prettify

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Protect post from copy paste

Friends keep asking me how to protect their blog posts from being copied.
As you can see I have no protection for my blogs because I think that the effort is futile. I'v seen posts of mine plainly copied in other blogs. In some cases they give a reference to my blog, and for those I am really happy.
In other cases they have no reference even though they just copied and pasted without any work of their own.
Still, my friends want to restrict copy-paste, so I prepared a list of the available solutions:
You can:Easy for
you / thief		 How to do it: Comments
Restrict text selection and mouse right click6
5		 Blogger⇒ Design⇒ Edit HTML⇒
Find: 
</head>
<body
and replace with
</head>
<body onmousedown="return false;"
oncontextmenu="return false;"
onselectstart="return false;"
Legit users cannot copy parts of your post for quoting or printing. Expert thieves can easily circumvent it
Overlay transparent image over entire post 5
4		Blogger⇒ Design⇒ Page Elements⇒ Add a Gadget⇒ HTML/Javascript⇒
<style type="text/css">
div.trap {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0; left: 0;
    width: 100%; height: 100%;
    z-index: 10;
    background:
        url('Transparent1px.png')
        repeat;
}
</style>
First thing in your post:
<div class="trap"></div>
 Same as above but works even when javascript is disabled.
You have to create a 1px transparent png (or gif) file and upload it to Blogger;
Overlay transparent image over a picture or other part of your  post 5
4		 Same thing as above. Put the div:
<div class="trap"></div>
just before the HTML section you want to protect.		 You can let your users copy some text put not the pictures (or vice versa).
Add a (copyright) notice to every text (or photo) copied from your blog 5
7
function FixCopy() {
  var oSel = window.getSelection();
  var oDiv = document.createElement("div");
  oDiv.appendChild(oSel.getRangeAt(0).cloneContents());
  oDiv.innerHTML += "<div>Details at: <a href=\""+ 
    document.location.href + "\">" +
    document.title + "© "+ document.location.hostname+ 
      "</a></div>";
  oSel.removeAllRanges();
  document.body.appendChild(oDiv);
  oSel.selectAllChildren(oDiv);
  window.setTimeout(function (){
    document.body.removeChild(oDiv);},0
  );
}
if (window.addEventListener){
  document.addEventListener("copy", FixCopy, false);
}
 Works only for new browsers (not for IE8)
Restrict visitors to your blog 9
2		 Blogger⇒ Dashboard⇒ Settings⇒ Permissions⇒ Blog Readers
Select "Only people I choose"		 It will drastically diminish your audience. Only friends and relatives will ask for permission to read the important things you post.
Do not give full feeds 9
3		Blogger⇒ Dashboard⇒ Settings⇒ Site Feed⇒ Allow Blog Feeds
If you use <!--more--> select "Until Jump Break", otherwise "Short"		 Feed readers will get a short introduction of your post. They will have to come to your blog if they like what they see. It makes your blog out of the picture for mass copiers that rely on feeds to steal content.
Watermark your pictures 2
9		For watermarking you need a picture editing program that supports layers. Gimp is nice, Paint.net is nice, Photoshop is overkill and expensive.
Create a new layer with your watermark (your name?) add some transparency to it, place it over the photo at some place that does not intrude but it will not be easy for a thief to take out.		I assume that the pictures you post are your own. It is not nice to steal somebody elses pictures and then watermark them claiming them as your own, so that other people will not do what you did.
Most thiefs don't care for watermarks but you can prove that it is copied from you.
Serious thiefs avoid watermarked pictures because the owner of the picture is written there in plain view.
On the other hand you have to modify each and everyone of your pictures.
A lot of people do it (a lot) for one simple reason: The theft is obvious even to casual observers, even without you doing anything to bring the theft to their attention.
Find if your post is copied   http://www.copyscape.comYou enter a specific post address (not your blog address).
If copyscape returns some results do NOT click on them. That way you will inform the thieves that you are searching for stolen content and give them warning to protect themselves. Type the result in the browser's address bar and go there as a regular visitor.
at 12/10/2010 06:28:00 PM

18 comments:

  1. Ονούφριος Τσαμόγλου24 January, 2011 08:54

    Thank you. This post is very useful !
    The idea of someone copying your work and puts it effortlessly to his web page without mentioning the source is very disappointing. Just because there are few good copiers who mention the source that is not enough for me. So I decide to use your advices here and disable the easy way. I notify however if someone is willing to repost one of my posts to ask me via email and I will sent it provided he/she mentions the source! I love your blog! Greetings from Greece!

    ReplyDelete
  2. pavlos24 January, 2011 09:52

    @Ονούφριος Τσαμόγλου
    You are welcome.
    My wife has two cooking blogs (knifetime.blogspot.com & kitchenstories.eu). She insisted that I should protect them from copying.
    Her friends could not print the text of the recipes to take home.
    Finally she settled for a short feed.
    Greetings from Athens, Greece

    ReplyDelete
  3. HaNaKae26 January, 2011 10:58

    thank you. I search for this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. pavlos26 January, 2011 11:33

    HaNaKae
    Thanks for your comment.
    If you need any clarification, I would be glad to.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dalia21 March, 2011 13:15

    hello pkario,
    seems like I need clarification/help. I tried to put the code in HTML, but it doesn't seem have any effect on ability to select and copy.

    ReplyDelete
  6. pavlos21 March, 2011 13:29

    @Dalia
    Was the template saved correctly?
    Reopen HTML and look for the changes you made.
    This is how it looks in the blog of a friend:
    ---------------------------------------
    </head>
    <body class='loading' oncontextmenu='return false;' ondragstart='return false;' onselectstart='return false;'>
    --------------------------------------

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dalia21 March, 2011 16:20

    thanks for so quick answer.
    Yes, it is saved, but I am not sure, that saved in the right place.
    I am not good at HTML, somehow I have already inserted things there - meta content, something for webmaster tools... I don't even remember all, but there is lot of everything after the
    (at this point I remember a riddle - "who has the longest neck?" The answer is - "whose head is most distant from the body", he he)

    So, in the section, which was:

    /* Content
    ----------------------------------------------- */
    body {
    font: $(body.font);
    color: $(body.text.color);
    background: $(body.background);

    I inserted

    /* Content
    ----------------------------------------------- */


    body onmousedown="return false;"
    oncontextmenu="return false;"
    onselectstart="return false;" font: $(body.font);
    color: $(body.text.color);
    background: $(body.background);

    ReplyDelete
  8. pavlos21 March, 2011 16:46

    @Dalia
    You did not find
    --------------------
    </head>
    <body
    --------------------
    as I had written but
    ---------
    body {...}
    ---------
    This is not the place to do it. (this is CSS and not HTML).
    Remove what you added.
    Find the correct place, and add it there.
    There is one and only one
    </head><body...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Onytė21 March, 2011 17:36

    wow, I did that! Thank you!
    Greetings to your wife from another cooking blog author! I liked her blog and going to visit it again with more attention.

    ReplyDelete
  10. pavlos21 March, 2011 18:02

    Faberlic Kosmetika
    I am happy I helped!
    My wife really likes to meet and chat with blogging friends.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dalia21 March, 2011 18:07

    Faberlic Kosmetika is Dalia - I got confused between my internet identities

    ReplyDelete
  12. pavlos21 March, 2011 19:00

    Dalia
    Yes, I figured that. I saw that the Faberlic Kosmetika is not a food blog as you mentioned.
    My wife has many identities (internet I mean:) and we all get confused from time to time.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Alfredo28 March, 2011 08:27

    Hi. Thank you very much for your post.

    Now, I've seen that some sites have implemented a way to embed their URL along with a "Visit xxxxx.com/post-name.html" every time one does a copy/paste of their content. In that way, you get their content along with that message with your URL.

    Do you know if this can be made in blogspot too?

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tupperware Indonesia14 June, 2013 11:06

    I apply it on my web http://www.tupperwarecenter.com thanks brow !

    ReplyDelete
  15. Vinayak Salunke07 September, 2013 14:45

    Thank You Soooooo Much Really Because I Am Soooomuch Tired From Googling Content About Copy Protecting The Blog Or Website Content But Finally I Found This One Which Is Working Fine For Me Thank You Sooomuch Again....!!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Vinayak Salunke07 September, 2013 14:51

    Please Can You Tell me If I Want To Again Enable The Content Copping On Blog Or Webpage What Coding I Have To Put In Body Tag Which Is I am Previously Replaced With Following One....

    <body onmousedown="return false;"
    oncontextmenu="return false;"
    onselectstart="return false;"

    ReplyDelete
  17. Andrew Harris20 September, 2014 21:10

    wow, thanks a lot! ;)
    this really is a lot of knowledge shared, especially to newbie like me. thank very much!

    ReplyDelete

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