Suggestion: Copyright Notice

1. 83

   Whitney05posted 16 years ago

   Since there has been a number of cases of stolen HP content, and the upcoming feature, I was thinking that instead of all hubbers creating a Copyright notice, maybe HubPages could create an automatic message that shows somewhere on each hub.
   
   And for those that would rather create their own message or not include one at all, there could be an option to include or not include the automatic HubPages copyright. Kind of like the Kontera option where it can be enabled for all hubs or none, but then again on each individual hub there's an individual option as well.
   
   Although, it won't stop everyone from copying the content, it may deter some people from copying.
   
   Just a simple statement such that below may be all that is needed. I don't know.. Just a suggestion.
   ***
   This content is exclusive content to HubPages, and you may link to this page, email the page, or bookmark it, but the content on this page may not be copied or reprinted elsewhere. Thank you.
   ***

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   1. 59

      JYOTI KOTHARIposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I support the idea.

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   2. 85

      agvulpesposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      Great idea, Hubpages do have their own copyright notice at the bottom of each Hub, they may be able to add one like  you say. Although the content is not really exlusive?
      

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      1. 85

         Marisa Wrightposted 16 years agoin reply to this

         Speak for yourself, AG.  The vast majority of my Hubs are exclusive (i.e. not published anywhere else)

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         1. 79

            SweetiePieposted 16 years agoin reply to this

            Completely agree.  I only publish my hubs here.

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               xtraTinyposted 16 years agoin reply to this

               I also agree. All of my HPs are only published in hubpages.

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         2. 60

            Australia unplugsposted 16 years agoin reply to this

            I thought the content on Hubpages was owned by the Author and permitted to be published by the Author elswhere?.

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   3. 59

      hubber-2009posted 15 years agoin reply to this

      some may think that COPYRIGHT means COPY & WRITE..

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2. 81

   ripplemakerposted 16 years ago

   Hi Whitney, that's a great idea.  Although it doesn't prevent people from stealing or copying, but the warning somehow ...warns! 

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3. 83

   Whitney05posted 16 years ago

   Exactly... Nothing is ever really going to prevent or stop people from copying the information, but at least there would be a warning, which may stop SOME people from copying the information... I think that it would stop those people who don't know that it could potentially be a bad thing, and are innocently copying and pasting.

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4. 58

   weblogposted 16 years ago

   Great idea

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5. 83

   Whitney05posted 16 years ago

   I figure this way, if it's a HubPages official statement, it wouldn't cause problems with duplicates or whatever.. Versus is everyone does the same thing on every one of their hubs. I'm just not sure how it would look to Google and other search engines.
   
   Or if it were personalized, it would have your s/n or real name on the copyright notice. I'm just not sure how easy that would be to automatically adjust a name into the copyright for each hubber.

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6. 60

   xtraTinyposted 16 years ago

   I also support this opinion.

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7. 70

   William F. Torpeyposted 16 years ago

   If HubPages will include the warning, I'm in favor of it. It's kind of like a "Keep Off the Grass" sign. It won't stop everybody from walking on the lawn, but it provides you with backup if you want to file a complaint.

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8. 72

   AEvansposted 16 years ago

   I couldn't agree more, as I have had to place copyrights on some of mine and it does detour the thieves

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9. 85

   Marisa Wrightposted 16 years ago

   Sounds like a great idea and I can't see any downsides. 
   
   I sent a copyright notice to Yahoo because someone had copied and pasted one of my articles into Yahoo Answers.  They've responded and taken it down.  It's the first time I've tried to do that so I'm very pleased it worked!

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10. 66

    Hope Alexanderposted 16 years ago

    I'm just going to say here what I said in the other, almost identical thread over there ------------>   
    
    Content theft is here to stay, but it's not all bad, you can actually profit from it. A lot of times when my content is stolen it works out to be a net plus for me - more readers of my work, plus extra back links - which happen to be the most powerful tools for ranking in search engines now.
    
    For example, Marisa, instead of getting Yahoo answers to take your article down, you could have gotten them to add a link back to your hub or your profile page. That's how you build rank. Getting links from authority sites.
    
    Of course, you're all free to get your proverbial panties in a twist over stolen content, but it isn't something you will ever be able to control. That is not the nature of this medium. If you want your content to be 'safe', write it in a journal and lock it in a drawer, or publish it on gold leaf or something like that.
    
    Publishing (of all media) has changed forever. The people who will profit from this are the ones who realize the value of an idea spreading, not the ones who try to horde the idea for themselves. You can make content theft work for you by embedding links in your work, by encouraging the spreading of your ideas. That's how you develop authority, how you develop a following, how you make this interwebs work for you.
    
    This ain't your grandma's publishing medium.

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11. 79

    SweetiePieposted 16 years ago

    Many links to Yahoo! Answers are no follow.  I know because people have linked to my hubs through there and when I go to backlinkwatch.com it shows these are no follow links.  I saw some hubbers hubs copied on Answers and found one of my own there, so I requested these be taken down.  I personally see no good points about plagiarism.

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12. 69

    Pam Robersonposted 16 years ago

    This was discussed also at this thread: http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/9897
    
    I also feel that having the option to have a copyright notice added to our pages is a good idea.
    
    I had another idea that I expressed at the other thread (which I hope is linked). When I was developing webpages, I found a script that can be inserted into html which prevents visitors from highlighting text to copy and paste. This could maybe be another option offered by hubpages. I don't think many people would take the time to copy your work if they had to write it out by hand.
    
    I don't have time to go hunt down that script at the moment, but it's just a simple java script that is similar to a script that prevents visitors from 'right clicking' to copy and save pictures.
    
    Just my 2 cents.

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    1. 83

       Whitney05posted 16 years agoin reply to this

       I agree... I wouldn't mind it if there it were a few paragraphs and a link,  but I found near 10 hubs copied there and only 1 had a backlink. One or two were the entire hub captions and all.
       
       
       
       You are correct in that at times it can work for you, but not all people who copy, link back to your site. Out of near 15 places that copied my content, I only found 2 or 3 backlinks.
       
       
       
       The content can still be copied via PrintScreen button, and those that really want to do so, will still copy using that method. It just takes more work to have to rewrite what you've PrintScreened as you'll have to do so manually.

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13. 69

    Pam Robersonposted 16 years ago

    I found it:
    
    http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex9/noselect.htm
    
    All we need is the option to have this inserted on our pages, then the traditional highlight and copy feature will not exist for anyone who wants to steal content. The more work that is involved in stealing content, the less likely it will be for someone to steal it.

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14. STAFF

    pauldeedsposted 16 years ago

    There is a copyright notice in the footer of every page on the site.  Authors do retain copyright to the material they publish on HubPages.
    
    
    
    While I am in favor of helping those that would like to protect their copyright, I'm not a fan of large prominent copyright notices or copy protection logos within the body of a hub.  There is a reason you don't see those on many high profile content sites (blogs, newspapers, magazines, etc), and it's that they are just wasted space for 99.99% of the people that view the page, and they make the site look unprofessional.  I'm also not in favor of using javascript to eliminate selecting text because there are lots of legitimate uses for selecting text or copying small portions of text.  Breaking basic browser functionality, (cut and paste, the back button, bookmarking, etc), is rarely a good idea.    While I agree that implementing either or both of these would probably reduce copying a bit, by my estimate both solutions are worse than the problem itself.

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    1. 83

       Whitney05posted 16 years agoin reply to this

       I believe that I've seen the copyright notice before now that you mention it, but because it's a the bottom (where it's supposed to be and is on most sites), it's just not noticed. I understand that it's not pretty to have a huge notice somewhere, but it was just a thought that may deter the benign copying that is the case more than malicious.

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    2. 72

       Bruce Elkinposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Pam's suggestion above about "the dynamic drive" link is also an excellent one -- to prevent copying and pasting of hubs.
       Cheers!
       Bruce

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    3. 85

       agvulpesposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Paul I agree with what you are saying. Perhaps you could look at the color of the text in your copyright notice, in my browser the text is almost the same color as the background.
       Makes it very hard to read. If anyone hasn't seen the notice, scroll to bottom of this page to read it.

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15. STAFF

    pauldeedsposted 16 years ago

    I pulled out some numbers to try and put this into perspective.   Of the hubs we've tested there are about 600 incidents where another site appears to have a copy of the material.  Of those, I'd say about 1/3 of the time it's been the author re-using their own material.  That leaves about 400 incidents of malicious copying.  In total all the tested hubs have been viewed about 25 million times.  If that ratio holds, it means you can expect 1 incident of copying to happen for every 62,500 times your hub is viewed.
    
    I think it makes more sense to focus on serving the 62,499 viewers rather than 1 who might copy, or the 1/3 or 1/2 a viewer that might copy and would be deterred by some form of notice or other protection.

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16. 69

    Pam Robersonposted 16 years ago

    Whitney, that was my whole point, to make it much more difficult. When you click "print screen," you only capture what's on the immediate screen, so a thief would have to do that at least 2 or 3 times to capture the entire content of a hub, then redo the whole thing manually which isn't nearly as easy or fast as highlighting text to copy and paste. Although I understand Paul's reasoning behind not doing it.
    
    I personally feel that any effort to thwart the attempt is worth months of planning what to do after it happens. The easiest solution is to have a copyright notice at the end of the hub and not at the end of the page. At least there is a notice at the bottom of each page. I had hardly noticed it till Paul mentioned it.

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    1. 85

       Marisa Wrightposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       I agree.  Just below the arrows would be perfect.  When Paul said there was an existing copyright notice, I went looking for it and didn't even see it!

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    2. 83

       Whitney05posted 16 years agoin reply to this

       You are right that it would be harder to copy, but determined people will still do it. You are right though that it would cut down copying to a small percentage.
       
       I also agree with having the copyright in a more visible place such as by the arrows as mentioned by Marisa. Like I said, I've seen the one that's already in place, but not many people scroll all the way to the bottom, even when leaving a comment you don't really notice it. And, considering the number of people who look at the hubs, most don't comment, so they don't even get anywhere near the copyright notice.

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    3. 85

       agvulpesposted 16 years agoin reply to this

       Its a bit like locks on doors isn't it. They only keep honest people out!.
       If someone wants to steal something they will find a way.

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17. 59

    JYOTI KOTHARIposted 16 years ago

    Paul,
    Can it be placed somewhere else more prominently?
      Jyoti Kothari

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    1. 83

       Whitney05posted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Pretty much my thought process on preventing highlighting. If someone REALLY wants to steal, they will find ways. But, it would still cut out some of the copying, if not a lot of it.
       
       
       
       
       Definitely. This is like what I said somewhere in the thread, to maybe leave the current copyright, but put it elsewhere.
       
       I do like the suggestion of changing the color, as well, if it's going to be left as is.

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18. 56

    Dame Scribeposted 15 years ago

    Is it possible for HP to just insert a code that can prevent right click and copying? or can we do that ourselves? maybe spread the cost of this extra service off our ads or something between all the hubbers?

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19. 69

    William Turpenposted 15 years ago

    I agree 100% with Paul Deeds.  Let's keep it simple.

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20. 0

    abeererposted 15 years ago

    Thank you very much, very informative but can I copy from out of the hubpages.com, and paste in my hub with authors name or his book or any reference to the original writer. Is this act against the copyright policy? Please advice.

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       relacheposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       What you are describing would be a violation of the original author's copyrights unless you had their permission.

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       Marisa Wrightposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       Yes it would be against copyright policy.   You could copy and paste just the first one or two sentences, then provide a link back to the author's original Hub.  That would be permissible.

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    AEvansposted 15 years ago

    I have to also agree with Paul although I had somene copy me , we should stay focused and just like William Turpen stated, let's just keep it simple.

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22. 0

    abeererposted 15 years ago

    Many thanks to all. But it’s a bad news for me as I wanted to have a collection of my favorites (each copied hub contains its original reference) where I can invite my friends. :-(

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