It’s downright frustrating when you invest countless hours of hard work into writing a new post for your blog, only to discover that one of your competitors has copied it and is now using it on their blog. Unless they have your permission, what they are doing is generally illegal under copyright laws. But not many bloggers are going to spend the time and money to go after someone for copying their content.
So, how can you copy protect your blog’s content so this doesn’t happen?
Display the Copyright Symbol
One helpful measure to discourage, but not prevent, stolen content is to display the copyright symbol on your blog. When potential thieves see “© 2015 YourWebsite.com,” they’ll think twice about stealing your content. From a legal standpoint, displaying this symbol doesn’t offer any real benefit. All content is protected under copyright laws by its rightful owner, regardless of whether or not this symbol is displayed. However, displaying the copyright symbol will often deter thieves from stealing content.
Disable Right Click
Another measure that bloggers can take to prevent stolen content is to disable the right-click function. Normally when you right click on a webpage, you’ll have the option to copy selected text to your clipboard, at which point you can paste it into a Word document or another website. This makes stealing content as easy as a few clicks of the mouse. But you can disable this feature with JavaScript.
Just copy the JavaScript code at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex9/noright.htm and paste it into the <BODY> section of your website. Users can still copy your blog’s content by manually typing it, or by viewing the source code, but doing so it far more time-consuming and monotonous.
Tell Visitors Not to Steal
You can also discourage stolen content by telling visitors not to steal your content. I know this sounds obvious, but including a sentence or two at the bottom of your blog can make a world of difference. Try adding the following to your blog’s footer: “This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without permission.”
When used in conjunction with the universal copyright symbol, potential thieves should get the message loud and clear that you do not tolerate copyright infringement.
Watermark Images
Now that you know how to protect your text from copyright infringement, you might be wondering about images. Again, there are workarounds for most types of images, but there are still measures that bloggers can take to discourage theft, including the use of watermarks. Before uploading an image to your blog, edit in a Photoshop or a similar graphics editing program and add a watermark in an obvious place so it would be tedious and difficult for someone to “photoshop” it out.
This may be nothing more than your blog’s name and logo. Adding watermarks to your images will deter thieves from stealing it — and if they do steal it, they will inadvertently promote your blog by displaying its name and logo.
Do you copy protect your blog’s content? Let us know in the comments section below!
I take the precautions you recommend, but of course it doesn’t stop people from stealing my ideas. I try to do what I can though.
These are good ideas that I will need to implement. As Ba Tu, I’m sure it doesn’t completely eliminate the problem, but hopefully will deter some people.
I’ve had problems with another blogger taking my content in the past. It’s extremely frustrating because as you suggest, I cannot invest the resources into legally pursuing it. I have since implemented some of these tactics.