Tips to Adequately Protect Your Copyrights Online

November 11, 2009

Copyright protection is a huge issue for those who have blogs and/or websites with original content. Unfortunately, most bloggers and website owners have experienced their content being used without their permission. The most common reasons content is stolen are: stealing content from a blog to gain readership; taking graphics or pictures from a site to make their site more attractive; and/or stealing music.

So what is a copyright? Copyrights protect original works of authorship. Some examples of copyrights on the internet are: Blog Post Writings, You Tube Videos, Graphic Designs, Short Stories, Movies, etc.

Unfortunately there will always be copyright infringers. However, here are several tips you can implement NOW to adequately protect your copyrighted material online:

Register all copyright material with the U.S. Copyright Office. Send a collection of Copyright material to the Copyright Office every 3 months for up to date protection and statutory damages. If a copyright is registered within 3 months of publication or before infringement occurs, an owner is awarded automatic statutory damages if infringement is proven. These damages are between $750-$30,000 per cause of action. In addition, the copyright owner can receive an award of attorney fees. Filing a copyright online is super affordable. It is only $35 to file. An individual can also file a collection of works under one application. For example, all Blog posts from January 09-March09 can be filed under one application as a collection of works.

Place copyright notice signs on all websites and web pages. Use a Creative Common License. A creative common license allows a user to use your work, but under certain conditions. For example, you can allow a user to use your work as long as they credit the work back to you.

Use a service such as Copyscape to track infringement of Copyrighted material. How does this work? Copyscape uses a search engine to locate duplicated materials on the Internet.

Implementing these tips now can afford a copyright owner rights and protection that the owner would not normally have. These tips are affordable or free and can be done in a few hours.

I hope you found this information helpful.

Category: Experts, web 2.0 | Tags: Copyright, copyright infringement, copyright office, copyscape, creative commons license, IPLAW101, Law, phillips givens law

Jay Ward

Excellent recommendations!

Latoicha Givens

Thanks Jay! I am glad you found them helpful!

Indo

Another excellent article by BW2.0. My blog contains a mix of photos and articles by me. Some of the photos on my blog, however, are not mine. I'm assuming that when you say "all Blog posts from January 09-March09 can be filed under one application as a collection of works," you mean in the situation where everything in those blog posts is attributable to the blogger. But most blogs are not set up that way. For instance, maybe the blogger wrote the article but the photo came from somewhere else. Or the blog post borrows liberally from another news source. How would you register in that situation?

Latoicha Givens

Hi Indo!

Thanks for commenting. When you register a copyright online, there is a line where the form requests that you supply the copyright information for any portion of your work that is not attributable to you. The copyright office will only attribute copyrights to the original author. Please contact me if you need any additional information.

Emily

Good tips :) I use the service provided by www.digiprove.com to protect the content of my blog. There's a plug-in available for Wordpress users that automatically registers your blog post and provides you with a time-stamped certificate, so it's really handy. Check it out: http://www.digiprove.com/digiproveblog.aspx

Charles

Good advices. In regards to this:

"These damages are between $750-$30,000 per cause of action."

As you suggested, it is good practice to put copyright notices on your page, because if you're able to prove that the infringement was done wilfully, the statutory damages can actually range to as high as $150,000.

Latoicha

Charles:

Thank you so much for your comments. You are correct. If a copyright owner can prove the infringement is willful, the court may, in their discretion, award damages up to $150,000. However it is not a guarantee.

The Copyright statute defines willfulness as: "the infringer had knowledge that the activity (copying) constituted infringement or recklessly disregarded the possibility of infringement." So placing copyright notices on your works and sending cease and desist letters to infringers puts them on notice of the copyright owner's rights. It is good evidence that copyright infringement is willful.

Thanks again for pointing this out!