Putting a copyright notice that automatically update

There are various ways of putting copyright notices on your blogs including typing your own and if you want to include the © symbol, you will have to use the code to display the © symbol. For clearer explanation, refer to How to put a copyright notice to your blog. This post was written for the old classic Blogger template, but you can modify it for the New Blogger if you know how New Blogger works. If not, refer to the bottom section of this post.

If your blog content has been copied, or you want a way to discourage would-be copycats, refer to this post: What to do if your blog content is copied, or you want to warn off would-be copycats (click BACK button to get back to this page).

Anyway, there is an easier way and a way to do copyright notice which can enable you to keep the copyright notice up-to-date automatically, and that is to use this copyright notice generator: Automatic always up-to-date copyright notice generator. I have used it to generate a copyright notice for this blog: Dummies Guide to Google Blogger. The copyright notice is at the footer of the blog. If you return to the blog next year, you will see that notice updated to year 2008.

The above copyright notice generator is very easy to use and is self-explanatory. Just input the relevant data and make your choices, and when you are done, just click the [generate] button and a window will appear with the script which you can copy and paste into a HTML/Javascript widget window of the Add a Page Element of the LAYOUT. The most suitable Add a Page Element to click to do that should be in the footer section of the LAYOUT, and that is what I have done for the blog Dummies Guide to Google Blogger.

I think I will probably do the same thing for my other blogs, including this one.

How to put the script mentioned above into your blog

If you are using the New Blogger template, sign into Blogger Dashboard and click LAYOUT for the blog where you want to put the script (or click the TEMPLATE tab if you are already in the Dashboard of the particular blog) and you will be taken to the Layout page. Click "Add a Page Element" in the footer section of the Layout, chose HTML/Javascript and click "Save to blog". Paste the script into the window and click "Save". The new HTML/Javascript Page Element will appear at the top of other page elements if you have other Page Elements in the footer. Most likely, you will want the notice to appear right at the bottom of the blog, in which case, hover your mouse over the new Page Element. The cursor will change to a cross. Drag the Page Element to the bottom of the footer. Click "Save" at the top right of the Page. Click "View blog" to make sure everything is as you want it.

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How to prevent the content of your post from being copied

Note: You may have to play around with the font size and paragraph width to get it to display nicely in your post. Note that you can't have hyperlinks, etc., in the post. Also, I forgot to mention you will have to crop the image.

On the other hand, if you just want to frighten off potential copy-cats, refer to What to do when your blog content is copied. (Note: This part of the post is done in the normal way, otherwise, it will be impossible to include the link above.

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What to do when your blog content is copied

This post is a result of an alert and some links given by Sherry of Helpful Resources for New Bloggers (close new window to get back to this page) that someone is copying contents of my blog Dummies Guide to Google Blogger. Rather than describing what to do, I will give an account of what I did.

At this thread How to use Google AdSense with blog (close new window to return to this page), I followed the link in his signature line, and found a couple of posts which are exact duplicate of mine. I went to the individual post pages (permalink) make screen shots (Printscreen) with Irfanview. See screenshots below (click "BACK button to return to this page).
The part above the fold of his post which he copied from mine
My post from which he copied from (click screenshot to enlarge. Click "BACK" button to return to this page):Note the differences in URLs and dates (27 October 2006 and 4 April 2006). To get the rest of the posts, I scrolled down and took a few more screenshots to show the similarity and saved them in a special folder. Further, I got the source code of his blog (in the menu bar, click VIEW and select PAGE SOURCE.This is for FireFox. Wording will be different in different browsers). I looked for the AdSense scripts and copied his AdSense ID (pub-7471417268818747). This is to collect evidences. I let him know that I know his ID. I requested him to delete the posts and let him know of the consequences if he didn't. All this was done politely (no point making enemies online). Eventually, he did remove the posts and apologised, and that was done quite promptly.

Lorelle did a very good article detailing what to do when your content is copied. See her article What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content (close new window to get back to this page). You should read what he has to say.

If you want to deter potential copy-cats, you can put a warning banner from Copyscape. For an example, look at this blog: Star Home Improvements (close new window to return to this page). The banner is right at the top, just below the header of the blog. To get the script for the warning banner, you can go to Copyscape (close new window to return to this page). You can get different formats of the warning banner to suit the part of your site you want to place it in. For example, this bigger square format: . If you are using Blogger classic template, this post will guide you where to paste the script: Blogger template tutorial (click "BACK" button to return to this page). If you are using Blogger Beta template, to place it below the header (which I think is the best place to put it), see post Adding graphic to your Blogger beta header (close new window to return to this page). There are even bigger formats than the one I have shown, and if you feel that the banner shown are not prominent enough, you can choose the bigger formats for your blog to really frighten off the copy-cats.

Note: I have tried Copyscape, and found that it was not very effective. However, they have a Premium version and also automatic monitoring with Copysentry (which I presume are not free). You may get better result with those. If you are serious about protecting your content and don't mind spending some money, I suppose you can try it out. In any case, I think their banner is a good enough deterrent to warn potential copy-cats, and that is free.

You may also inform Google about the infringement at Digital Millennium Copyright Act - Blogger

Books from Amazon

Copyright: Examples And Explanations (Examples & Explanations)

Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks for Dummies

The Copyright Handbook: How to Protect & Use Written Works (Copyright Handbook)

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