywrite statement and sue them if they change it to promote another product

Regards

Julian

[SyrenSong]

backslash -

Sorry, guess I was so tired I misunderstood. Fortunately, I'm much more awake now! :)

************

Scott -

That's a pretty nifty effect. All I got from right-clicking in Mozilla was the Macromedia Flash info. I really like the fact that it allows you to right-click on other portions of the page. A lot of folks get offended if their right-click is disabled. I've been known to leave a site or two myself when that happens.

Unfortunately, it's still got the same side effects of not being effective for stopping anyone determined. I checked the source code and it looks like it'd be easy enough to ignore the Flash stuff and leave me with text and images if I saved the page using File > Save Page As... and saved it as a complete webpage.

*sigh* Still no really great, surefire, inexpensive way to protect images artists want to try to sell online. :(

***********

Sandy -

The biggest problem you've got is that you want everyone to see what you've written, but you don't want anyone to copy it. If I wanted to copy text that you'd put on a website, no matter how well-protected it was, I could always resort to opening up my word processor and manually typing it word-for-word.

Yeah, it kinda sucks, but that's how the internet works. If you don't want anyone to copy your stuff, don't post it to the web. There's no surefire way to protect anything for those willing to take the time to copy it!

Syren

[valk97_goose]

Great trick! but have you seen what that does to your readers printer? Yes it fills the page with ink.

I suggest that if you go to these rediculous levels to protect your text you must warn readers not to print your pages.

I say again people that have to resort to these levels to protect their text on the internet are paranoid. Copyright (c) your pages and use the law.

[valk97_goose]

No offence taken Sandy, you have to remember where you are publishing "The Internet" a very open environment!

Use that to your advantage don't let it get you so paranoid (sorry I seem to like that word). I do know how you feel though when people copy your work. But don't forget your prospective and existing customers out there, some of the methods you may use to protect your copy will drive them away.

Regards...

[marketinguru]

Hi all-

I have been using this terrific new software that protects any pages you want to protect. It's so easy to use it's ridiculous.

It will not allow anyone to copy and paste on your web pages or right click to view source or even see your links when they put their cursor over it (great for hiding your affiliate links to make sure you get credit your sale).

It's great for protecting download sites and for protecting your order pages
that have sensitive links you don't want people to see.

It's incredibly simple to use and is worth a thousand times what you'll pay for it. I think it is currently selling for $49.95. I highly recommend it!

http://www.bestafs.com/cgi-bin/varpro/vartrack.cgi?t=test4u:1

Rich

[SyrenSong]

marketinguru -

Unfortunately, the method used by this company employs javascript. This means that visitors to your website who have older browsers which don't have javascript capabilities, or visitors surfing with javascript disabled, will get only a blank page when they visit your website.

A blank screen means you lose visitors and you lose sales.

Not a good thing!

HTH!
Syren

[valk97_goose]

Hi marketinguru

What's the file size overhead on that software, I have seen protection software before but it always came with considerable overhead. In some cased the file doubled in size.

Could be the answer though...

Thanks...

[valk97_goose]

Hi again marketinguru

I hate to put a dampener on that software but if you search Google for Weblock Pro. The following site comes up with all the details for unlocking the code.

http://www.morleysoft.freeserve.co.uk/computing/unlock.html

I guess nothings sacred on the internet...

[valk97_goose]

Just one last comment hypno

I was discussing this issue with a web-designer friend of mine and he commented that there are a large number of vision impaired people out there that do use computers.

One of the methods they use is to cut the text CtrlC and have it read by a text to speech converter.

Have you considered all your customers?

Regards...

[SyrenSong]

...vision impaired people out there that do use computers.

One of the methods they use is to cut the text CtrlC and have it read by a text to speech converter.

Oooooh! I hadn't heard about that method before, but it makes a lot of sense!

Hmmm. Makes me wonder what something like Jaws (a text screen reader) would do with the javascript encoded sites. There could be a few problems there as well. I think I remember reading somewhere that some of the text readers ignore javascript..... Wish I could remember for certain.

Syren

[SyrenSong]

Found it!

Well, okay. It's not exactly what I read before, but the info is essentially the same.

Here's the link: [url]http://snow.utoronto.ca/laurie/brownbag.html#3[url]

Basically, some text readers read the javascript as if it's more text on the page. Needless to say, javascript read this way would make no sense whatsoever to the listener. Rollovers and mouseovers just wouldn't work the way they were intended to function and could create navigation problems as well.

Anyway, the point is that if you've got a javascript encoded website, you've just lost a whole lot of potential customers 'cause they just can't see what's on your site!

Syren

[valk97_goose]

Hi SyrenSong

Actually they cut from the screen display, if there was JavaScript within the code it would have already done its script work, and of course if the JavaScripts job was to prevent copying from the screen then those people would not read that screen. I guess they would move on to another site!

Regards...

[valk97_goose]

Hi again SyrenSong

The software these people were using was called "Advanced Text To Speach".

Once it is running it will read anything in the clipboard. Hence the CtrlC "Cut" to get the text there.


Regards...[/quote]

[SyrenSong]

Hi SyrenSong

Actually they cut from the screen display, if there was JavaScript within the code it would have already done its script work, and of course if the JavaScripts job was to prevent copying from the screen then those people would not read that screen. I guess they would move on to another site!

I guess my post was a bit confusing. We've got 2 different topics here. One is your statement about the cut-and-paste method of "viewing" a website using a reader. The second is how some text readers "view" a website.

Regarding the second method, some text readers actually read from the website's code, not just what appears on the screen. That allows the programmer to put coding into the site especially for these people to have options like skipping the navigation links that appear at the top of a site.

In the second instance, some readers read everything, including all the javascript. For those folks, a site that's been encrypted would be an absolute nightmare! They'd be away from that site quicker than the page came up once their reader started in on all that nonsense code. It'd be like a native English speaker viewing a site where all the text is in Chinese. Total gibberish!

Sorry about the confusion.

Syren
[/u]

[sfurciniti]

A determined thief will ALWAYS be able to find a way to steal what he/she wants, so I'd stay away from any "security" measures that might make your site less accessible to any segment of the population. The only true way to protect your intellectual property is through copyright and litigation. If it's important enough to you, you might even go to the extent of stating on your site that you will sue those who infringe on your copyrighted material.

Scott

[copyrightman]

Hi
In my opinion the best way to deter someone from stealing your original work is to have indisputable PROOF of FIRST OWNERSHIP for it.
With this form of protection you can in the first instance notify the infringer that it is your creation and instruct him to remove the copy.

In the majority of cases when someone steals your work they will create a FALSE paper trail which can contradict your original documentation and it can come down to a judge in a court of law to decide which of you has the most CONVINCING proof. This can be very expensive and offputting- it happened to me before I developed my copyright protection system.

With sufficient proof you can notify the search engine which is displaying the infringed work and ask them to remove that site. They will do this if you can prove the work is yours.

I recommend placing a copyright notice on the bottom of each page of your site, preferrably using my system something like this
Site registered with Copyright Protection Services International
Registered copyright number ®© 125101

A number of my clients do this.
You can never stop someone from stealing but you can sue them when they do, once you have sufficient proof of first ownership.
Regards

[DanThies]

Disabling right click will not prevent viewing of the page source. It will cost you, though - a lot of your visitors will try to use the RMB to open links, or send a shortcut for your page to their desktop. So go ahead, annoy your visitors, then send me the URL and I'll send you the source code.

Another fun trick folks try is using Javascript to encrypt the source code and prevent it from being copied and pasted. This will prevent copying by all but the most savvy thieves, but it will also make your content invisible to search engines.

And even if you use Javascript to encode your whole page, someone can use the DOM Browser in Mozilla to read it.

You can't prevent your page from being copied, but if the infringer is using a US-based hosting provider a DMCA notification to the hosting provider will put an end to it fairly quickly.

If you're super ultra paranoid, you could engineer a copy-proof application with Java, but the whole effort gets pointless pretty quickly.

[jyt]

A good friend of mine provided me with this software http://www.antssoft.com , they offer a small software that you can use to encrypt pages, cost $29.95 USD, lucky me he also give me his registration, so I didn't have to pay for mine, it work great I used it for a client of mine http://www.siddickens.com which needed some protection for his product images. So this could be a quick solution. There is also a 30day trial so you can test for yourself.

[ajsaw]

As mentioned a number of times in this thread there is no absolute way of protecting your content.

However one method I use for protecting my graphics involves setting the graphic as a background in a table, cell, div or span element. I then stretch a transparent gif over the background. When someone tries to copy the graphic they only get the transparent gif.

Here's an example of the code...




<span style="background-image: url(images/my_image.jpg)">images/img349.gif</span>

[DanThies]

That might stop casual copying, but anyone using Internet Explorer can save the whole page and all images to disk in one shot, or just paste the URL for the image into the browser's location bar. If I'm really dying to steal your images, I can always take a snapshot from the screen, and you can't prevent that at all.

I'd be very cautious about using images in layers, even with transparency. I've got one site that seems to have been hit with a 'hidden text' penalty by Google, simply for having a dark background image behind a table with a white background.

A lot of the suggestions here would make your site's content basically invisible to search engines. That might be what you want, but it's something to consider before you let a *very* small minority of visitors dictate what you do to the vast majority's experience.

Seems to me that it's easier to make your intellectual property identifiable, and pursue infringers through DMCA notifications.

[rptasiuk]

These are all some good ideas, however, with a screen capture program and an application that converts image text to an editable Word document (similar in function to OCR) I am able to capture any text (or image) that is visible on my monitor. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent it... except make the text itself invisible :)

[johnz]

Any origional text or image becomes the Intellectual Property of the creator
and is automatically proctected under copyright laws.

Awards for copyright infringements can be up to $150,000 per infringement.
That not a typo, it's up to $150,000 per infringement

What this means if you steal a 10 photos. You could be held liable for up to $1,500,000.

In addition to being an IT Manager, my wife and I have a professional Photography business. Everyone of our images has an undetectable watermark that in a court of law will prove that we are the creator of the image. Professional photographers are very dogmatic about protecting their images. It's their livelyhood.

It takes a little more effort when it comes to documenting that you are the creator of text. The text usually must be word for word. But the court could award the same amount.

Something to keep in mind the next time you copy that image from a web site.

[valk97_goose]

johnz

I totally agree with you...

As I said earlier in this forum, these people are paranoid. If they wrote and published a book, would they protect their text by printing on white pages with white ink or pasting blank pages over their pictures.

Protect your web content using the law, it works...

[vfaulkner]

If you're worried about self-made graphics being taken, you might try adding a watermark or signature info. This is possible using Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop.





--------------------
VF
www.VFWDS.com
VF Web Design Solutions & Resources

[usabilityfreak]

My two cents:

Having skimmed this thread quickly, I believe an important issue may have been overlooked or at least understated:

Many Internet shoppers print off partial web pages off (the web pages you are trying to 'protect') while planning their purchase. Others, like myself, taking advantage of the fact that they are using a computer will prefer to copy/paste contact information from a web page rather than writing it down by hand (information harvesting when planning for a purchase is a good thing).

Preventing people from harvesting contact information from sites you have designed or from printing of portions of pages during their preparation for a purchase is something that really should not be an acceptable tradeoff in an effort to "protect your content". copyrightman made a good point mentioning legally protecting your work - as I'm sure others have, also.

Don't forget some of the main reasons of having a web site: informing the masses of your product/service, making it easy for the masses to find your web site (and hence your product/service), making it easier for the masses to contact you about your product/service.

[grampi]

It's easy to keep someone from selecting and copying to the clipboard any text on your webpage with this javascript from Dynamic Drive.
Disable viewers' ability to select text on your page, by installing this script. With it, dragging the mouse over text has no effect.

http://dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex9/noselect.htm

It works for me.

[PBITech]

You must be using IE.

Jim

[bikeshop29]

Hello, this issue is very important to me at the moment. I have had my site up for about 3 years. Earlier this week while doing a web search for my keywords, I found my site but listed under a different url. This person removed my contact info and added some affillite programs and is selling sports equipment using my content & images (word for word & image by image).

I've followed the advice in this thread (contacting him, his hosting company, the affiliate programs, ect.) but to no avail. Any further advice?
Thanks

Take a look. Do I have any recourse?
my site: http://caribbeanbiketours.com
other site: http://jhserver.com

[altacom]

I wish there was a way to protect my sites that didn't involve a ton of extra work that has no negative side effects. I really can see no reason that browsers have the ability to list a persons source code, then cut and paste it into their development program.

I have had on 2 occasions where I have been signed up to do websites, gotten them done, launched and then after a few days the Client calls and said he has someone else taking over the site. In one case his brother, and another her stepson. In both cases they launched the exact same site I built on another server.

And of course stiffed me for the second half of payment for the site. I always get 50% up front, non-refundable just to cover this type of thing. Learned that after the first one.

I put a print button or link to those pages that I wish to have printed, but really hate it when I know someone can just steal my work and use it either cheaper or Free. And it certainly isnt complimentary to my work when it is taken for these purposes.

[netsite.net]

Paste the code below just before the </head> tag. This will keep the average user from being able to highlight text or copy text. Even with Control-C. They can, however, view source and copy text that way through notepad, but you can add the disable right click script to help. Problem is they can still use the browser bar to view source. This can be disabled, but it's not recommended.

<script language="JavaScript1.2">

function disableselect(e){
return false
}

function reEnable(){
return true
}

//if IE4+
document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false")

//if NS6
if (window.sidebar){
document.onmousedown=disableselect
document.onclick=reEnable
}
</script>

[ben332211]

Disabling copy and paste, means people can't get something they might want, for non-stealing purposes... You could just use it on some areas, but really it's all pointless:

I can load up my cache folder, and get the source for any page I've viewed, any encoding that a browser can decode, can be decoded easily, I can take screen shot's etc...

If you check out this thread on eDevCafe, it has info on image cryptography or somesuch - enbedding encrypted data inside images, to prove your ownership of it...

If you discourage people by stating stuff about copyright and sueing any perpertrators, and email any people who use your things, then that will probably stop the most part...

Legal action can be expensive though, I had a copy of my sites PHP codes all taken and another site set up copying us, [trusting someone with FTP info] and I can't do much about it, not having any evidence, it's one word against another...

Here is the edevcafe link: http://forums.edevcafe.com/viewtopic.php?p=187130#187130

Someone mentioned a four letter acronym you can report copyright litigation to, could I get more info on that? Thanks. :D

[SyrenSong]

Anyway you look at it, a determined thief will find a way to steal your text if s/he really wants it. There's no totally foolproof way to protect your images or your text if you post it on the web.

What will end up happening is:
You'll either not get listed in the search engines 'cause they can't "see" your text;
You'll annoy visitors by disabling their right-clickability;
You'll alienate visitors using text-readers or speech browsers;
Folks won't see your page 'cause they've got javascript disabled; or
Folks won't see your page 'cause they've never installed Flash, Shockwave or whatever 'cause they don't like third-party software being automatically installed on their computer.

As for the thieves:
They will find a way to steal your text, even if they have to manually type it from their computer screen.
They are people who don't care about ownership.
They don't care about laws.
They have no respect for anyone - not even themselves!


It's like locking your car or your house/apartment. A determined thief will always find a way in, even if he has to break down the door or a window. Deterents like locks are just a way of keeping basically honest people honest. They don't stop thieves.

If you don't want someone copying the text from your website, the only 100% effective solution is don't put it there! It's as simple as that.

Syren

[Duncan Pollock]

I agree in general with Volk97's view that it's a compliment if someone helps themselves to all/part of your website.
There is, though, the question of copyright, which give you as an author the exclusive right to decide who makes use of what you've created. With this in mind, there's no reason good why you shouldn't add a footnote -- at the end of your page is probably the best place for it -- that says something like the following.
"The copyright to this web site as a whole is claimed and retained by me as its author, but permission is hereby granted for you to print out and/or distribute the site in its entirety or in part(s), provided that due acknowledgement of my authorship is included."

[ben332211]

"And not for comercial purposes"

possibly? If you are a business and someone copies your whole site, and has a foot note saying "Site corutesy of www.othersite.com" how many are gonna go there? hehe.

Ofcourse, it's like SyrenSong said, it's only a deterrant, but they can say they have permission, if you have that footnote, so you need to make sure you have the wording right, and probbaly, you'd want them to ask permission, or state that you _cannot_ use any of it, depending on teh nature of your site, or somesuch, rather than a "free for all" footnote.

[hypno]

Hi folks, thanks heaps for all your posts. Very interesting to read others comments. i have been working on a reference data base for over two years which i have now put on the net and i am concerned that someone else would be able to just copy all my work and start a similar business. I
don't think I am paranoid- just want to preserve all my hard work!
Thank you all so much for your input. Warm regards, hypno.

[DanThies]

George:

I just wanted to acknowledge this excellent post, and thank you because it's worth a lot more than two cents. There are so many reasons why these approaches (attempting to disable normal browser functions) are harmful, it's not even funny.

Not to mention that you can't stop a savvy thief from taking everything anyway. What you can do is follow the DMCA process, and get the offending content removed. Send a proper DMCA notification to Google and the other search engines, and these sites will at least lose their search engine listings.

If their hosting provider won't comply with a DMCA notification, you still have legal recourse, and someone else to hold accountable.


My two cents:

Having skimmed this thread quickly, I believe an important issue may have been overlooked or at least understated:

Many Internet shoppers print off partial web pages off (the web pages you are trying to 'protect') while planning their purchase. Others, like myself, taking advantage of the fact that they are using a computer will prefer to copy/paste contact information from a web page rather than writing it down by hand (information harvesting when planning for a purchase is a good thing).

Preventing people from harvesting contact information from sites you have designed or from printing of portions of pages during their preparation for a purchase is something that really should not be an acceptable tradeoff in an effort to "protect your content". copyrightman made a good point mentioning legally protecting your work - as I'm sure others have, also.

[www.ROMELO.com]

People try to protect their graphics by making them a background and others convert them into flash and there are sitll a few tricks here and there. I say you can't protect it if it is showing. Why? Anyone can just do a screen capture and "tada" your graphic is copied and saved.

Here is a real good idea (It will not be a popular one but it is good). If you don't want people to steal your artwork, the best solution is not to show it. Does it make sense? If they can't see it, they won't be able to steal it or have the urge to copy it.

[justinraff]

I have to reiterate what a few sensible posters have written here.

So called 'security' methods discussed in this thread are nothing more than gimmicks which add to the complexity of your site and amount to nothing more than a complete waste of time.

If you publish something to the world wide web (the key term here being publish), then unless you employ some kind of acme memory erasing technology on your exit page, you text may have been copied (shock! horror!). Images are just as easily copied. Remember that you have served the pages to the user's computer when they requested them!

Use copyright law to protect your publications. Legally peruse anyone who violates your copyright, just as in any other medium. Please avoid gimmicks.

[strat]

I have (unfotunately) had this very same thing happen to me. In my case, the thief was my direct competition (copywriter). When I visited their site, I discovered they had just copied and pasted my stuff - they never even bothered to reword it!

I made light of it on my site, and didn't mention the offending person's name or website for fear of slander charges or worse.

All the while, on every page of mine, there was/is a copyright notice. A lot of good that did.

Someone in this forum posted something along the lines of "information should be shared and stop being so paranoid" (apologies for lack of name and accuracy of quote). I am all for the sharing of information. However, stealing it and calling it your own is a different animal altogether. It really disgusted me that someone in the same profession as myself would put both their business and mine at risk without a second thought.

Anyway, I guess that's more like 5 cents as opposed to 2, but it had to be said :)

[Augustine]

Gone through all your ideas about protecting the content of site. But one of best option, I think, will be to make the whole content in PDF format.

For this, one need to have 'Adobe Acrobat Distiller'. Using this, we can convert any document into PDF format easily through the Print Function.
Most important being, we can set different security levels for changing the document, selecting text and graphics, ....

Augustine

[DanThies]

You'd have to disable printing to completely secure a PDF file, which is a major pain for users, but I distrbute a lot of content in PDF. We use PDF to make content portable, not to replace web pages, though.

And of course, others can distribute your PDF content without permission.

[barbour]

Hi, Can someone tell me how to disable 'view source'? Much appreciated.
Lee

[amateurseoguy]

I had a question that is sort of along the lines of the original question. I have a website available and it's indexed, could I use an encryption program that would encrypt my data and still make the web page viewable to a regular user. I am not talking something like cloaking, I found a website that offers a software program that encrypts website pages and says they are still viewable to the normal user, it just doesn't allow them to be copied by copying the entire html source. Please advise. Thanks for your help.

[vfaulkner]

What is the software used for encryption?

[amateurseoguy]

it's made by tagslock.com. It can encrypt part of the page, some pages or all pages in a site. It also says it won't effect PR on Google either.

[DanThies]

There are lots of programs that encrypt the page - just keep in mind that whatever you encrypt can't be read by search engines. Someone using Mozilla's DOM browser will still be able to copy everything, it's just more work.

[SyrenSong]

I have (unfotunately) had this very same thing happen to me. In my case, the thief was my direct competition (copywriter). When I visited their site, I discovered they had just copied and pasted my stuff - they never even bothered to reword it!...

....However, stealing it and calling it your own is a different animal altogether. It really disgusted me that someone in the same profession as myself would put both their business and mine at risk without a second thought.

Pirated Sites (http://www.pirated-sites.com/) has a collection of sites that have been stolen to one degree or another. It's a nice place to let folks know that someone has pirated part or all of your website.

My favorite to date are these two:
Original Site: http://www.sapient.com/
Pirated: http://www.matrixxnet.com/

HTH!
Syren

[tjdesigns]

no such thing as a perfect way for this
make everything on your site an image even the text and the disble right click then put a copyright then print the webpage off send it to yourself and do NOT open it. This should secure your site from copy righters, there are more extensive measure you could go to. e.g. marquee everything making it harder to document and disble right clcik however still the problem of ctrl+c

disble right click
<script language="JavaScript"> <!--

var message="Sorry, that function is disabled";
// Don't edit nothing below!

function click(e) {
if (document.all) {
if (event.button == 2) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}
if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=click;
// --> </script>

hope i've helped.

[champ]

Okay,

After reading just the first page of this, I thought that I would let you in are some good and bad information. (1) there is a program out there that will let you bring down an entire website, (you have to find out what the program is for yourself) with out having to have the user name or password. It will not let you bring down information as far as asp, php, privet folder, cgi-bin folder, and things like that. So if someone really wanted to get the info they could run out the store and buy the program. As for disabling right click for the view source, you can still go to view, then view source, and it will give you the information.

As for blind people, one of my customers is blind and they use jaws. If you block your html, they cannot read your site. But they can still read the alt tags from your site. With the java script, Jaws does not read it any longer.

The flash idea is a great idea in some cases, but when you look at it, if they download the site, that is just out the door anyway. All they will have to do is remove the code, since the coding is posted on the web anyway.

Well hope this helps. As some one already said, if they steal it and you see it, get them with the copyright laws. It’s just the same way as downloading music from the web.

Just my thoughts.....

[obietemp]

If I wanted to 'steal' code or text and you disabled the right click or I couldn't highlight, I would go to the source code.

Try frames in addition to disabling the right click and highlighting. It's harder to figure out your main pages that way.

[copyrightman]

Hi
I have to agree that copyright protection is the best way to go.
In America you are lucky to have the US Copyright Office with which to register your website.
Although I sometimes wonder if this is easy to do. I say this because I notice numerous web business out there offering to register your work for an average fee of $99US. The cost to register work with the US Copyright Office is only $30US.
Even thought your site is registered with them, it will not stop it being copied and used including your text.
Outside of the USA there are no government copyright offices.
My company provides an independent registration system together with tamperproof security envelope for sealing original work in.This envelope remains in the copyright owners possession at all times, they do not have to send their work to anybody. We are the only company that provides this type of service.
I suggest to my clients that they put a copyright notice at the end of their page showing that they have protected their site with my company and displaying the registered copyright number allocated to them.
This tells would be infringers that they have an independent system of protection and can produce proof of first ownership for their site. It can be a deterrent.

[fathom]

I do not condone copyright infringement but let us really think about this.

"Copyright by..." is all that is needed and an occassion look around the web using some unique phrase of your copy to see offenses, which can normally be act on quite quickly.

I have read many of the above posters "protection methods" and it makes me think... "what percentage of your website visitors actually steal your text copy or imagery".

Surely not 100%, I doubt even 10% and more probable than not less than 0.0001%. Therefore, does limiting the other 99.9999% honest visitors seem logical.

I remember in elementary school in the early days of the Cold War - we had to drill for a nuclear attack - and hide under our desks, as if that was a proper response to the threat! ;)

[dragonfly]

I don't mind my work being used for educational purposes, but the problem is my rivals keep taking parts of my copy and using it in their site as if they wrote it. I have written to them a number of times but they continue to do it. I write copy for a Native American site on their history and the items they sell, our rivals are selling the same things and pretend that what they do is original. The only thing I can do now is just grin and bear it. The funny thing is that everything we do at our place they copy, even down to the fact that I have opened my house as a B&B, and now they are doing the same. We have a south western coyote as our mascot, they have just adopted a south western style mule as theirs, my partner has long hair and wears a hat, the man in their place grew his hair and wears the same hat! It's gets very stupid at times. I really believe that if we put our head in an oven and killed ourselves they would do the same. LOL

Those who know us know that we are the originals, those who don't believe we are copying. I have written out some of the copy and posted it to myself, (snail mail) in a sealed envelope so I have the unopened envelope showing it is my work if ever I find the money to sue them. I have tried the no-right-click method but to no avail, oh well back to the drawing board.......

[meesels]

If you are that concerned about copyright infingement you can register your type of work at http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/register/info.htm, this is also a good place to report and mount an attack on the offening rip off merchant. It may also be an idea to stamp each page above the <HTML> tag in your site & add a terms and conditions page, this "may" make people think twice. Other than that your on your own young jedi.

eg.

<!-- Copyright Header
Begin Copyright

All material herein (c) Copyright 2003 Ideastream
All Rights Reserved.

End Copyright -->

"Any original literary, design, musical or artistic works can be registered.
This includes: Web-sites, advertisements, computer programs, manuscripts & synopsis, photography, logos, musical works & sound recordings, commercial documents, periodicals and games. Any work which may be used for financial gain should be registered." Source: copyrightservice.co.uk

[lehall]

[quote="jScott_Harris"]You can disable right-click and you can disable "view source" but that's about the extent of it. They might discourage a few and let them know you really don't want content taken from you site.

----How can you disable right-click and view source from frontpage or equivalent? I thought this was a site-specific, browser specific option from the user side?

[LorraineH]

At the end of the day if they can read your text they can copy it - simply by printing off, taking a screenshot, etc and retyping.

So there is no way to stop them copying your text one way or another.

So the next best thing is to accept that they *can* copy it whatever you do and find a way to a) dissuade them or b) give you something that will make them want to remove it when found out, or give you the right to compensation for it.

I have found that the following clause in the terms of use of my web sites works wonders!

"The reproduction of any content from this site without a written licence from (site owner's name) is subject to a charge of £2,000 for past usage and you will be notified of future usage terms. Removal of unlicenced content does not void the £2,000 fee for past usage."

Of course the terms of use also state that using the web site constitutes acceptance of these terms, etc.

1 If they bother to read the terms of use this is sufficient to dissuade most from copying.

2 If they don't bother reading the terms of use when they get found out and get a letter or email stating the terms of use and accompanied by an invoice pretty much guarantees they will instantly remove the copy from their site.

The one person who tried to fight it when they copied something from one of my sites, consulted with their lawyer - I can only assume their lawyer told them to pay up - because they duly forwarded a cheque 3 days later! :-)

[ajwilder]

Hi, I had similar concerns about people copying test material from my new website.
However, I spent 30.00 and found Aerotags Tagslock Pro. It disables the right click button on the mouse. Try copying text at my site -

http>//www.helpchildrenlearn.org.

Hope this helps.
Amanda

[fathom]

Hi, I had similar concerns about people copying test material from my new website.
However, I spent 30.00 and found Aerotags Tagslock Pro. It disables the right click button on the mouse. Try copying text at my site -

http>//www.helpchildrenlearn.org.

Hope this helps.
Amanda

Had no trouble what so every Amanda.

Using Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and most other browsers no problem (stop functionality in Internet Explorer only).

Or

Select edit, Save as - now its my page to edit as I please.

Or

Select View, view source - got your text that way too.

Or

Open a WYSIWYG and do a port 80 download.

Or

Using web management software crawl your domain and grab everything accessible including most of your non-public files.

Point: A locked door keeps honest people honest - a theft doesn't care about the lock (a "fat mac hammer" takes care of that, a rock for a window, etc.).

What you are effectively doing though is limiting the usability of your website for the masses - and the theft still gets what you don't want them to have. :(

<added>Most consumers may only use Internet Explorer and these are the honest folks - most people that edit web pages have multiple browsers since they need to ensure their design formats properly.

It however is not "profitably" for Aerotags Tagslock Pro to beta other browsers since 80+% use Internet Explorer. The thefts use the other 20% though.</added> :(

[Klas]

I think you shoukd juse PDF-files for "copywrites".

[RJH]

Hi,
I use http://www.weblockpro.com/indexphp to protect my important pages.. I really recommend it and it also has many other features like concealing source code to browsers but not robots, adding passwords to pages, disable right click, print screen, caching and image toolbar also compresses whitespace in html to reduce size...

Hope this helps

[fathom]

"Save As" still works great! Guess it doesn't work after all.

You're really missing the point of all this. You cannot stop anyone from copywrite infringement "if" they want what you wrote or create.

You probably will:

Stop a person from personal use.

Stop people from gathering background research/ print for reference and potential coming back to your site to buy from you.

Stop people from grabbing a snippet for a link and description to you.

Stop people from viral marketing - because they can't figure out how to sent your precise information to a friend.

Stop people from adding to favorites/bookmarking your website (because they are use to using the right mouse button).

Stop people from reloading/refreshing the page because of a format problem (because they are use to using the right mouse button).

Stop them from creating a shortcut, email a friend, translating (because they are use to using the right mouse button).

All for the sake of what... "Not stopping a theft".

Best course... occassional check unique content phrases in Google, and then report them. I wouldn't even notify the offending company - what's more the report is crawlable - and everyone will know the culprit.

http://www.google.com/dmca.html

A sample (http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=573)

and,

Directory of Service Provider Agents for Notification of Claims of Infringement
http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/



This method provides exceptional results... you get pure satisfaction and total resolve without limiting those that you put the website up for in the first place.

If you don't care about your target markets... use all that garbage software and pretend you're protecting yourself... but you're really not!

[copyrightman]

Dragonfly,
I understand your frustration. However the method of sending work to yourself by registered post in an ordinary envelope is not in itself sufficient.
You may be accused of tampering with the envelope and placing predated work into it. Ordinary envelopes can easily be opened and resealed.

Take a look at my website and see how I developed and provide a tamperproof security envelope, which is backed up by an independent registration system giving you proof of first ownership.
I regulary see authors being advised to use various companies for the protection of their work. I would say to these
why do you have to send your work to these people? why should you have to pay an annual charge to them for the protection of YOUR work?
What happens when you decide not to continue paying this annual charge? Is your work unsealed and returned to you,as is the case with one particular company.

I came into the Copyright Protection business because my daughter had one of her songs stolen and used by another who claimed he had written it.
As a result I carried out a great deal of research into the various methods of protecting original work. I was horrified at the fallasies and loopholes in so many of these methods, and the ongoing cost.

I developed a system which is low cost- a ONE TIME ONLY payment. You do NOT have to part with your original work. You have irrefutable independent proof of first ownership of your original work

We are the ONLY company who provide this level of protection.
In America there is the US Copyright Office, but even they do not provide protection for many types of original creations which require proof of first ownership. Outside of the US. there are no official government protection offices.

You can never stop someone from stealing your work no matter what blocks you place on your site. They can simply write down the information they wan't to steal and retype for uploading on to theirs.
By having irrefutable proof of ownership you can go after these offenders and sue them.

As someone else in this thread said you can notify the search engine of the offending website,and with proof of your ownership they will remove the offender.
My motto is If it is worth creating, it is worth protecting.

[WebSpin]

Hello.
In regard to protecting your site against users copying your text or source, a great place to visit would be Dynamic Drive. They have a series of free copy and paste scripts that do the job and are very easy to use.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com

[davebarnes]

On the WebLock Pro site it says:
"Try to hack my web page!
This page is locked with WebLock Pro. To take a look at what its features look like
in action, go ahead and try the following things right now...
Try to view the source of this page
Try to right click on this page
Try to select text on this page
Try to move your mouse over this link and see the URL
Try to print this page to your printer
Try to save this page to your hard drive and view it
Try to take a screen-shot of this page"

Well, using Opera 7 (www.opera.com) as my browser, I could not:
view the source
save the page to my hard drive and see the source

I could:
Right click.
Select text.
See the URL on the link.
Print the page. I printed it to a PDF file.
Take a screen shot using FullShot (www.inbit.com).

So, the only thing I can't do is see the source. Well, that would not help the person who had his/her promotional text stolen.

[MyPaintPalette]

After reading 3 pages of replies, here's my 2, 5, no 10 cents to add to the mix! I'm a decorative painter and have lots of images of my work on my site. In my community of artists we are known amongst each other to innocently copy others' work onto our hard drive or print out each other's work for personal reference and inspiration...for our own future work. Some allow this, some use no right-click scripts and options.

I don't doubt after having been published a few times through online artist magazines myself that someone somewhere has copied or printed out my own work in one way or another. Mind you that my name is usually shown on all my work inside these pictures, but the latest thing brought to my attention is that maybe I should be putting my name/URL on all the actual pictures themselves as well, if for no other reason than to remind the viewer where it came from, for possible advertisment purposes, or plainly just to try and keep someone from claiming it as their own on their own website.

I've seen an online acquaintance of mine who makes country style graphics for personal websites get her entire website stolen with any personal links or information simply replaced by the new "owner's" info and links...and this was all done by one young crafty preteen! Since then, several graphics artists have starting charging for their work, have included a no right-click script on their websites, require purchasers and users of their graphics to use the no right-click script where their graphics are used at, use watermarks within their images and several have started groups and organizations to condemn and explain about graphics theft, etc. It really shook up their world although this preteen was maybe just the last straw to the graphics artists community since several of these artists have had to deal with thievery in one form or another before this happened.

As for my art work being copied...I say Fine, put up pictures of my work (those that have no name mark on them or those with name marks on them which I know can ultimately be cleansed with a picture editor program), and when you're hired to do a job or teach a class based on MY talents and the work comes out crappy, please don't call me...give the customers my name and number and tell THEM to call me to hire me to fix YOUR crappy, cheap imitational job!

I agree with the poster who said give some leeway to those things that can be used from your site. Welcome it, allow for your assistance even. But mark your images with your watermarks or visual text marks, implement the no right-click script if you must, even hide text in background colors or cloak or whatever else it is you feel you must do. But for your site's sake, check to see if it does mess with your rankings, keep an eye on your stats, watch your competitors and their site(s), etc.

If you do find your competitors are copying your text verbatum and using your images, make a note of that on your own site for all the world wide web to see. Welcome YOUR viewers to view that site and leave feedback at your site on what they thought of the thief's work. Then eventually you can leave a note in your competitor's email, comments section or guestbook telling how popular their site has been for you in getting a good laugh. OR ask your viewers to write that site letting them know what they think of copyright issues and of their stealing from you. Like some, you could be decent and email or call them to ask for the removal of your text/images...OR just make an example of them on your site, or threaten to take them to court. Take your pick. The world wide web is full of solutions! :-)
Alicia

PS...For the Native American history site (is that accurate?), if they are copying what you do, what you wear, what you say, growing hair to match your hair's length for site pictures, everything, then put a poll on your site asking what the viewers think of this other site's actions. Ask them what they suggest you do and give them some options to pick from...then do it! LOL Maybe get some inside info on them and copy them in a fun loving way. Can you get real pictures of them? Maybe put some different hair on their pictures, exaggerate it and use this picture to advertise on your site, and say "courtesy of soandsosite.com". Of course it might get dirty at that point and someone may receive some retaliation, but hey, it's a thought!

[copyrightman]

Boy from one simple question we have had some varied and interesting even amusing solutions.
However once you realize that if someone wants to infringe your original work they can find a way to do so.
Therefore if you feel it is serious enough to warrant doing something about it you have to resort to legal action. But before going down that road make sure you have all the neccessary proof and back up, to enable your lawyer-solicitor in Europe and Australia, to present an indisputable case.
In America US Citizens MUST register their work with the US Copyright Office if they wish to sue for copyright infringement.
Some Americans double up and obtain independent proof of ownership.
For those original works that cannot be protected by the US Copyright Office do obtain independent proof of ownership.
Outside USA copyright owners should use the services of independent Copyright Protection companies.
BUT do choose with great care as these companies vary greatly.

Do work out the ongoing cost of having your work held in storage by them- nearly all of them require you to send your work to them for storage.

Do enquire as to what happens to your work should you decide not to continue paying the annual charge.

Make sure that the work you send to them is sealed in the correct manner, although I don't know how you can verify this.

Do ask what happens to your work should they go out of business.
It can be a minefield out there trying to choose the right company for you. BUT it is a neccessary evil if you are serious about protecting your work
And yes I would ask you to check out my service and compare it with my comperitors.
At the end of the day the Legal road is the only way to secure compensation and justice, do not become one of the unfortunate statistics who had to drop the case because they had insufficient proof of ownership.

I do not agree with the person who said less than 1% of people will steal or copy your work ONE person stealing or copying your work is one too many

If it is worth creating, it is valuable, therefore it is worth protecting

[fathom]

I do not agree with the person who said less than 1% of people will steal or copy your work

Well if you have some web exposure and say you get 1 million visitors a year -- 1% is 10,000 visitors copying your work and forgetting that there are literately 10's of thousands of sites on the same topic probably every bit as good as yours -- that's how many people breaking the law?


ONE person stealing or copying your work is one too many

Sure thing - agree totally... I look at things this way... I treat visitors as visitors and provide a copyright notice to remind them.

When one happens to steal (probably a competitor), I take action against them and inconvenience myself, and not all those willing to pay.

[LorraineH]

Dragonfly,
I understand your frustration. However the method of sending work to yourself by registered post in an ordinary envelope is not in itself sufficient.
You may be accused of tampering with the envelope and placing predated work into it. Ordinary envelopes can easily be opened and resealed.



Agreed - the above is not sufficient.

What is needed is to place work in envelope and then sign across each seal - ie continuous repeated signature along every seal of the envelope. Then place a strip of sellotape over the signed seals and post to yourself. When received keep unopened.

If the sellotape is removed the signature will show signs of being broken as the sellotape will lift parts of the paper envelope and signature. This is sufficient proof of ownership/creation on the postmarked date (at least in the UK) and I would imagine would be acceptable in other countries as it prooves date and also prooves the envelope has not been tampered with (as it would show signs of damage if it had).

[copyrightman]

Hi Lorraine.
Yes that is good method,...however how do you prove that you did not sign date and place the sellotape over the seal only yesterday. You could have had the envelope in your possession for months, opened it and placed predated work into it. Then signed and taped it.
This is the type of accusation of tampering you are open to. The infringer could have done what I said above and claim first ownership. The judge would have to decide which of you is right.

Here is a copy of a question to the US Copyright on this method of protection..
I’ve heard about a “poor man’s copyright.” What is it?The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

Independent proof of ownership backs up your claim,and date of creation, posting etc. Unfortunately in this day and age you need as much proof as you can possibly have, if for no other reason than to provide your lawyer with a cast iron case and thus cut down on costs...to YOU.
Regards
John

[SyrenSong]

I like Lorraine's idea. It's a nice way to prove lack of tampering, but copyrightman has a good point, also.

A way of further proving that the envelope wasn't tampered with would be to have a notary public witness the sealing of the envelope and placing their dated signature and seal on the envelope, then convering both with the cellophane tape.

As a notary is a government official, this would have a similar effect to submitting the document to the US Copyright Office.

I'm only guessing here, but I would think other countries would have someone similar they could use to verify the date the envelope was sealed. Perhaps someone in the local constabulary or courts....?

Syren

[sajw]

You can never stop anyone who is determined enough, but here's a few ideas:

1. Here's an example of a script used for right clickers. I found it about a year ago and it works great. I didn't create it, so make sure you give credit to the creator. It doesn't disable right click, it just pops up a message. Take the following script and paste it in notepad or dreamweaver (if using dreamweaver erase all tags and then paste). When finished save it as artis.js and place it in the folder which contains the page you want to protect.

<!--
// No rightclick script v.2.5
// (c) 1998 barts1000
// barts1000@aol.com
// Don't delete this header!

var message="You do not have permission to copy anything from this site!"; // Message for the alert box

// Don't edit below!

function click(e) {
if (document.all) {
if (event.button == 2) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}
if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=click;
// -->

2. Take this piece of code and paste it into the head of the actual html document you want to protect:

<SCRIPT SRC="artis.js"></SCRIPT>


You can change the message to say what ever you want.
(This doesn't protect ctrl c)

Another idea is to simply create your text as an image.....It's just more of a pain in the butt for people to copy. Do this and use the scipt above and a lot of people probably won't bother going any further.

Hope this helps someone........If not, sorry!

[KTackman]

I have to agree that there is no "totally safe" way to safeguard your content.

At a bare minimum, most sites can be printed out when visited, then (re)scanned, then all the content is digitally available to be copied, altered, etc.

Granted, loss of resolution may occur, but this method bypasses nearly ALL the security-type measures.

[press711]

You can never stop anyone who is determined enough, but here's a few ideas:

1. Here's an example of a script used for right clickers. I found it about a year ago and it works great. I didn't create it, so make sure you give credit to the creator. It doesn't disable right click, it just pops up a message. Take the following script and paste it in notepad or dreamweaver (if using dreamweaver erase all tags and then paste). When finished save it as artis.js and place it in the folder which contains the page you want to protect.

<!--
// No rightclick script v.2.5
// (c) 1998 barts1000
// barts1000@aol.com
// Don't delete this header!

var message="You do not have permission to copy anything from this site!"; // Message for the alert box

// Don't edit below!

function click(e) {
if (document.all) {
if (event.button == 2) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
if (document.layers) {
if (e.which == 3) {
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}
if (document.layers) {
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
}
document.onmousedown=click;
// -->

2. Take this piece of code and paste it into the head of the actual html document you want to protect:

<SCRIPT SRC="artis.js"></SCRIPT>


You can change the message to say what ever you want.
(This doesn't protect ctrl c)

Another idea is to simply create your text as an image.....It's just more of a pain in the butt for people to copy. Do this and use the scipt above and a lot of people probably won't bother going any further.

Hope this helps someone........If not, sorry!

Solution : Right Click .. Keep your right click pressed DONT RELEASE till I say so .. The message will appear "You do not have permission to copy anything from this site!" ... Panic a little .. Now press the space key .. the message disappears ..finally release your mouse right click .. *magic* the right click menu appears ...
OR Simply disable Javascript OR Click on View .. Source.
The Internet is meant for public viewing and publishing .. If i cant copy I can still type.. You can only try to make it more difficult, but where there is a mean there is a way. So let it go ... if you do know of anyone using your text .. send him a few emails first and let him know that you are sensetive about it and request him to remove it .. If he dosent listen and gets you very very angry ... you can always submit his email to some spam lists for revenge .. or just go to a hackers list and place a message there saying my site www.blahblah.com is indestrctible ..next thing every hacker in the world will be getting his site downn for you ....I AM KIDDING ... you can always bring the matter to public notice by placing a message on your site and other places his visitors might go ... also try contacting there partners.. most of the internet sites are reselling some product.. contact the distributor of the productor and let them know... I hope this helps ..

keep the internet free and friendly for all users.

[Bid-City]

Hi,
The simplest solution i can think of is to diable right clicking on the pages of the site. Hope this helps.

[sajw]

I for one don't care if people take my stuff. I put pop-ups on right clicks to give people information on purchasing good copies of photos etc and for copyright info. If they really want the stuff, there going to take it no matter how much you protect it. Even if you disable printing, right clicking, viewing the source code and every other possible way of getting the info, viewers can simply just print screen and paste. My tips are simply a way of frustrating some users, which in turn may lose return visitors, but if protecting your stuff is that important to you then I'm sure losing a few people won't be an issue. On a different note, does anyone no how to password a gallery using photopost. I no this isn't the right place to ask, but what the heck, thought i'd give it a try.

STU

[Mili]

A question out of curiosity:

Aside from the infringer, shouldn't the Server that is hosting the offending site also be considered in this scenario?

It would seem that "aiding and abetting" a theft of intellectual property would not exactly be something the Web Host would want to have in its' reputation.

Any thoughts on this?

- Mili -

[press711]

There have been many law suites on this, but without getting into any details the hosting provider is not responsible for your content. It is similar to you leasing a place from someone and growing illegal drugs in the backyard/basement. ISP's have disclaimer clauses in agreements which the site owner signs. Technically, it is too difficult for an ISP f a large size to check content and copyright infringment by every site hosted on their machines.


MEMBER CONDUCT
You understand that all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages or other materials ("Content"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated. This means that you, and not Yahoo, are entirely responsible for all Content that you upload, post or otherwise transmit via the Service. Yahoo does not control the Content posted via the Service and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content. You understand that by using the Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable.
Taken from Geocities Terms of Agreement

Besides the host there are several proxy servers which will make cache copies of webpages including your ISP and your own machine which stores local copies of every website you visit.

[SyrenSong]

Aside from the infringer, shouldn't the Server that is hosting the offending site also be considered in this scenario?

It would seem that "aiding and abetting" a theft of intellectual property would not exactly be something the Web Host would want to have in its' reputation.

Any thoughts on this?

Actually, I've heard of some cases where the offended party has notified the offending site's hosting company and the site has been removed.

What seems particularly effective is (politely) notifying the hosting company that a theft has occurred, and then suggesting (again politely) that if the case goes to court, the hosting company could be implicated in any legal action.

Most hosting companies don't want to be involved in anything like that, so they are generally quite willing to remove the copycat website.

BTW, the offending site can also be reported to Google and other search engines, with a request that the offending site be removed from directory listings.

And one other way to prove a site was yours first is by checking the history of the site at Internet Archive (a.k.a. The WayBack Machine) (http://www.archive.org/).

They've got a copy of most sites on the web (though things have been a bit squirrely over the past year and some info is missing) and have a record of changes over the course of time that the site has been up on the Internet. It can be a great way to prove your site (and it's content) was posted ot the WWW first, if your site is in their archive.

HTH!
Syren

[press711]

Actually, I've heard of some cases where the offended party has notified the offending site's hosting company and the site has been removed.

Majority of the Hosting companies will not take such extreme steps unless it is an adult site or an extreme case which is offending a large amount of users or a particluar sector of users(including religiously sensetive data).

[Mili]

Hi Press711:

I hear what you're saying, but if in the moment I am fit to be tied when I read a word-for-word content description of my site, and then look down and see that the site isn't mine ... hey, I'm gonna cause as many ripples as I can.

Maybe the majority of the Web Hosts won't care, since recipes and cultural info aren't exactly porno, but I will have done my darnednest to make life a bit uncomfy for the thief.

Maybe a good combination of many suggestions here, all blasted out at the same time, will give the uncreative creep a run for his money, and possibly make him wish he never came upon my site.

Won't know till I try. Meanwhile, I'm printing out this entire forum topic and placing it in a folder marked "Go Get 'Em, Mili". And should the occasion ever arise, bet on that I'll be burning the midnight candles to defend my baby ... because my original creativity is my brainchild.

But, I'll also keep your words in the back of my mind, just in case my thinking is errant.

- Mili -

[press711]

Hi Press711:

I hear what you're saying, but if in the moment I am fit to be tied when I read a word-for-word content description of my site, and then look down and see that the site isn't mine ... hey, I'm gonna cause as many ripples as I can.

Maybe the majority of the Web Hosts won't care, since recipes and cultural info aren't exactly porno, but I will have done my darnednest to make life a bit uncomfy for the thief.

Maybe a good combination of many suggestions here, all blasted out at the same time, will give the uncreative creep a run for his money, and possibly make him wish he never came upon my site.

Won't know till I try. Meanwhile, I'm printing out this entire forum topic and placing it in a folder marked "Go Get 'Em, Mili". And should the occasion ever arise, bet on that I'll be burning the midnight candles to defend my baby ... because my original creativity is my brainchild.

But, I'll also keep your words in the back of my mind, just in case my thinking is errant.

- Mili -

You should actually feel proud , he has acknowledge your work to be worth duplicating.

[Mili]

In this particular case, it's my style of writing that's being taken, head-body-hand-and-foot. I'm willing to share my knowledge, but my common-folk language is what's branding me, branding my name, and branding my website. It's me, all the way.

And the thief knows it. He's capitalizing on my style of writing. He's hurting my credibility. He's impersonating me, nay, cloning me, hanging on to my shirt-tails to make himself an easy profit.

The only thing I'll be proud of is putting the hurt back on him, for daring to leech off me, without my consent. If I fail, it won't be for lack of trying.

Guess that's just the way I see things.

- Mili -

[press711]

In this particular case, it's my style of writing that's being taken, head-body-hand-and-foot. I'm willing to share my knowledge, but my common-folk language is what's branding me, branding my name, and branding my website. It's me, all the way.

And the thief knows it. He's capitalizing on my style of writing. He's hurting my credibility. He's impersonating me, nay, cloning me, hanging on to my shirt-tails to make himself an easy profit.

The only thing I'll be proud of is putting the hurt back on him, for daring to leech off me, without my consent. If I fail, it won't be for lack of trying.

Guess that's just the way I see things.

- Mili -

A sigh of relief. Thank God, I am not him.. You are scary .. LOL :) . Nice site.. Keep up the good work ..

[carbonize]

There is no way to stop a person from copying text from a website. You can use a No Right Click script but as already stated you can just turn javascript off or click View - Source.

You could encrypt the source code using hex or unicode, or make the site in flash, but even this is easily bypased by hilighting the text and using the shortcut for copy, Ctrl + C.

You could resort to making the text an image so there is no text to copy but all this does is make work for yourself and make them resort to just tping the text themselves.

All you can reasonably do is make it clear on the site that all work is copyrighted. Then if you find a site that has "borrowed" your work you first email the webmaster asking politely for it's removal. If that fails you then email the sites host as most hosts have rules against hosting material that is in breach of copyright. This is made more potent by the fact that it is the host that is in breach of the copyright by hosting it rather than the webmaster.

If contacting the host fails then you may resort to legal proceedings but these are costly, and hard to prove.

[carju1]

Hi Milli,

Your answer is in the last few posts if you interpret them correctly. Do you know a laywer who owes you a favour? Get them to write a quick note to the thiefs hosting company simply asking them for all their details as he/she's preparing a case for you and wants to include them in the proceedings.

If the hoster is an independent I Bet they dump the thief lickety split.

If you don't have a lawyer just get some nice headed paper done up and write it your self. Probably have the same effect and may be cheaper. Of course <cough cough> you mustn't claim you are a lawyer but I'm sure its quite with in your legal rights to prepare a case to sue someone as a private citizen (just don't let the hosters know that your just a private citizen. I've seen your site and I just know you could write that letter balancing the thin line of truth and ommision of details).

Don't get mad - get even
Julian

[yesmamprods]

I don't know how many sites I've been to that had right clicking disabled yet I can still go to View > Source in IE (don't know what it is in Netscape but I'm sure it exists cause it used to be even better than IE. You could even see the source for the index page for frames in NN).

Put your copyright. If you're really paranoid get something like this (http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/HTMLOptim/index.htm) and run all your html through it before you upload. It doesn't make it invisible or impossible to copy, bur I sure as heck don't want to wade through it trying to figure it out! (do a view source on the above URL to see what it does)

[copyrightman]

A way of further proving that the envelope wasn't tampered with would be to have a notary public witness the sealing of the envelope and placing their dated signature and seal on the envelope, then convering both with the cellophane tape.
Before you do this one check out the cost and ask the notary if they keep records of the transaction. Also in the case of a court case will they supply a statutory declaration about the date,details of the transaction and how much that will cost.
I have heard of some hefty fees being quoted for this service and no these quotes did not entail them keeping a record of the transaction.
I still believe INDEPENDENT back up is the only way to provide copyright owners with sufficient proof of first ownership.
This back up removes the senario of Joe Bloggs using the services of his brother in law to witness his sealing and signing...don't think I am being paranoid here I have a client who has first hand experience of someone doing this.

Someone else in here said it can be hard to prove a case of infringement, No it can be easy if you keep all pertinent documentation,drafts etc of your creation and keep them in a way that avoids you being accused of tampering with them.
Too many people do not do this.

A final note for readers in USA
Wheras it is not obligatory to register your work with the US Copyright Office, you MUST register with them if you intend to sue for copyright infringement.
Remember if it is worth creating it is worth protecting. You cannot stop someone from stealing your work but you can take him to court and get compensation.
Does anyone remember a case some years ago where the infringer had to pay out approx$350 million US dollars to a copyright owner? ...

[carbonize]

If you're really paranoid get something like this (http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/HTMLOptim/index.htm) and run all your html through it before you upload. It doesn't make it invisible or impossible to copy, bur I sure as heck don't want to wade through it trying to figure it out! (do a view source on the above URL to see what it does)

All this does is put everything on a few lines. All you would have to do is copy and paste the html into a HTML editor that had formatting and tell it to format it. You can encrypt html using java even this is bypassable and can stop people with java disabled from viewing your site.

A good trick to prove if your content is being stolen is to use bad spelling and the occasional made up information. 9 times out of 10 they will copy it as is and not bother to spell check it or verify the facts.

As for proving when you published the information a cheap and unreliable method would be to use the archive that sites like http://www.google.com and http://www.alltheweb.com very unreliable but as you have no connection with them they are very good evidence.

To find out if a particular bit of your site has been stolen simply goto http://www.google.com and put a part of the text that you think will not be common into the search box between quotes. For example I could find out if this post has been stolen by searching for "java even this is bypassable".

[Mili]

Hi Everyone:

If my original creative content draws attention from the general public, I am paving the way towards expansion into a limitless area that will provide our family with an always welcome revenue.

Testing the waters in the Internet has been my way of testing my skills, and of seeing what works and what doesn't. Our list of original and possible marketable products has grown in our first short year. That's good.

The pitfalls are also noticeble, and once we see how others deal with them, we can evaluate what's right for us and what our limits are. That's also good, even if the taste is bitter.

Thanks to this forum, we have a better idea of where we stand, legalwise, and also of how to plan our strategies concerning intellectual property. I disagree that it is paranoia --- better to say that someone threw an unexpected sucker punch, and after the stun of the blow, we wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen many more times. Reality is ... there are more sides to the coin than we thought.

Thanks for all the answers, really. Even those that we disagree with have made us think.

- Mili -

[wizwow]

Well...
Try this.
An Iframe (cannot view source of I-frame)
Create Source Page.
Add a DIV over the top. Make Div move as page is scrolled (absolute position)
make sure Div is larger than viewable I-frame area.
Add table to Div (100% x 100%)
Table is filled with clear gif (tiled as a background)

Now when the page loads, the content is in an I-frame and the page has a clear gif over the text to prevent highlighting and copying.

Now - serve the page from a Server-side javascript and even the source code wont reveal it's location.

Lots of work... but it keeps folks from cutting and pasting.

That being said... if they want it bad enough, they will just retype it.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

[Mr Fudge]

Isn't innovation plaguerism that hasn't happened yet?
One neat way to find these instances web wise is to copy and paste a particularly detailed section of your copy into Google's search box and see what shows. In my experience the culprits are usually small time and not worth the worry, so perhaps the best route to maintain your sanity IS to take it as a compliment.
Look to join a Copyright Protection Service that will give you free litigation against the big dogs.
Steve
www.oldmap.co.uk

[dragonfly]

Maybe we should send our new originals to each other to keep safe with postmarks/ tape and signatures intact, or even email each other with the copy/art work, then print the whole email out and keep it the date it was sent will be on the email. Then if anyone steals the work we will have the originals with us and can prove it.

Worth a thought anyway..........

Mili I feel exactly as you do, in my case it is worse because their business is just up the road from us, every time I change the website, they change theirs to look like ours, not exactly the same but similar, and that drives me nuts too. I put myself into my writing too and to see it on another site as theirs makes me angry. Often they will just take a sentence or two but these sentences are the meat of the piece......

[carbonize]

Well...
Try this.
An Iframe (cannot view source of I-frame)
Create Source Page.
Add a DIV over the top. Make Div move as page is scrolled (absolute position)
make sure Div is larger than viewable I-frame area.
Add table to Div (100% x 100%)
Table is filled with clear gif (tiled as a background)

Now when the page loads, the content is in an I-frame and the page has a clear gif over the text to prevent highlighting and copying.

Now - serve the page from a Server-side javascript and even the source code wont reveal it's location.
Cheers,

Then after all that they just view source and there's the URL of the iframe. Or failing that Opera actually has th eoption to view a frames source code when you right click. So basically a lot of hard work that would probably screw up how your page looks on a lot of browsers for no gain.

The only true protection against theft is to copyright your work and make it clear, by means of an entry page, that anybody viewing your site is agreeing to respect your work and to not copy any of it. You could probably get someone to type it up in legal jargon for you but if they have to agree to all this before entering the site then it makes legal action easier. Providing you can prove you created the work first of course.

[wizwow]

From immediately above:
"Then after all that they just view source and there's the URL of the iframe."

Note this last line of my post instructions:
"Now - serve the page from a Server-side javascript and even the source code wont reveal it's location."

We use ASP and Javascript on the Server to 'encrypt' the url. Works great, and no one can see the source code of the frame.
Cheers,

[carbonize]

You also missed my point. Opera has a "view frames source" option in the right click menu, even Internet explorer will show you an Iframes source code if you right click and select view source. As many people have already said, there is no way to stop your code being viewed. I have yet to find a web page that I couldn't get the source code of within five minutes.

[wizwow]

Sorry...
You are correct that you can see the source of an IFrame - But if you cannot decipher the URL for the page it is useless. We use ASP and DServer-side javascript to 'encode' the source.
Visit the page I linked below and you will see the image source code is 'encoded' so to speak.

This is the code that is passed to the page for images, but it works for pages as well...

<script language="javascript" src="http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/jstest2.asp"></script>

This will definitely hide the source.

Page:
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/default.asp

Cheers,
Don

[SyrenSong]

Again - Did I miss something? The image is here http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/5.jpg, and I had no problems finding it using View Source in Mozilla and IE.

Syren

[carbonize]

Yes I see what you mean. Although I did get the url of the first picture http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/1.jpg

Another technique for watermarking pictures is PHP scripting. For example http://www.freddys-utilities.co.uk/no_photo.jpeg this uses an image for the background then puts your ip over it and has a counter in the middle. Save the picture and you get the text with it. I had the PHP coder that made this do me an text verification script for my guestbook to stop spamming. He used the same script to put random numbers over an image that the user had to type into an input box.

[carbonize]

Again - Did I miss something? The image is here http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/5.jpg, and I had no problems finding it using View Source in Mozilla and IE.

Syren

It does actually say on the page
NOTE: This page is encrypted. If you choose view source you will notice that you cannot get the image file address for the top and middle image. Lower image is not encrypted as the "image display" is defaulted to view without a watermark protection.

[wizwow]

Wow - what a night...
We have been on this for a while, so we were thrown a little by the Mozilla Page Info box.
We had given this to over 100 users for testing and no-one was able to get the images. (The protected images - that is.)
Only a few of our users knew about view source, so they were trying to find the image there... no luck.
However, the Mozilla Page Info Box shows the image as it is pulling from cache. Question: how many users (not net-savvy web designers) know about this box? From our initial investigation we have found no one who knew where it was or what it was for. Remember, we are consumer testing. BTW... the image has always been available in the cache, but we don't know many consumers that can get to that point. And to this point, we have no control - yet.
We are exploring two tech options at this point: eliminating the image from cache, or changing the name of the image for display purposes only to a single image name so it just overwrites itself in the cache. Lots of work to do simple protecting of ones work. But it is the times we live in.
Why we did it...? We have seen photogs getting their stuff printed and costing them money (mostly in the wedding/portrait area). Did you know that printers are coming with "print from web" in their dialogue boxes rendering very nice 5x7 images... Scary if you are in the business of selling your work.
So now, we have to notify our users of this issue. Our immediate work around is to add an option to the admin allowing the photog to "Protect from Mozilla" which will place a browser detect on the page and simply display a note: You are on Mozilla / Netscape. Due to security issues we cannot allow the gallery to display." Option is in photogs hands.
Our stats for three photogs this am...
1. 34,000 IE / 345 Mozilla
2. 25,000 IE / 401 Mozilla
3. 56,000 IE / 1019 Mozilla

So, bye bye Mozilla. Rest in peace.

BTW, for those who say that if you don't want people to steal it don't put it on the web, I just don't buy it. You can see my work, you cannot take it home. Just like everyday in the mall. Stealing is well defined.

Long rant.
Cheers,
Don

[swstyles]

Again - Did I miss something? The image is here http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/5.jpg, and I had no problems finding it using View Source in Mozilla and IE.

Syren

Syren,

You are looking at the source for the image that is not protected. I wrote that code. My partner put up a link that is a little outdated.

I have done a ton of research on protecting images from saving them to your hard drive and preventing a print screen.

There are many factors involved when doing this. Like many have said before, you can't protect your material from a determined person. So, I decided to at least protect my material from the most widely used browser, IE. Mozilla and Opera are in limited use and from my experience, only developers use them.

From most of my client's stats I have found the mozilla and opera make up maybe 2%-4% of browsers used to view their sites. Why do we code for these browsers? Microsoft won the browser war. Most users are on a machine that has IE installed by default.

I used to develop for all browsers on all platforms. I have found that my clients don't want to pay for it. When they are testing my work, they are on a pc with IE running.

To avoid a longwinded post, here is what I currently do to protect images and page content. I only do this on pages that need the requirement.

1.Disable Right Click
2.Disable contextual menu and that little annoying menu that appears over an image when you hover over it.
3.Create a style that prints a blank page when the user tries to print the page.
4.The actual img string is within a javascript include which is saved as a .asp page. Within that page I have some asp code that checks to see if the the request is coming from a page within the proper domain. If that page is not called from within the proper domain, you get a message that reads "You are not allowed to view this file".
5.Disable the ability to highlight text.
6.Add a layer that overlays the entire image. Then add a clear gif within the layer that spans the width and height of the image. This prevents a "save image as" in netscape. The image saved is the clear gif.
7.Disable the "alt" and "ctrl" keys to prevent a print screen or "ctrl copy"


I am still working on a function to disable the view source and delete images from your cache.

My clients stand their ground when it comes to protecting their images. If my clients can't protect their images from being printed on the web, they stand to lose out on a ton of potential sales. I know too many photographers that lost sales because they posted photo proofs on their website and lost sales. They lost these sales because the client printed the web images off their 60 dollar Epson print instead of ordering the prints online. I know the quality sucks off the web but some people are just happy with that.

If anybody can add to my list of protection items, I would surely appreciate it.

[carbonize]

Are you going to block IE as well then? Your last post gave me an idea so I cleared my temporary internet files and went to your test page and there were all three photos.
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/1.jpg
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/5.jpg
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/10.jpg.

The only technique that works is to watermark the picture. To do this you have to choices:
1 - Physically put the text/image over the photograph.
2 - Use a PHP script as I mentioned in a previous post.

I will speak to my friend and see if it would be possible to have a single script that watermarks all images sent from your server.

We have seriously deviated from the topic of this thread which was the prevention of text theft. And to this the answer is no except via legal means.

[swstyles]

Are you going to block IE as well then? Your last post gave me an idea so I cleared my temporary internet files and went to your test page and there were all three photos.
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/1.jpg
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/5.jpg
http://thephototool.com/thephototool/test_protect/10.jpg.

The only technique that works is to watermark the picture. To do this you have to choices:
1 - Physically put the text/image over the photograph.
2 - Use a PHP script as I mentioned in a previous post.

I will speak to my friend and see if it would be possible to have a single script that watermarks all images sent from your server.

We have seriously deviated from the topic of this thread which was the prevention of text theft. And to this the answer is no except via legal means.

Exactly,

All the images are in the temp folder. Does anybody know if it is even possible to delete temp files? I added all the no cache code that I could find, server side and client side and it didn't work so I removed it. I wonder if and how porn site developers protect their images.

[carbonize]

Just off the top of my head you can make it a pain to grab photos by slicing them up into pieces. Then they would have to grab x amount of images and stick them back together rather than just a single image. This would work well with your current attempt at image protection.

And have you got a link to one of these porn sites you claim prevents caching? I doubt porn sites worry that much about image theft. Most of their customers are to busy doing other things to be looking through the code. lol.

[countrytimeusa]

I have given up on it. The one way it can always be done or has at least in the past, is click on edit, select all and copy than paste it to frontpage and they have it.. I haven't found a way yet to beat it.


Hi people, i was just wondering if any one knows how to prevent viewers copying text from a web site? I am using Dreamweaver and as I ask this question I just had a thought that maybe i should ask them :) Anyway I am here now after just joining so if anyone can help I would be grateful.
Thank you.

[tviman]

This is a subject that has been beaten up in hundreds of forums across the 'net for several years.

And, as a few of the posters here have stated, there are ways to keep the so-called "casual" surfer from grabbing your content. Casual surfers aren't the problem because they have no real reason to copy content from any web site!

I'd like to make a few points clear that many of you have missed:

1. As far as graphic images go, every image you display on your web site is placed in the user's web cache. It makes no difference that you've placed a transparent layer over the image - it still gets placed in the cache. So, the effort you make to "protect" your images is pretty futile. And for those of you who use the "no pragma" meta tag, a user only has to save the page and all of your hard work was for naught.

2. I've seen a couple of references about a DMCA notification. This only works if you, as a web site owner, have used methods of protection that are not ordinarily available. Things like javascripts to disable the right-click (a method not available on a Mac!) or the view-source button and transparent layers over images don't qualify as "protection". The DMCA was originally designed as a tool to fight the "Napster" gangs and was never really meant to cover ordinary web page content, although the language in it can be used. However, you have to really use a lot of extraordinary methods, like passwords, file encryption, etc., in order to make valid DMCA violation claim. (Not to mention that a DMCA violation must also meet the same tests as copyright infringement.) And as far as reporting a DMCA violation to someone's ISP or HOST, you'll have to prove that that person "regularly and maliciously" engages in this activity. Lots of luck!

3. It's been noted here but I'll say it again, anything that the browser can see is fair game to the internet user. And since text and graphics are all that the browser can see, it follows that if you don't want people to see it, then don't put it on a web page!

4. As far as someone using your keywords, I can only say that these are single words or word phrases and you have no right to claim any ownership to them on your web site. Besides, any search engine will tell you that keywords alone don't get you high SO rankings. In fact, you could probably eliminate your keyword meta tag and get placed almost as high as you are right now! SO's look for, and want, a lot more than just keywords. The want relevant text, alt tags on your graphics and hyperlinks, NO dead links, and no weekly submissions! Most SO's will tell you that the single largest factor for good SO ranking is relevant links to you good site from other good sites.

Running a competitive web site is hard work, a lot harder than a brick & mortar operation! If you think that you can just start an e-commerce web site and then sit back while the money rolls in then you are in for a rude awakening. To make a site successful you have to spend every day, all day, finding ways to get buyers to your site. It's time consuming, frustrating, and heart-breaking work but it's what has to be done. So why are you spending your valuable time trying to keep a thief away when you need to spend that time getting the masses to buy your products and services?

[SyrenSong]

As requested, this thread has been split.

The Copyright Discussion ocntinues here (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=3980).

Syren

[daniel-flavius]

The answer is very simple: Flash.
...and I'll let the facts speek for themself:
here PLEASE COPY some text from my site:
http://www.daniel-flavius.home.ro/
if you can....
(except for an single article where it's ok to copy)
but you'll get my point...

[SyrenSong]

The answer is very simple: Flash.
...and I'll let the facts speek for themself:
here PLEASE COPY some text from my site:
http://www.daniel-flavius.home.ro/
if you can....
(except for an single article where it's ok to copy)
but you'll get my point...

You mean like this from your Resume?

Studies: Sep. 1995 - Jun. 1999

Study: Informatics(Computer Science)
Editor at the College periodical
Techical College Henri Coanda" Timiso ara;

I even left in the typo, though I didn't include the upsidedown quotation mark.

But you get my point.... ;)

Syren

[daniel-flavius]

I got your point but I see that you obviously didn't got mine.

Everybody is telling me about my CV.
I have to tell you a secret:

1)Anybody can write something they see but that does
not mean it has copy and paste it(that explains the typo - in the original there is no typo :))))

2)It my CV and it's supposed to be public so if you read the infos...well congrats...pass it
Maybe I'll get a well paid job.
:-)
Thanks for the feedback...

[tviman]

daniel-flavius...

1. The other "articles" that are available on your site are .gif images. Easily retrievable.

2. Your words:
The answer is very simple: Flash.
...and I'll let the facts speek for themself:
here PLEASE COPY some text from my site:
http://www.daniel-flavius.home.ro/
if you can....

nothing I see excludes your CV.

PS: I was the one who sent your complete CV page + SWF file via email.

[SyrenSong]

I got your point but I see that you obviously didn't got mine.

Everybody is telling me about my CV.
I have to tell you a secret:

1)Anybody can write something they see but that does
not mean it has copy and paste it(that explains the typo - in the original there is no typo :))))

2)It my CV and it's supposed to be public so if you read the infos...well congrats...pass it

The topic revolves around how to keep people from copying text on a website. You claimed to have a way to keep folks from copying the text on your site - Flash. You even challenged us to copy text form your site.

Hence my reply. You never placed any restrictions on how it could or should be copied. You never specified that it had to be done via cut-and-paste.

I wasn't trying to be a wise-guy or anything. I was just responding to a challenge. I love a good challenge, but sometimes a simple one will do. ;)

I was simply proving my point from several posts back -- If it's on a website and people can read it, they can copy it.

S

P.S. If you like, I can copy (i.e. re-type) the text from any of your other graphic images containing text, including your articles.... ;)

[daniel-flavius]

Ok, so we are talking about copyright!!!
I wonder, why oh why :) didn’t I see that word in the topic?
Never mind.
I have 3 approaches (pick one…btw…the order is not random):

1)People what is really your problem?
I mean if you are smart and someone copies you, is because he or she is not capable of
writing something so good as you did.
So when you think of it, it’s just their way of dealing with an lack of inspiration (not to call it worse).
Take books for example, in the books (at least in the good ones:)) the author gives the reader all his inspiration, life experience,
and even a part of his soul and he doesn’t worry about someone copying him. Why?
Because at the end of the day what’s important is how you feel.
You can fool 100 people, maybe 1000, but you cannot fool yourself and if you know you message is
copied than you have no message, and that proves your existence is in vain and that is (or should be) the most expensive price to pay for doing such a thing, not the laws of copyright.
I realize I took the topic to the extreme but try to think of it from this point of view.
Everybody uses computers for example but other people worked for decades day and night in order for us to have this forum today.
You know who they are?
...so they made your life a lot easier and did you personally paid them some credit?
And you worry for some words you put in a webpage and someone copied them?
If it bothers you so much keep it to yourself but if you do that it will lose all it’s value.
The information is expensive like money but if you don’t give it away, it’s only printed paper.
2)The Intel way (in my opinion):
Do everything so complicated that by the time someone figures it out, it will be already expired.
3)Arm yourself with a dozen lawyers and sue everybody. (The …. way :)) …Milky Way, that’s it!!

PS: ..and SyrenSong please stop quoting me, I know what I wrote, and
you can copy me, it’s ok, I don’t mind :-)

[SyrenSong]

PS: ..and SyrenSong please stop quoting me, I know what I wrote, and
you can copy me, it’s ok, I don’t mind :-)

Oooops! Did it again. Must be that whole copyright thing making me nervous. ;)

Seriously, though, I agree with you about the futility of it all, as well as the complimentary aspects of the whole issue.

I'd feel flattered if someone copied the text of my site word-for-word. I'm not saying I'd like it, or that I'd be happy about the lack of originality, but it sure would feel like someone had just said "Hey! Syren can really write well."

Of course, if I was writing something I didn't want copied, I'd probably make folks pay to get a password so they could view the info. That way, at least I'd be compensated for the whole thing. And it would be supportive of my copyright and the fact that I really didn't want anyone to use the info without my permission, if I ever decided to sue the person(s) who copied the text from my site.

But I'm not that worried about it at the moment. Obviously, though, there are quite a few folks who are very concerned about the issue. Otherwise this topic wouldn't be quite to long. ;)

S

[jamacove]

There is a great site I go to for some scripts that I don't write myself. It is www.cgiscript.net

On there, there is a code for "Hide your source code" and another one that is "Source Code Encrypting script"

These work very well.

Thank you ;)

[carbonize]

Source code encryption will not stop a person from copying the text from your page. What it will do is stop people with javascript disabled from viewing your site.

I don't understand why this thread is even still going since it has already been concluded that there is no way to stop people copying text from a web site.

IF THEY CAN SEE IT THEY CAN COPY IT!

[tjdesigns]

At the end of the day you can make your whole page into an image and then disable right click, but this will not stop people copying what they see. Accurate immitation is one of the defining aspects of humanity. It helped the spread of early tools and later on the spread of technology, copying each other meant survival and by some definitions is now instinctual behaviour. If you want your content to be available for viewing you are automatically making it available to the world's great immitators, other humans. In such circumstances you have 2 options, take it possitively and be flattered and perhaps ask simply for a creditation or take legal action, your choice. But ultimately no amount of html/java etc. will take the parrot out of the human.

TJDesigns.

[carbonize]

Good comment tjdesigns.

Now on a different subject. I just looked at your site and I think I can safely say you used a wysiwyg editor to make your site. You have two style block sections, no alt tags in your img tag, no doctype, and you set the font size twice on several occasions.

The funniest thing is you offer a HTML tutorial on your site.

I hate people that claim they are web designers when all they can do is use a wysiwyg editor and don't even look at the code 99 times out of 100 let alone understand it.

www.carbonize.co.uk (http://www.carbonize.co.uk/) <<< Number one on Google (If you do a search for carbonize that is)

[tjdesigns]

Errr you're wrong we scripted the code ourselves and it is still under construction, the font problem is because we had a number of suggestions that Times New Roman was too boring a font to use so one day i went through and just added a font tag to each page, so that is where that problem is, i plan to clean up the scripting soon. I did not ask you to review my page or my scripting i simply posted my comments, our new site design is still under development. If you are trying to say my company does not know html, i can assure you that i and every member of my design team do, along with php, css, java, flash etc. We are currently working on our new site design in between working on those of our clients. Please do not make presumptions in a public forum it can damage a company's reputation, you should have been a little more considerate and private messaged me with your concerns, that would have been the helpful way to go about it! submitting such posts simply raises questions about your character, not my ability.
Regards
TJ.

[cyanide]

Lest we forget that the Internet was built on the whole idea of sharing.

So if you've got some big secret that you don't want anyone to see. Don't put it on your website !

[Dani Girl]

Hypno

You might want to check out below and see if this will help you.

TagsLock Home Page. We develop software protect web pages. TagsLock
PRO and TagsLock CGI encrypt source code HTML. Software for ...
Description: HTML editor to block spammers, spiders, hot links, and theft of website materials.

http://www.tagslock.com

[carbonize]

Encrypting your HTML will not stop people from copying the text from your web pages. All you will achieve is alienating people with javascript turned off.

From what I can see Taglock is just a waste of money as all it does is use javascript to encrypt the source code and their are web sites out there what will do it for free.

[drtandem]

Sure, just insert your text between these tags: <invisible></invisible>.

Seriously:
No, there is no way to do this. If the image and/or text is apparent to the visitor (which it must be for them to see it, duh), then there will always be a way to copy it.

[carbonize]

Is it me or is this thread long past it's sell by date and overdue being locked? It's starting to repeat it's self more than a president hiding his lies.

[LorraineH]

Hi Lorraine.
Yes that is good method,...however how do you prove that you did not sign date and place the sellotape over the seal only yesterday. You could have had the envelope in your possession for months, opened it and placed predated work into it. Then signed and taped it.
This is the type of accusation of tampering you are open to. The infringer could have done what I said above and claim first ownership. The judge would have to decide which of you is right.

When the sellotape is removed it will leave tears on the envelope surface and remove parts of the signature with the sellotape and so is easy to tell a tampered envelope from an untampered one. That is why I say ALL envelope seals need to be signed over the actual seal and then sellotaped over the top and when posted to yourself must remain unopened. As soon as it is opened it is worthless which is why it should be submitted to a court unopened.



Here is a copy of a question to the US Copyright on this method of protection..
I’ve heard about a “poor man’s copyright.” What is it?The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

[quote]

The above only mentions sending it to yourself which if you can break the envelope by lifting the sealing flap without damaging it then of course it is much harder to proof or disproof that the envelope has been tampered with after posting as once re-sealed you are hiding the evidence which is effectively under the flap. Signing and sellotaping over the top though puts the tampering/non-tampering evidence on the outside of the envelope and damage on opening is evident. Of course you could also a) send the copy not to yourself but to a solicitor to hold in safe keeping, or send two copies - one to yourself and one to your solicitor.

[quote]
Independent proof of ownership backs up your claim,and date of creation, posting etc. Unfortunately in this day and age you need as much proof as you can possibly have, if for no other reason than to provide your lawyer with a cast iron case and thus cut down on costs...to YOU.


Certainly the more proof you have the better.

[LorraineH]

Actually, I've heard of some cases where the offended party has notified the offending site's hosting company and the site has been removed.

What seems particularly effective is (politely) notifying the hosting company that a theft has occurred, and then suggesting (again politely) that if the case goes to court, the hosting company could be implicated in any legal action.

Most hosting companies don't want to be involved in anything like that, so they are generally quite willing to remove the copycat website.


I've had cases where I have had to approach the hosting companies concerning copyright infringements of some sites hosted by them where the owner has refused to rectify in the past.

Generally all hosters I've experienced have been very co-operative and removed the site immediately.

Geocities even have a form for just this purpose which you have to complete and then fax back to them - but once done they removed immediately.

The only one I had a problem with was a site in Korea - the site owner and hoster ignored requests. However the hoster was a subsidiary of an American company - and once I went to the American company they instructed they Korean subsidiary to remove and they did so immediately.

I also think there is a difference between them unknowingly hosting an infringing site, and knowingly hosting one - at least in my mind. Therefore before they have been notified and are aware I would consider them innocent - after I've notified them then I'd consider them guilty of aiding and abetting. Whether the courts see it this way I'm not sure, but this is how I would see it.

[RiverFreight]

www.RiverFreight@rock.com

The most common way that is the most effective is to take care to select a backround and set it as the printable material, then when they print all they get is the backround; you must also take into consideration that some things may be selected by you to be printed and must be set so so they can be printed.

this type stuff is all available from the Library of Congress of the USA at no charge.

RIVER FREIGHT

[irodgers]

I'm a web designer who's pretty clueless with javascript. So if I find a site doing something fancy that I like what do I do? I right-click and see if I can spot the trickery. Usually its a a bit of javascript.
The other day I found a site that had disabled the right mouse click. So what did I do? I "stole" the code and used in one of my sites. I think thats acceptable practice - in fact the code had an acknowledgement to another site within it and I left that in.
It was a piece of cake for me to get the source code even though the right-click was disabled and I would think that, ultimately, no matter how many layers of complication you hide beneath someone who want to will always be able to steal your code and wording and use it.

[carbonize]

The other day I found a site that had disabled the right mouse click. So what did I do? I "stole" the code and used in one of my sites. I think thats acceptable practice - in fact the code had an acknowledgement to another site within it and I left that in.

Why "steal" other peoples code? Just goto http://www.dynamicdrive.com or http://www.hotscripts.com for a large selection of free scripts.

I've said it before but I'm gonna repeat myself, if it can be viewed it can be copied!

[marznet]

I've said it before but I'm gonna repeat myself, if it can be viewed it can be copied![/quote]

LOL Some people will never get it.

[cthathem]

Yep.. I guess that's the way the web works, well? It's more or less a thing that happens, and will always happen.

Just the same with the pictures: if someone really wants them, they'll get them (print screen, copy to picture editor and so on)..

What can be seen, can (nearly?) always be copied..

[fathom]

Sometimes we are really stupid people too.

e.g. found a site that disabled the right click so you can't steal anything, so you stole the code so someone can still steal from your site?

Is this correct? :-)

Granted you are stopping the people that don't read html code - but are these really the people you need to protect your stuff from - or the other ones that just go around it.

[carbonize]

lol a no right click script will not stop people viewing your source code. All you have to do is either

1 - Press and hold the right mouse button to get the message box and then use space to press the OK button then release the right mouse button.

2 - Turn of javascript.

3 - On IE click View - Source, On Opera press Ctrl + F3.

I wish people would read entire threads before posting comments that have already been discussed.

[markroberts]

Threads like this are always interesting.

Lots of ways to "Hide" text. Wonder if we are also hiding the text from the search engines too. This would not be good. Some SE's could interpret this as spamming or an attempt to decieve.

I would what response Chevrolet would get if they were looking for a way to prevent someone from copying a car that they manufactured.

I think it is called copyrighting.

[copyrightman]

LorraineH wrote:

When the sellotape is removed it will leave tears on the envelope surface and remove parts of the signature with the sellotape and so is easy to tell a tampered envelope from an untampered one. That is why I say ALL envelope seals need to be signed over the actual seal and then sellotaped over the top and when posted to yourself must remain unopened. As soon as it is opened it is worthless which is why it should be submitted to a court unopened.

Lorraine wrote the above in response to my comment

",...however how do you prove that you did not sign date and place the sellotape over the seal only yesterday. You could have had the envelope in your possession for months, opened it and placed predated work into it. Then signed and taped it.
This is the type of accusation of tampering you are open to. The infringer could have done what I said above and claim first ownership. The judge would have to decide which of you is right.

I don't mean to nitpick but in the ten years I have been in the business of copyright protection,I have seen and heard some horror stories of creations being stolen, and the ingenious methods used by the infringers.
Having a preposted ordinary envelope is one of the professional infringers favourite tools of the trade All he has to do is open the envelope place predated documents inside and reseal, he can sign and date it and then place sellotape over that,,,,months, maybe years later.

I know of one case where the envelope was thirteen months old and the work stolen was six months old. This gave the infringer/thief a seven month margin on the genuine copyright owner.
INDEPENDENT proof of ownership is a vital part of copyright protection.
No matter what system you use do make sure it is irrefutable.

[Jayms]

Hi Jscottharris,

I liked your idea about the flash cover. I did go to http://www.webproworld.com/1x1.html saved it to my hard drive, opened it in Frontpage and just deleted the cover. I was then able to access all the info just like nothing. It may discourage the newbie, but for the most part we all know the tricks of the trade. Good suggestion though, it was creative!

Jayms
www.saveonscents.com

[carbonize]

Can't see any point to the cover what so ever. Mozilla negates such tricks by supplying a complete list of all images used in page info and the cover certainly does not stop you vieing the source code.

[Narasinha]

That particular Flash cover also has another effect. In Opera 7.21 I get a blank white page. If I turn off the style sheet then I get the regular page below a huge white blank space. No effect other than to make me go to a different site.

The watermark or other visible indication that a graphic image is a sample is still the best way to go, in my opinion.

Many people still don't seem to get it. If you're showing somethinig to someone over the web, you're sending them a copy of it. Once they get that copy, they can do anything to it.

[ssamuel]

For what it's worth, I was looking to do the same thing, and I came up with a solution that works pretty well against the casual copier. It's four steps:

1. Put your content in a table, with each character in a cell. You'll want to script this on the back end, but writing a routine that takes a line of text and turns it into a table is not difficult.

2. Between each line of text add a row, height=1 and color=bgcolor, of random ASCII characters. Make sure to use a class in an external CSS file.

3. Use a JS right-click disable script. They're easy to find on the Internet.

4. Make sure your content is GZIP'd, otherwise it'll take forever to send one page. Since the page code is highly repetitive, it'll compress really well.

This prevents the following: saving as text, saving as HTML, copy-and-paste, save page source. It'll also pretty much guarantee that your page won't be indexed by any major search engine, quite possibly better than a robots.txt file. :)

After writing this, I decided not to use it, but purely for moral and philosophical reasons.

Stephan

[carbonize]

Easily bypassable using mozilla firebird and it's edit css extension. Use the edit CSS extension to add the following to the CSS of the random ascii text


display: none;

This will prevent the random characters from being rendered then simply hilight the text you want to copy and either press Ctrl + C to copy it or turn javascript off.

[AlanMCSD]

Once it's on the web it is public. People will always steal your code, your content, your images.

So what! Think about it long and hard. Is what you have that critical that you need to take steps to prevent people from stealing it.

Will your extra efforts make your site less fiendly for the average joe visitor.

Most people are honest, build your site for them!

Don't worry, be happy!

[minstrel]

I agree with a previous poster about this thread being way past its "best before" date. Now on its seventh (!) page of arguments, what we have seen is one suggestion after another, some admittedly rather ingenious, but all more-or-less easily defeated or bypassed. Some of the suggestions will as a by-product make the page/site less user friendly and in some cases less available to search engines, neither a desirable goal.

I'm reminded of current and past copy-protection schemes for software or music - either they don't work or they annoy people, or worse - they don't work and they annoy people.

The best you can hope to do is inconvenience the unsophisticated but if someone wants your material badly enough even the unsophisticated will likely take the time to become sophisticated. The rest aren't there to steal it anyway.

So let's finally conclude this: No, there really is no way to stop someone who wants to copy material on your web site from doing so. If you find out that someone has done so, you may be able to take legal action. But if it's imperative that your material be secured from copying, don't put it on a web page.

[Narasinha]

So let's finally conclude this: No, there really is no way to stop someone who wants to copy material on your web site from doing so. If you find out that someone has done so, you may be able to take legal action. But if it's imperative that your material be secured from copying, don't put it on a web page.

The people in the crowd get to their feet and there is a round of thunderous applause!

Yep, I guess that about sums it up!

[Sualdam]

Can someone rename this 'The Thread That Wouldn't Die!'?

:)

[carbonize]

Night of the living thread?

[minstrel]

Return of the Thread Killer

[carbonize]

Grrr just because I may of killed one or two threads doesn't make me a serial thread killer.

[Sualdam]

You're not doing so well with this one ;)

[carbonize]

If I killed this thread it would be a mercy killing, or maybe euthanasia. What countries allow euthanasia so we can get someone from there to kill it.

[minstrel]

Grrr just because I may of killed one or two threads doesn't make me a serial thread killer.

Actually, I meant me... mikmik called me a thread killer a while back... I think I've lost my super powers though (alarmed expression on my face, furtively scanning the environment for kryptonite or garlic).

In either case, as Sualdam says, it doesn't seem to be working here...

Maybe if I start quoting The Simpsons?

"Beer... now there's a temporary solution."

"Beer... the cause of... and the answer to... all life's problems."

-- Homer J. Simpson

(Anyone else know what the J. stands for?)

[carbonize]

The J stands for Jay, or was it just J ??. They did an episode on it where he goes back to the hippy commune and finds two hippies now making a fortune making juice drinks.

[minstrel]

The J stands for Jay, or was it just J ??. They did an episode on it where he goes back to the hippy commune and finds two hippies now making a fortune making juice drinks.

Yesss!!

way to go, carbonize - #1 in cynicism, #1 (so far) in Simpsons Trivia...

[carbonize]

I'm not a cynic if I'm right.

Je voudrais le monde pour chanter dans l'harmonie parfaite.

[minstrel]

I'm not a cynic if I'm right.

Not necessarily true... those are not mutually exclusive categories...


Je voudrais le monde pour chanter dans l'harmonie parfaite.

Yikes! A cynic AND a hopeless optimist? Is this possible?

Lest ye misunderstand, I'm not really attacking you, although it may seem that way... I have a certain admiration for cynicism. But you really must get over this anti Internet Explorer thing... therapy CAN help, you know... :-)

[carbonize]

Yes you are attacking me. See I'm a optomistic paranoid IE hating cynic.

My anti IE trips is likely to spread to Opera soon seeing how they have started "fixing" sloppy HTML and CSS. I'm all for trying new things out such as page transition *shudder* and styled scrollbars but the W3C has laid down specific guidelines regarding the interpretation of HTML and CSS and web browsers should stick to it strictly otherwise whats the point in a unified structure?

[minstrel]

Yes you are attacking me. See I'm a optomistic paranoid IE hating cynic.

When did you first become aware of these feelings? Did you express them to your mom? How did she react?

;-)

[prinsw]

or u use a flashbutton! so no-one can paste it, and there's no <alt="hello"> tag either. In the html is just a refference to the swf file.:P goodluck

[carbonize]

or u use a flashbutton! so no-one can paste it, and there's no <alt="hello"> tag either. In the html is just a refference to the swf file.:P goodluck

What? If text is on the screen it can be copied. And swf files can be decompiled.

[Sualdam]

Groan.

Nearly hallowe'en, then?

[minstrel]

(sigh)

you were right...

<title>The Thread That Just Will NOT Die</title>

[si terender]

I would think if you really have some text you need to convey, try using PDF with the optional security options loaded. Depending on the Graphic freedom needed on the page you can create PDF supplements to your page, turn on security(no print, no copy, no edit) and you can effectively prevent MOST people from copying information. Caveat: Acrobat and other PDF applications are expensive, and this still does not prevent the all powerful PRINT SCREEN function.

[carbonize]

Nor does it prevent the plethora of PDF to HTML programs out there nor does it stop the person just typing what they see.

[Sualdam]

So, Minstrel, what say you to us going halves on the cost of putting out a contract on carbonize?

I figure that if we take him out this thread will sink low enough to stop people keep posting what's already been posted. And if carbonize doesn't keep answering... :)

[carbonize]

I'll take up the contract if you offer enough money.

[minstrel]

I'll take up the contract if you offer enough money.

...adding the title of "The Ultimate Entrepreneur" to his previous honours...

[WEBGuru]

See my post below...it can still be copied.

[WEBGuru]

I don't know if anyone else was able to do it or post about it yet, but you can still copy it. to prove it here is half the document:


Altiris Client Recovery Solution - Download a Free Copy Today- Click Here

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Date: 05.13.03 Subscribe To WebProNews FREE: more newsletters
Editor's Note: Garrett French
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Bill's retired from his corporate life, but still hard at work in Hawaii, developing his credibility-based logos and teaching at the university.

I had the pleasure of speaking with him on the phone, and invited him to review your logo according to his logo design principles. Read his article, visit his expert page, and send him the information he requests in his introduction below (logo + description of your business and what makes you unique).

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u just gotta do it slowly, then press cntrl C.

just a heads up.

[carbonize]

I highly doubt there is anything that hasn't been said, done, or mentioned in ths thread already. This thread is starting to smell like a cadaver thats been found after being locked in a hot room for 4 weeks.

[Sualdam]

Carbonize, if I could lock it I would...

[tertius]

Why lock it? Bury it, before it becomes more putrescent than it already is! (How many ways can you answer: "No you can't", followed by: what is it about "no way" that isn't understandable?)

(And Carbonize, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you....)