How to Protect Your Blog Content From Copyright stolen

As a blogger, you put hours into creating original content. Having it stolen can be frustrating and upsetting.

In this article, you’ll discover four steps to legally safeguard your blog content from copyright infringement, including what to do when your content gets stolen.
Types of Content Theft

Depending on the type of blog you are running, there are numerous instances in which your content can be taken without your notice. Some of these types of theft are blatantly obvious.

Others require a keen eye to spot similar content found on the web with only one of it being original:

• Written content theft – Simply copying and pasting your content to another platform.
• Visual content theft – Lifting images, videos and animation from your blog for reposting purposes.

#1: Protect Your Content and Website With Terms of Use and Disclaimers

Terms of Use is a website policy (which sometimes is also called Terms of Service or Terms & Conditions) that protects your blog content (and your business) by outlining what visitors can and cannot do with the information on your site.

You may think the necessity of saying something like, “You agree that you will not modify, copy, reproduce, sell, or distribute any content in any manner or medium without permission” is obvious. However, having this legal language on your website strengthens your position when someone does steal your content.

Your website is often the storefront of your business, and specific legal policies will protect not only your content but your business and income as well. As a blogger, keep in mind that although you may not own the content that readers share in your Comments section, you still have the right to manage it so your Terms should outline this as well.

To create the text for your Terms, you can hire an attorney who understands websites and online businesses (not all do) or buy a template from an attorney or company that offers attorney-drafted templates. Do not copy terms from another business because that’s copyright infringement. Also, do not try to write your own; lawyers went to school for several years to learn this stuff for a reason.

After you have your website Terms, put your Terms in the footer on every page of your website, including your blog.


#2Using Creative Commons (CC)

Creative Commons is a long-standing copyright licensing service that operates on the internet. They work to ensure that no content gets plagiarized or misused without the knowled huge of the original owner.

That being said, obtaining a CC license is fairly easy and straightforward, requiring only a few minutes of your time.

#Watermarking Multimedia Content

One of the toughest parts of copyright protection is making sure that your images and videos don’t get featured somewhere without your permission. You would be surprised to see how many people ignore CC licenses and claim content as their own, even if they do constant dissertation writing and know about copyright protection.

Watermarking your content might make it slightly less visually appealing, but you will be doing yourself a huge favor in protecting your original content

#3 Disclaimers

Disclaimers help you to transfer the burden of any sort to the user or the other party. If you are giving any professional advice in general on your blog, it is advisable to add disclaimers on your content so that you can free yourself if any legal dispute arises.

Remember those “Do not try this at home” disclaimers on videos which have risks involved such as mountain climbing or a nature survivor eating live insects. Who thinks that we all have a massive mountain in our backyard which we can climb? I mean you must have thought, are those silly warnings even necessary? The truth is that they actually are necessary.

There is a very slim chance but any action done resulting in harm can be traced back to the professional advice you gave on your blog.

This might seem like common sense, but it is important to add those warnings and disclaimers to protect yourself from any possible lawsuit. You can add a simple disclaimer that you do not hold responsibility for any problem which may or may not arise in the near future. Doing this does not guarantee that a problem like this does not arise but it will definitely give you an edge over, and it does not hurt to have a disclaimer up and running on your blog.

#4 Use Copyright Material Legally

One thing is to copyright your material and content you have on your blog. Using data and content which is from another source is another part of the copyright laws. When you are using content or data from another source, you need to check whether you have the permissions to use that data or not.

You need to be clear about this since if you end up taking data or content from another website without checking, you can end up in copyright infringement So, how do you make sure this does not affect you. First off, you need to understand and see the content you are taking. You need to confirm if you have the permissions to use that content or not. If you are not sure about the content, you can always contact the author and check whether you can use the content for your own purpose or not. Once you have the confirmation from the author, you can use the content for the respective permissions.

#5 COPYRIGHT FREE CONTENT

If you do not get a copyright usage allowance, you can always use a copyright-free content for your website. This type of content is free of any sorts of copyrights which does not require any permissions from any author. One of the best examples of this type of copyright free media is the Copyright free images. These type of images are freely available, and you can download them and use them for your blog and other promotional activities.

Although these images are copyright free, there are still some conditions related to the usage and distribution of the images. You need to check whether you are not breaking any permissions and are using the media while keeping the rules in mind.

When it comes to copyright free images, you can get them at websites like Unsplash.com and Pixabay.com. These websites are well known for offering copyright free media.

All these points are critical and need to be taken care of with utmost care, and if you are not sure about any point and feel lost, I would recommend you to get a lawyer or a professional involved.

While I assure you that all these tips and suggestions are good to go, and the text and information provided here is general informational purposes only and does not constitutes any legal advice. This article does not establish an attorney-client relationship. The company is not liable for any damages or losses for actions incurred by failure to activities related to the text in this article. As I have said before, if you need individual legal advice, go consult a lawyer who can help you with that subject matter.

Do let us know what you think of all the points listed in this article. If you found this article worth reading, do share it with other bloggers as well.