How to Protect Online Content
Deter content stealers by placing a copyright notice on your content., Create technical barriers to stealing your content., Monitor your online content., Send a take down notice.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Deter content stealers by placing a copyright notice on your content.
Accompany any piece of work that is subject to copyright protection (most literary works including blog posts and articles, music, art, etc.) by a copyright notice.
The goal with placing a copyright notice on your work is simply to deter would-be content stealers from taking your content.
If someone sees that you have placed the copyright notice on your work, they may be less likely to take it because they fear they may be breaking the law.
It is the easiest way to protect your content because it simply requires you to write 3 pieces of information on your work:
The word copyright (or the symbol), your name, and the date you created the work.
Using the notice does not give you superior rights in your work. -
Step 2: Create technical barriers to stealing your content.
The reason online content stealing is so pervasive is because it is very easy to obtain a copy of someone else’s work and republish it.
Your goal in creating technical barriers for reproducers is to make it more difficult for people to actually take your content.
It is important to note than while it is possible to make it difficult to steal content, there are often ways around these technical barriers, so the idea is not to make it impossible to steal, but rather to deter the stealing.
An internet search can provide you with tools to protect images, videos and text on a website. , An effective way of protecting your content is to check for instances of unauthorized use of your content on the internet.
There are many online tools that can conduct a search of the web for your content for you.
One such tool is Copyscape, a website on which you input your URL and the program scours the internet to determine a page other than yours contains your content.
Copyscape also provides a banner that you may insert on your site to deter people from stealing your content.
You can also perform a basic internet search by using several unique sentences of your work as the search term.
This will show you results for websites that are using your exact wording and can alert you to possibly infringing sites. , If, after you have taken steps to prevent the stealing of your online content, you find your work on another website, your next step should be to contact the author of that website and request that they take down your work.
It can be easy to identify the contact information for the website author in the form on a “contact” page or a link to an email address.
If you have the contact information, write a simple letter to the author identifying your work, stating that their use of your work is not permitted, and requesting that they take the work off their website.
If that fails, you may consider writing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) take down request.
Information on the DMCA request is linked below. -
Step 3: Monitor your online content.
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Step 4: Send a take down notice.
Detailed Guide
Accompany any piece of work that is subject to copyright protection (most literary works including blog posts and articles, music, art, etc.) by a copyright notice.
The goal with placing a copyright notice on your work is simply to deter would-be content stealers from taking your content.
If someone sees that you have placed the copyright notice on your work, they may be less likely to take it because they fear they may be breaking the law.
It is the easiest way to protect your content because it simply requires you to write 3 pieces of information on your work:
The word copyright (or the symbol), your name, and the date you created the work.
Using the notice does not give you superior rights in your work.
The reason online content stealing is so pervasive is because it is very easy to obtain a copy of someone else’s work and republish it.
Your goal in creating technical barriers for reproducers is to make it more difficult for people to actually take your content.
It is important to note than while it is possible to make it difficult to steal content, there are often ways around these technical barriers, so the idea is not to make it impossible to steal, but rather to deter the stealing.
An internet search can provide you with tools to protect images, videos and text on a website. , An effective way of protecting your content is to check for instances of unauthorized use of your content on the internet.
There are many online tools that can conduct a search of the web for your content for you.
One such tool is Copyscape, a website on which you input your URL and the program scours the internet to determine a page other than yours contains your content.
Copyscape also provides a banner that you may insert on your site to deter people from stealing your content.
You can also perform a basic internet search by using several unique sentences of your work as the search term.
This will show you results for websites that are using your exact wording and can alert you to possibly infringing sites. , If, after you have taken steps to prevent the stealing of your online content, you find your work on another website, your next step should be to contact the author of that website and request that they take down your work.
It can be easy to identify the contact information for the website author in the form on a “contact” page or a link to an email address.
If you have the contact information, write a simple letter to the author identifying your work, stating that their use of your work is not permitted, and requesting that they take the work off their website.
If that fails, you may consider writing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) take down request.
Information on the DMCA request is linked below.
About the Author
Albert Howard
Albert Howard specializes in digital media and internet and has been creating helpful content for over 17 years. Albert is committed to helping readers learn new skills and improve their lives.
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