I’m sure that you’ve heard about all of the scandals going on online right now about pirating and copyright-violations. All of the big software companies and music conglomerates are tired of having their digital products stolen and then traded online for free. It not only cuts into their revenue severely but it damages their reputation and tarnishes the value of their product.
Well, guess what? These problems don’t only affect huge multi-national media conglomerates; they affect you as well, and in some ways pose a much larger threat. Imagine, what would you do if your entire online business was stolen from you and then given away free all over the Internet? Go broke? Quit?
In fact, this is a very likely possibility that has happened to thousands of online marketers, much to their dismay. Granted the problem isn’t usually so severe, but having your website copied is not a very pleasant experience.
One of the things that made the Internet great and so useful to everybody is the free trading of information. Nothing on the Internet was blocked from anybody. That was very good for the start of the Internet, but nowadays online businesses are plagued by armies of online thieves that steal and pilfer their websites, with no regard for the laws or common decency.
So how do you protect your page from this online scum?
The first thing you should do is write "Copyright 2002 Your Business Name All Rights Reserved" or the year which you last updated your webpage on the bottom of every page. Keep in mind that every work is automatically copyrighted as soon as it is in fixed tangible form (meaning you can see or hear it).
While it is not necessary to register a work for it to be protected by copyright law, it helps if you are involved in a lawsuit. Copyright registration costs just $35 in the US, and you will need to send the copyright office a complete copy of the work you wish to register. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/copyright.
Another good idea would be to link your copyright statement to a page that clearly states what your policy is. Nowadays, it is especially a good idea to put your linking policy up as well. Here is an example:
Copyright 2002 by Your Company. All rights reserved. Documents on the yoursite.com site may not be copied in part or full without express written permission from the publisher. All violations will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You can freely link to any HTML document on yoursite.com as long as its ownership is clearly stated. You may not directly link or include in any site images hosted on yoursite.com.
Now, you can take the active steps toward protecting your webpage. The only way to stop people that can’t be stopped by legal or ethical concerns is to make your website impossible to copy. Sadly, that is itself impossible. However, by encrypting your HTML and using a few more JavaScript tricks you can protect your website from 99.9% of potential thieves.
You can find two basic protection scripts at http://www.htmlcrypto.com/freetools.html. The first tool will allow you to use a JavaScript technique and encrypt your HTML. This will make it much harder for thieves to steal your website.
The second tool is the source code for a JavaScript right-click blocker that if you copy to your page will make it harder for thieves to just right-click and save any image on your website.
Of course, if you really value your site, and if you simply can’t afford to have your website stolen then you will need the industrial-strength solution provided by HTML-Crypto. Just go to http://www.htmlcrypto.com/ and check out the Ultimate Online Security Solution.
If you have copyrighted material posted on your website that you have a financial interest in protecting, it is definitely worth it.
Good luck!
