Preventing copy from browser?

[Tuxguy]

Hi,

 

I've done a search and (surprisingly) dug nothing up about preventing students from copying text off a website, pasting it into a document and claiming it as their own. I can see how to disable right-clicking, but we need something more, and specifically just to stop text being copied (images are accepatable). Does anyone have any ideas how I can do this??

 

Thanks,

 

TG

[Geoff]

In what context are you asking? Are you a website owner? Or a teacher?

 

If it's the first then in theory you can do some javascript wizardry to recode what the right click mouse button does. However you're only fooling yourself trying to do this. Keyboard cut/paste shortcuts will still work and there's no way to stop people disabling javascript or overriding your override (firefox even has a addon for it).

 

If you're a teacher, I'm afraid you'll have to just teach the kids about copyright, plaguraism, etc and hope they pay attention. You can also cut and paste bits of their submitted work into google and see if it matches anything.

[Tuxguy]

I'm a network manager, so it's in an attempt to help the teachers control the rampant plagiarism. I’m not holding out much hope as one of the basic premises of the internet is the sharing of information, and cut and paste is so much a part of the OS anyway, but I said I’d ask around on the off-chance that there may be a way to stop text selection in a browser. I suppose as Firefox is open-source I may be able to find a way to create a special educational ‘no text copy’ version, but that’s not my preferred path as I don’t have those skills!

 

Thanks,

 

TG

[kmount]

I agree with Geoff; educating the students is better/easier than trying to stop them doing it.

 

We had a spate of this but figured them out when they were using US English

[mattx]

You could write a script which monitors data being stuck on the clipboard and if so, deletes it....... [ could be seen as a trojan though by some crappy AV products..... ]

Or even better, replaces the copied text / content with a message stating copying and pasting will not be tolerated - [ even log the user ID !! ]

 

Sounds like a small project I could get my teeth into........ [ unless someone has done it already ]

Edited November 26, 2008 by mattx

[Daleus]

off-chance that there may be a way to stop text selection in a browser.

 

ha, they're clever.

 

They would screenshot the text and past it into the document and write what they wanted after and before it using the same font.

 

Also..

What about Fedora 10 everyone? what a smasher!

 

 

 

*edit, also just thought, they could save the webpage in [browser name here] and open that in word or notepad or anything and take what they wanted*

[RabbieBurns]

If its homework are they not more than likely to be doing the copy and pasting at home on their own machines anyway?

[powdarrmonkey]

Or even better, replaces the copied text / content with a message stating copying and pasting will not be tolerated - [ even log the user ID !! ]

 

That would get really annoying when all I wanted to do was move a paragraph from one document into another using the clipboard.

[Michael]

To be honest (in my opinion) a good teacher should know and understand their pupils, their writing styles, choice of words and their use of punctuation.

 

It should be encouraged that pupils use the web for research, but should read and re-write in their own way to determine their understanding. The exception to this is quoting sentences or paragraphs of particular significance.