Watermarking images can work ok.  You might notice that Na does that with her images.  There really is no way to watermark text.  This is really hard to stop. These folks are reading the text on your site then typing it into other sites.  There is no real way to detect that so you can't point folks to your site when that happens. Now something you could do if the site has comments like e.how is add a comment telling folks where they could find the full information.  The thing about that is the comments are so far down the page it is unlikely anyone would see them.

I thought (maybe stupidly so) that one could make a very big watermark over the page on which the text is printed (okay, that would take some work: Maybe taking GIMP or such, putting the watermark on a page and the text on top of that. So you'd also have the text as image, not as text, so copy- paste would not do the job- and would get the watermark, too.) Do you think that could work? Okay, quick editing of text is impossible then...

No I don't think that would work.  

Shame...

Would it help to put logos/ watermarks in the pics and texts? I mean, they can hardly steal anything that specificly refers to a non-eHow- page. I guess you could never stop highjackers- even if you stopped one, another one would spring up, and stop a download is out of the question, as Shawn pointed out. Have any of you media highlords an idea to make content safe by pointing at somebodys own website? I mean: firstly everybody would know that it was stolen from another page and might rather want to look there. Secoundly that would not really be PR if the word got around- which it probably would far quicker if everybody could see it. You think that could be done?

Yes and no. eHow writers are aware enough that they tend to plagiarise by "rewrites" - that is, they won't copy word-for-word, but they will rewrite your text so it's not an exact copy but is still stealing the majority of the work. There's a fine line to tread, and so some can be considered outright copies even if they're not word-for-word same.

For instance, your sentence "would it help to put logos/watermarks in the pics and texts?" can be rewritten to "should it be an assistance to put watermarks over the pictures and texts?" ... One doesn't require a lot of imagination to see it's been copied, even if the words aren't exactly the same.

So yes, they're smart enough not to use photos that have been watermarked. However, the fact that they use images that are clearly copyrighted (or at least likely not to be public domain/creative commons) suggests that they only care about *looking* like they're not copying. The issue with the photos is somewhat easier to rectify because it's a matter of getting people to watermark their images.

But it doesn't prevent the overall issue which is they rewrite texts. (You can't watermark text anyway, unless you want it to be unreadable) The issue is that the writers are usually just people who want to earn a bit of cash and they get paid so little per article, it's easier to rewrite than to read a book, study a subject, and then write about it.

The second issue is to "point to the website". eHow does indeed list a bunch of websites as "resources" and "references". They have done this with articles that were plagiarised (see above link to one). Getting them to only reference an article goes back to the writers: there is little editorial oversight and a writer can be you, me or your 70-year-old grandma for all they care. If it makes sense and fits their guidelines, they're not going to check every single link referenced to make sure it's not plagiarised. (This I can somewhat understand because it's hard to police a lot of content being churned every day. It takes more manpower to double-check everything than it would to right)

The other half of that is that the people visiting sites like eHow don't care about the validity of the information or where it came from. They want quick answers and they want it now and you'll find a surprising amount of people on the net don't give a flying *** about copyrights; and in fact, most people don't care if they break copyright laws either.

The third issue is PR. I've tried tweeting and getting the message out on Facebook. eHow themselves don't care. The wider blogosphere already know that the site is a content farm and the quality is crap; but that's really only people who read about online technology news. Again, the wider public don't care.

There are two parts to this: forcing their freelance "writers" to understand and respect copyrights; and getting the wider public to care.

The reason why I'm making this public to puppeteers is to get *them* to police their own stuff. I can't legally complain about plagiarism when the articles don't steal my stuff but take someone else's. The more puppeteers who know about this, the more they can put their own pressure on the site. If you have photos, watermark them. If you have patterns/tutorials/whatever, copyright them.

eHow writers, and similar, are more likely to steal from you if you have no obvious copyright policy, watermarks, etc. It doesn't stop them, but I've found that since I've been complaining heavily, they've been somewhat leaving my stuff alone. They may not have responded to me in any manner whatsoever, but they've been smart enough to back off a bit.

But that's just me... they're still stealing from other people.

Watermarking images can work ok.  You might notice that Na does that with her images.  There really is no way to watermark text.  This is really hard to stop. These folks are reading the text on your site then typing it into other sites.  There is no real way to detect that so you can't point folks to your site when that happens. Now something you could do if the site has comments like e.how is add a comment telling folks where they could find the full information.  The thing about that is the comments are so far down the page it is unlikely anyone would see them.

The thing is that watermarking doesn't actually prevent stealing. It does slightly discourage it, but I've found my watermarked images on other people's sites (I mean, sites I have nothing to do with). People will steal whatever they think they can get away with. So you have to police your work - and one of the ways you can do that is by sending a DMCA (cease and desist, although DMCA is for American websites/web hosts only... you can probably send similar emails/letters to others too) to have the stuff removed. If they're just spammers it's not likely to do much, but I've been successful in having stuff removed from some other sites: including one certain *puppetry* website.

As for leaving comments: I've left comments on articles which were plagiarised on eHow. Not only do I get a bare minimum response from the staff, but I've even had them removed. Puppetry is such a niche subject and people are only really looking for the tutorial, so I'm not surprised if no one from the public is even aware that the comments are there.

I thought (maybe stupidly so) that one could make a very big watermark over the page on which the text is printed (okay, that would take some work: Maybe taking GIMP or such, putting the watermark on a page and the text on top of that. So you'd also have the text as image, not as text, so copy- paste would not do the job- and would get the watermark, too.) Do you think that could work? Okay, quick editing of text is impossible then...

That wouldn't work mainly because of two things: you can still download the image, with the text in it. (Yeah it takes longer to translate text out of an image, but it can still be done)

The other is that you make your site completely unreadable for anyone who uses a text reader - visually disabled people - and bad for SEO. Google, etc can't read text in an image, so basically your site would be practically blank for their purposes, and this drops your site off results pages.

Again, the issue is not "how can I stop people from stealing", it's "how can I educate people so they respect my work". Two different approaches, with two different outcomes. The first makes you do all the work with the stealer do nothing, the second makes the other person the criminal and you do very little work.

I don't think it could be done. The "ordinary Joe" will not respect work. They hardly respect the work of high rated professional artist, so why us "hobbyists"? I know that some people here are as much pros as Phil Collins or Joseph Beuys but art doesn't seem to be considered work. We have an expression over here: "breadless art". Artists seem to be respected when they're famous and die, never before...

I don't think it could be done. The "ordinary Joe" will not respect work. They hardly respect the work of high rated professional artist, so why us "hobbyists"? I know that some people here are as much pros as Phil Collins or Joseph Beuys but art doesn't seem to be considered work. We have an expression over here: "breadless art". Artists seem to be respected when they're famous and die, never before...

Of course it's an uphill battle - which is why we can't simply leave it to sites like eHow to follow through. We need to make sure that other people know about it; talk about it; attempt to prevent it; and educate others.

Which is why even if I won the battle with eHow myself, I'm going to keep harping on about it

Please be a bard, you'll do a spiffy job!