URGENT: Copy-Paste Protection

XFactor · April 19, 2009, 01:13:46 PM

We have an active community based on SMF 1.1.8 with more than 13000 registered members and more than 50000 guests and a page visit of more than 1,000,000
We have many creations, articles which are the sole creation of the members, but We are facing a serious problem that needs instant look into.

Problem: Many persons just copy the articles in our forum and paste it in other forums and earn reputation there. We need to protect the forum urgently as it may reduce hopes of our members over privacy.

I tried the Disable Right Click mod. But the main thing is the Ctrl-C and
I need to disable use of this key on my forum.
ie) once the member/guest starts the forum [right from the index.php] whatever page he opens, the Ctrl-c should not work. Even in replies or quoting the Ctrl-C should not work..

Please give idea/mod before my members create chaos.. Please

Thanks in advance

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen · April 19, 2009, 01:17:44 PM

There is no 100% sure way to stop copying your content. If nothing else, people will always be able to take screenshots.

XFactor · April 19, 2009, 01:20:18 PM

screen shot is not a problem for me
I understand that if a thing comes to net, then its public.
But i want to know how to disable Ctrl-C key.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen · April 19, 2009, 01:24:01 PM

As long as you handle text, there is no reliable way to do that.

XFactor · April 19, 2009, 01:27:27 PM

cant we modify the Php or add javascript so that the Ctrl-C can be blocked..
I saw in the "Disable Right click mod" the script was modified to disable right click. [http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=238198.0] like that cant we do for this..

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen · April 19, 2009, 01:29:35 PM

You could ask the mod author about modifying the mod.

Marcus Forsberg · April 19, 2009, 01:33:29 PM

I've searched around and I don't think this is possible.

XFactor · April 19, 2009, 01:36:48 PM

Or can we disable the Control key alone.....
Please friends bcos this issue is attacking our forum more than the spam bots..

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen · April 19, 2009, 01:39:05 PM

How bout restricting access to your forum?

XFactor · April 19, 2009, 01:41:31 PM

I already mentioned dear

Quote13000 registered members and more than 50000 guests

so i cant restrict access and also i cant manually check the login history of all these five digit count heads to find who is copying.

Thats y i am adamant on disabling that copy key..

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen · April 19, 2009, 01:44:37 PM

There is always a way to steal the content...

Highlight + ctr +c is just one way. Right click menu is just one way.
How about source code? How bout browser functions? How bout screenshots and imagereader?

Marcus Forsberg · April 19, 2009, 01:53:24 PM

XFactor , I've found a way to disable selection of text in Internet Explorer.
I could not get it to work with Firefox and haven't tried any other browser, but here it is:

Index.template.php, find:

Code Select

<body>

Replace with:

Code Select

<body ondragstart="return 
<Nas> false" onselectstart="return false">

I found several other methods to prevent copying as well, but they only work in Internet Explorer.

karlbenson · April 19, 2009, 02:07:46 PM

There is is no foolproof way to prevent it.

Any javascript blocks can be easily defeated by using a different browser OR temporarily disabling javascript.
OR They could also view the page source, and copy and paste from that.
OR they could write a script to grab and copy the content.

and many many other ways of defeating it.

heavyccasey · April 19, 2009, 06:57:35 PM

I just thought of a very evil way to restrict copy and pasting... randomly inserting hidden text in between the real text. Using your original post as an example...

Wewfhwer293nfssde have an actiasd3rihuwidsfsdkjfve communisd4u4554ygdfxcty based on S3454564568nhfgMF 1.1.8 with more than 13000 registered members and more than 50000 guests and a page visit of more than 1,000,000
We have many creAzxocijm ,weo0032amations, articles which are the sole creation of the members, but We are facing a serious prsdf445hnntyhr5wereroblem that needs instant look into.

Problem: Many perssdfsdfsdfsdfshneons just copy the articles in our forum and paste it in other forums and earn repdfgdgregerggeererqutation there. We need to protect the forum urgently as it may reduce hopes of our members over privacy.

I tried the Disable Right Click mod. But the main thing is the Ctrl-C and
I need to disable use of this key on my forum.
ie) once the member/gwefsdf bdfbfbergeruest starts the forum [right from the index.php] whatever page he opens, the Ctrl-c should not work. Even in replies or quoting the Ctrl-C showeffwewef32r323uld not work..

Please give idea/mod before my members create chaos.. Please

Thanks in advsdf34tghnr5ynjtyance

That way, it's still visible normally, but when you copy and paste, the garbage text appears. Plus, I'm sure it's possible to automate it...

EDIT: It would probably hurt your search engine ratings though. A workaround would be to change the garbage text into keywords for your web site -- a win-win situation.

EDIT2: I just tested it. This technique would work in Internet Explorer and Firefox, but not Google Chrome, Safari, or Opera.

karlbenson · April 19, 2009, 07:16:01 PM

Indeed, I would expect it to result in negative seo.
(this is why that technique isn't widely employed)
I've seen a few people do it with a links eg "copyright - mysite.com - no copying"

OutofOrder · April 20, 2009, 07:14:47 PM

If the content is indeed private as XFactor claims (i assume boards hidden to guests), then it wouldn't be accessible to search engines in the first place. In this case, heavyccasey's idea sounds like a good shot on discouraging copy/pastes.

dr.wills · April 21, 2009, 12:40:47 PM

just me idea to share

about the search engine, you can do the submission in a different way (I don't know, maybe redirect all the engine and spider to a clone forum that users can't access) the clone forum is for search engine purpose only

for the users:
if they have javascript disable, then try this:
- first message is pulled from database, and encrypted by smf (you can make a mod for this)
- since they don't have javascript to decrypt it, all they will see is scrambled stuff

they need to have javascript enable
the javascript will decrypt the message and see it (browser decrypt) but now since the javascript enabled, you can use it to disable right click and Ctrl-C.

If they try to look in the source, all they will see is encrypted messages, so they can't copy anyway

by the way, this is the way that most emails are displayed on websites,

I guess that helps

kind of complicated though

but still that can't prevent taking screenshot of the screen

青山素子 · April 21, 2009, 07:28:13 PM

Quote from: akaiphan on April 21, 2009, 12:40:47 PM
about the search engine, you can do the submission in a different way (I don't know, maybe redirect all the engine and spider to a clone forum that users can't access) the clone forum is for search engine purpose only

That will likely be considered cloaking, and will get you quickly removed from search engine indexes. The other downfall is that users can spoof the user agent and get the unprotected "spider" version.

Quote from: akaiphan on April 21, 2009, 12:40:47 PM
if they have javascript disable, then try this:
- first message is pulled from database, and encrypted by smf (you can make a mod for this)
- since they don't have javascript to decrypt it, all they will see is scrambled stuff

they need to have javascript enable
the javascript will decrypt the message and see it (browser decrypt) but now since the javascript enabled, you can use it to disable right click and Ctrl-C.

That will hurt search engine rankings considerably, since you probably don't want to do any kind of cloaking like the above mention.

It's also fairly easy to work around if you really want the content.

Quote from: akaiphan on April 21, 2009, 12:40:47 PM
but still that can't prevent taking screenshot of the screen

Exactly. You don't have control over the device on the end of the connection, so you can't easily prevent stuff from being copied. Anything you do to make it more difficult on the regular users won't really stop those determined, but it will impact the innocent users you want to keep.

By the way, in Firefox, it's really easy to prevent the context menu from being disabled. There is actually a setting to remove the ability of JavaScript to disable or replace the context menu.

Sarge · May 12, 2009, 08:31:28 PM

If you do your homework, which quite possibly involves working with a lawyer, you should be able to create a TOS (Terms of Use) about your content.

Maybe using Copyscape and reporting plagiarism to the admins of other forums/sites where the copied content is posted would be the way to go? If the admins of those other sites are not cooperative, you can complain to their hosting company.

dr.wills · May 12, 2009, 09:39:14 PM

I think that's not the way to solve all problems, since if there are a lot of people coming from tons of hosts. How can you inform them all?

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URGENT: Copy-Paste Protection