How Can I Protect An Online Article Or Another Digital Creation From Being Copied?

[realthor 0]

-if i sent the page or an article about it to several online media or news websites this might prove the ideea was mine? Just putting a ? mark on the page would be enough to say it's copyrighted or i must do anything to get the right to tell it's copyrighted and thus protected by something?

Edited June 13, 2006 by realthor (see edit history)

[Hadi 0]

Even if you put a Copyright logo, people will still be able to copy that article and delete this logo. Once my father learnt me how to really protect his article by deleting the ''Copy'' function, but I forgot how. Nevertheless, people will still be able to ''Print screenshot'' and copy that article.

[Johnny 1]

http://www.copyright.gov/register/literary.html

Costs $30 to officially copyright a literary work (and be able to prosecute theft), or any work for that matter.

Otherwise, you'll just have to fake it, as most of the content of the internet is.

[rvalkass 5]

It entirely depends on what country you are in as to what laws apply. For example, in the UK as soon as you create anything, even a doodle on a book or something, that is immediately copyright to you and no-one else can use it unless you say so. As Johnny has said, in the US you have to pay to get a copyright. Of course, most of us will have seen the various debates about Sweden and the copyright laws over there in the news and this is another thing to consider.Unfortunately there is no real way to stop something being copied, you can only prosecute people if they copy it. If it's text and you put it as an image people will either just copy the image or run it through OCR software. Disabling the Right Click > Copy command doesn't help. You can always click on Edit > Copy, push Ctrl + C or just take a screenshot. If it's in a web browser then disabling Javascript also works and makes your defence useless.

[lawmatchmaker 0]

It entirely depends on what country you are in as to what laws apply. For example, in the UK as soon as you create anything, even a doodle on a book or something, that is immediately copyright to you and no-one else can use it unless you say so. As Johnny has said, in the US you have to pay to get a copyright. Of course, most of us will have seen the various debates about Sweden and the copyright laws over there in the news and this is another thing to consider.
Unfortunately there is no real way to stop something being copied, you can only prosecute people if they copy it. If it's text and you put it as an image people will either just copy the image or run it through OCR software. Disabling the Right Click > Copy command doesn't help. You can always click on Edit > Copy, push Ctrl + C or just take a screenshot. If it's in a web browser then disabling Javascript also works and makes your defence useless.

Well, like everyone else said there is no real way to do it, however if you do search through the net, you can find little tips and tricks devised by portal owners on how to minimize copyright theift. So go do a search on it and you'll come up on tons of free material, I actually have a few in mind I want to share with you guys but I'm not sure if that will be infringing on the copyright of their inventors, so all I can say is do a search and you will not be dissapointed.

[command-prompt 0]

actually there is one way to do it. Turn your document into a image and then very lightly so as not to disturb the text put a water mark behind it (don't make it white ) and also but the website name in the middle of the first line of text and then do same thing on the last line.This would make it next to impossible to erase it without messing up the text. Make sure to have the font set at 12 it's small enough and yet still readableYou could do the same thing with adobe as wel But I believe there is some programs that can strip a pdf down.

[Hadi 0]

Turn your document into a image and then very lightly so as not to disturb the text put a water mark behind it (don't make it white ) and also but the website name in the middle of the first line of text and then do same thing on the last line.

Don't you think that by reading the text, someone will still be able to type it on his computer, so technically there is no way to protect your document from being stoled. So if you can read it you can steal it. And if you can't read it, then you can't steal it. But you don't want an article unreadable! Right?!

[T100 0]

You simply can't. But there are a number of ways you can protect your articles from being copied and pasted. There are several obfuscator scripts on the internet. They insert unreadable characters of your site (probably of the same color as the background) so that when someone copies and pastes it, those unreadable characters will become readable and spoil the article and pointts to your site.

[MusicOnly 0]

There is script which forbids right click onyour site, but still there is Print Screen. Example for print no right click is e-chords.com, pick one tab song and try to right click on text.

[Vera 0]

In the US, anything that you create automatically has a copyright. The difference is, you need to register the copyright with the government in order to get monetary compensation from the party that is violating your copyright.

I've never used this service myself, but for a small fee, C-Site copyright services will help you copyright your website with the US government.
Source: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/#

You could also write a really mean and scary disclaimer so everyone would be afraid to copy.

[hippiman 0]

The only thing you can do is make is so that it's not legal for them to steal it. They can always steal it, but if it's not legal for them to, then you can get money for the fact that they stole it.I've always wondered about copyrights, though. Is there a way to get a copyright on everything you write, with only one fee, or do you have to get a copyright on everything that you make separately?

[bluedragon 0]

Good one.. Vera, But I dont think ppl get scared with the disclaimers that easily ^_^NEways, you can try but personally I believe if your work has value then you can pay 30$