We have had a serious legal problem this week with a group of troublemakers copying and pasting forum items after carefully editing.

I know a seach on Google for Disabling Right brings up a multitude of sins. What I would like is someone who has has personal experience of using this type of add-on but above all one that does work. I know to a good computer geek will know the ways round the add-on.

Any help or suggestions asap would be appreciated.

Its a bad world we live in.

Wayne

Wayne, You won't like my answer, but in my opinion, there is nothing you can do to protect your data from cut / paste. Once it leaves your server and travels the Internet to the local browser, you are done controlling it. Even if you put some fancy JavaScript controls to trap the right click, I just turn off JavaScript in the browser. Even if you somehow managed to put a giant wrapper around the text in the browser (which I don't know how you would actually do that), I would just open the local cache file. Bottom line, once you publish it to the Internet and allow people access via a browser, you have lost the ability to control the data. As callous as it sounds, if you don't want people copying it, don't publish it.

Maybe some other folks here may have some good ideas, but it has always been my opinion that once you publish it, you have lost it.

Thanks!
Mark

Quote by: Mark

Wayne, if you don't want people copying it, don't publish it.

Thanks!
Mark

it is truth and I'm always thinking like this.

Turn off javascript? Why bother? Just run a bookmarklet that fixes the context menu.

Really, you can't stop someone from copy/paste unless you publish all your website in PDF or Flash or as a big image. And even then, someone who is determined can just open up notepad and use their eyes and fingers to copy and paste the text.

I am not offended by what anyone says I have been in this game long enough now to know what I asked was virtually impossible 100% but I just wanted a reliable way to block right click to the non-computer literate audience.

I do realize all advice is realistic and common sense suggestion and is what our lawyer told us. Briefly we are rebuilding an old railway and by virtue we have to release progress reports ... this is fine but someone took a recent post deleted a comma her added a word there and change the context of the release.

The result is we have had to issue proceedings in the courts to stop this which is very damaging - but more damaging is the bill 55,000 pounds 2 dollars to the pound btw.

The Judge a bit of a computer know a bit :-) suggested with stop the right click, as he said he expected most of the visitors are railway literate and not computer literate and whilst the really good computer wizz-kid will find a way round any 'locks or blocks' these are not the people the measures would aimed at.

So accepting the 'sound' advice from you guys not to publish and a blank web site what in your opinion is the best script to use 'that is supposed to disable right click' - I will put it up and accept and realise the the consequences that I am put a 5 and 10 lock on a box with a million dollars inside. (Umm do you still have 5 and 10 stores or is that showing my age)

Wayne

I don't understand how you are responsible for someone posting a fake press release. Maybe what you really need is a splash screen before the forums displays that says the content of forums is not your responsibility.

We use our forum for announcements made by myself or other directors of the company so it was my posting announcing a legal application that was copied and altered. So as I posted it I am responsible for what was said. As I fake copy was placed on another forum saying this was what I had said it this caused a great deal of question about what people thought was from me an official line.

We have had to take out a stop, gag (injunction order against the other forum) forcing them offline until they remove the thread/s that is what I have had to pay for.

We asked the forum to remove it they wouldn't.

Wayne

Quote by: filipino

We use our forum for announcements made by myself or other directors of the company so it was my posting announcing a legal application that was copied and altered. So as I posted it I am responsible for what was said. As I fake copy was placed on another forum saying this was what I had said it this caused a great deal of question about what people thought was from me an official line.

See, I can't imagine how you can be responsible for something not on your website. Likewise, I can't see how anyone seeing the false PR could blame you after they are directed to the real press release and see the other one was doctored.

OTOH, the value of the disabled right click is now obvious. It allows you to go after the other website with a DMCA takedown notice for circumventing access controls. (Which is in itself stupid but that's the law.)

We are actually going after the person who cut altered and pasted as the alterations done a fine assassination job against me and the company.

Sadly we are the target for much jealousy as we have the money to rebuild the project without appeals and grants - other similar projects have been holding the begging bowl out for 5 or 10 years. I am 63 now and this has been an ambition for many years so I have sunk all my pension fund into it.

All I want to do is post up progress notes - don't mind them pasted elsewhere but not altered. A friend in the Philippines is writing an add-on to GL so that stories will appear as bitmaps - they can be copied but not altered so easy.

Quote by: filipino

We are actually going after the person who cut altered and pasted as the alterations done a fine assassination job against me and the company.

Sadly we are the target for much jealousy as we have the money to rebuild the project without appeals and grants - other similar projects have been holding the begging bowl out for 5 or 10 years. I am 63 now and this has been an ambition for many years so I have sunk all my pension fund into it.

All I want to do is post up progress notes - don't mind them pasted elsewhere but not altered. A friend in the Philippines is writing an add-on to GL so that stories will appear as bitmaps - they can be copied but not altered so easy.

From DynamicDrive, I kind of like this one because it silently objects:

This can be placed in htmlheader.thtml ...

As everyone has said their is no easy way around this and in some cases you may want sites to use your material. Turning your stories into photos is just going to prevent Google from indexing your site.

Here is an article from sitepoint that talks more about disabling the right click

www.sitepoint.com/article/dont-disable-right-click


Tom

If you really want to hurt the website that is copying your material, report them to G o o gle:

www.g o o gle.com/dmca.html

This way their site will be removed from the search results and no one will find them.


Tom

PS I had to put spaces in g o o gle to bypass gllabs SPAM filter :wink:

Quote by: Laugh

As everyone has said their is no easy way around this and in some cases you may want sites to use your material. Turning your stories into photos is just going to prevent Google from indexing your site.

Here is an article from sitepoint that talks more about disabling the right click

www.sitepoint.com/article/dont-disable-right-click


Tom

Hi Tom -

Joe was right - even if the access controls are not that effective, by implementing them, and then by publishing a site policy which prohibits the export and modification of information in this way, it puts you in the legal position of saying that this particular person has 'circumvented reasonable and applicable controls' that you have placed on the information.

In other words, even though it isn't a foolproof way to do it, it protects the user-servicable parts inside in a legal way, even though it's just a sticker you can peel off ...

Luckily one of our directors is a Swiss lawyer will let him write something to taboo the copying and pasting (which is not so bad - it's the devils who cut and alter what we have said - that are the problem). At the moment we have our forum offline which is a pain.

Thanks to everyone ... on what I know is an impossible situation.

Wayne