Website Copy That Can't Be Copied.

I'm not super computer savvy but I would like to be able to add code my website so that someone can't come and copy and paste all of my text. Any ideas? Suggestions? Thank you.

Cheryl

This simply isn’t possible. If your content is available on the internet, it can be copied. Of course it shouldn’t be copied - if you wrote the content, you own the copyright.

You can add code that discourages visitors from copying your content, by making it more difficult, but you cannot stop it altogether. 

Thanks! I've come across other Squarespace sites where I could not copy and paste the text on the page. Have a wonderful day!

Let me try to provide some additional detail. It isn't technically possible to prevent someone copying text on a website. Any website.

The websites you've seen will be deploying some measures to make it appear that text cannot be copied. For example, you could prevent visitors from selecting text on a page, or block the 'copy' command when they try to copy to the clipboard.

However, I would not advise any of my clients to implement these restrictions on their websites because these measures are just small obstacles that will not prevent visitors copying your content. They will simply frustrate your genuine visitors by giving them a bad experience, and they won't return.

@paul2009 I would actually be interesting in knowing how I could prevent visitors from selecting text on a page or blocking the "copy" command in order to protect some of my text. Do you know how I could go about doing that?

Thanks!

@paul2009 I also would be interested in knowing more of the possibilities for making text and content harder to steal.  Blanket dismissal of the possible defenses because someone can ultimately get around them isn't helpful.  Is there text that can be utilized in code injection to disable text selection on a Squarespace site and blog posts?  Word Press and others have ways to do it.  If you could please provide text for disabling the copy command and text selection, that would be appreciated.

On 3/11/2020 at 7:58 AM, Xaander said:

@paul2009 I also would be interested in knowing more of the possibilities for making text and content harder to steal.  Blanket dismissal of the possible defenses because someone can ultimately get around them isn't helpful.  Is there text that can be utilized in code injection to disable text selection on a Squarespace site and blog posts?  Word Press and others have ways to do it.  If you could please provide text for disabling the copy command and text selection, that would be appreciated.

You can disable Right Click. 

However it only helps a part. Because there are many ways to combat that. If you know the code, you have many ways to copy text / download images from such a web.

While I appreciate the reply, this did not answer my questions.  What are the ways to disable the copy option and to disable text selection?  If you have code injection text for these, please provide it or point to someone knowledgable who can.  Thank you.  

This worked out for me, just paste it in the header of any blog or page using the <script> tags

function disableselect(e) {
    return false;
}

function reEnable() {
    return true;
}

document.onselectstart = new Function("return false");

if (window.sidebar) {
    document.onmousedown = disableselect;
    document.onclick = reEnable;
}

Thank you for the constructive suggestion!  I will give it a try.  

All anyone has to do is make a screen shot and then anything in that image can be cut out and or copied. Disabling right click, using code is only a hurdle  to jump, not a wall, that no one can get over. 

There are several ways for this.

1. Turn off JavaScript on browser.
2. Save page as PDF.
3. Using Proxy Websites.
4. Copy text from source code.

Source: https://otechworld.com/copy-text-from-protected-website/

On 8/1/2019 at 9:25 AM, paul2009 said:

This simply isn’t possible. If your content is available on the internet, it can be copied. Of course it shouldn’t be copied - if you wrote the content, you own the copyright.

Hi Paul, 

Just wanted to add that it is indeed possible to forbid copying and pasting in a sq website. The code snippet mentioned above worked like a charm for me and the idea (as the question itself) is to discourage "content thieves" from simply copying and pasting your content. See my answer and the result in our website, down below. (The point is to discourage, if one wants to sit and write anew what they see, nobody can really stop them right?)

For 

On 4/28/2020 at 12:35 AM, JorgeVazquez said:

This worked out for me, just paste it in the header of any blog or page using the <script> tags

function disableselect(e) {
    return false;
}

function reEnable() {
    return true;
}

document.onselectstart = new Function("return false");

if (window.sidebar) {
    document.onmousedown = disableselect;
    document.onclick = reEnable;
}

It readlly did! Thanks!

Hi guys, 

I tried the above mentioned code snippet in my website and worked like a charm, adding as suggested, the <script> & </script> tags. 
Our website is www.geopsis.com
The specific blog page we wanted to disable select text is this: https://www.geopsis.com/news-blog 

In effect, the code helped discouraging potential copying and pasting of parts or all of our articles, which is the point of this whole thread. Replying to Paul above, naturally if one is determined to take an hour and write in a blank document what they see and read, nobody can prevent them. However most of the illegal copying and pasting on the internet -thus depriving you of the real credits of your work, which is traffic at your site and your article-, happens because people can simply copy and paste what they see. 

To make things easier, here is the code snippet complete with the tags: 

<script>
function disableselect(e) {
    return false;
}

function reEnable() {
    return true;
}

document.onselectstart = new Function("return false");

if (window.sidebar) {
    document.onmousedown = disableselect;
    document.onclick = reEnable;
}
</script>

Additionally, let me add that if one really wants to copy your content, then they might as will try and print the page in .pdf format from Chrome / other browsers. For the moment I haven't found any code to disable print from web browser, but I will update this post if I do.