copyright workbook

JimmyB · Mar 22nd 2020

Hi

I have an Excel workbook that I want to copyright. I've googled how to do this and have been advised, that I just need to place the following statement in

I have about 40 sheets in my workbook. All of the Sheets and Macros are password protected. I've worked hard on this for the last year - don't want it stolen.

1) Do I have to include the statement on all 40 sheets?

2) Does it have to be in Cell "A2"? I don't have that cell available in every sheet.

3) Cosmetically it would look messy. Can I put it at the bottom of the page instead?

4) What's to stop a bad guy to crack my password and insert his own statement?

I have emailed the program to myself, periodically throughout the process of development, over the last year (without that statement).

I tried using the 'UI Editor' for 'Microsoft Office' and get the error: "Not a valid XML document Root element is missing", so I guess that this is not of xlsm files

I can't afford a legal person for help with copyrighting this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much JimmyB

**royUK** · Mar 23rd 2020

I have always thought that trying to copyright a workbook is a waste of time
You will need to police it.
You will need lots of money to protect your copyright in the courts.
I actually doubt if you can copyright it, you are using a MS program and VBA code which is available anywhere.

JimmyB · Mar 24th 2020

Thanks Roy. I guess if they're savvy enough to break the password, it will be hard to protect it further. I just don't want to sell a hundred thousand HAHA, copies and have someone come up and say they created it and sue me. LOL

**royUK** · Mar 24th 2020

There's no 100% safe way of protecting Excel

JimmyB · Mar 24th 2020

Alright. I get the picture Roy. I'll quit wasting my time on this. Thanks so much for your help.

JimmyB

**royUK** · Mar 24th 2020

Most people will be stopped by VB Project protection so it's still worth adding it.

JimmyB · Mar 25th 2020

Yup. Right, and I do have a monster password in the VB Protection box upper, lower case numbers & 2 different characters all jumbled up

Have a great day Roy

**royUK** · Mar 25th 2020

That can still be broken quite quickly, but it will stop most users

JimmyB · Mar 25th 2020

If I add more characters etc, would you say it make it harder to crack, or is it just a process that would take them longer?

**royUK** · Mar 25th 2020

With the right software or knowledge I don't think the number of characters matters

JimmyB · Mar 25th 2020

Yeah, I get it. That's kind-of what I thought.

As an added protection I'll incorporate various data strings, into some of the (hundreds of) Rem statements throughout.

I understand that the use of VBA cannot be harnessed, but cannot an algorithm be considered as proprietary...thus belonging to myself?

Thanks JImmyB

Fluff13 · Mar 25th 2020

Quote from JimmyB

but cannot an algorithm be considered as proprietary...thus belonging to myself?

If you can prove that you are the first person to ever use that algorithm, then maybe, but it's almost impossible to prove.

JimmyB · Mar 25th 2020

Hi Fluff

My program has about 44 sheets, all integrated within each other, using around 100 interactive subroutines that I created from scratch. Also I've emailed the program to myself and my son, over the last year, as I developed all of the stages. No-one could, by any stretch of the imagination, have haphazardly developed the same data code.

LOL...thanks

JimmyB

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