Copyright infringement is a serious problem on the web. It’s more prevalent than anywhere else simply because it’s easy to do it. You don’t have to break a window or pick a lock. Theft is a matter of copy and paste.
Protecting your website from copyright infringement is a must. We’re going to show you some of the ways in which you can defend against thieves who would want to steal your hard work.
Understand the Reality
You must understand that if someone steals your content in China there’s little you can do about it. They’re outside your jurisdiction. The best thing you can do is submit a notice to Google and hope they remove the content from their search engine.
This is the best case scenario. It won’t stop them from using the content, but it will prevent them from gaining any value from it.
The Simple Copyright Notice
Yes, every piece of content is automatically copyrighted the moment you write it, but it doesn’t mean you should forgo the use of a copyright notice at the bottom of every page. The copyright notice carries a lot of weight and will deter a lot of thieves from infringing upon your web content.
Add Data to Your Code
You can add data to your website’s code without Google reading it. Google will ignore anything that doesn’t come in the appropriate coded language. Add the name of the page, the title, and when you originally created the page.
This data can be used in the event your content is infringed upon. It will demonstrate that you wrote the content long before the other person published the same content. And this is crucial when petitioning companies like Google.
Register Any Unique Content
Unique content, such as eBooks and videos, should be automatically submitted for formal registration.
For example, if you film a video showing how customers can obtain a loan for people with poor credit that is unique content that only you could create. Submit content like this to the appropriate copyright agency. In the US, this would be the DMCA, and in the UK this would be the UK Copyright Service.
What Can be Copyrighted?
Copyright is a difficult part of law because the ‘fair usage’ argument often prevents people from copyrighting a lot of content.
You can stop other websites from copying all or part of your content word for word, but you can’t copyright words and opinions.
If you have a certain word you created for your brand, this can be trademarked. As long as it isn’t in common usage, your trademark rights can be enforced in a court of law. But some overlap between websites is inevitable, so don’t try to copyright absolutely everything you ever make.
Conclusion
Copyright doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. It’s simple to copyright your work by adding a copyright notice at the bottom of every page. As long as what you’re copyrighting doesn’t come under ‘fair usage’ you can make that content yours.