How to Protect Copyrighted Information Online

If you post your own copyrighted information online, you need to take steps to protect it. Once a piece of content is online, it is very easy for someone to copy it and distribute it, if not claim authorship themselves. Copyrighted works might include things you have written, artwork, music, software or even architectural designs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Mark your online information appropriately, to inform users that the material is copyrighted. Post a copyright notice and provide a way for interested parties to contact you about licensing possibilities.
2. Register your copyright with the US Copyright office (see Resources below). While registration is not actually needed to claim copyright, it will make protection of your material easier, especially if the matter goes before a judge.
3. Check Copyscape regularly to search for copies of your copyrighted material (see Resources below). Copyscape searches for websites that are displaying the same material as your website.
4. Ask the webmaster or the online service provider to remove any copies of your material from their sites. You will need to point them to a specific page and demonstrate your reason to believe that the material is copyrighted and illegally posted. The person posting the material has an opportunity to protest this sort of decision.
5. Consult a copyright lawyer if your take-down notice is ineffective. You are able to sue to protect your copyright and may be able to recover damages. An attorney who specializes in copyright will be able to guide you through this process.

Tips & Warnings

• You can protect your copyrighted materials with technical methods, such as making it more difficult to edit downloads of your material. However, there are several simple work-arounds to most of these techniques and any determined plagiarizer will not be stopped by them.
• In most cases, a simple take-down notice is all that is required to convince a website to remove copyrighted work, even if the host is located outside the US, because most Internet service providers understand the legal liability of posting such material.
• Despite protection you may place on your copyrighted information, the nature of the Internet makes it very easy for others to use your information inappropriately.
• Names, website domains and some recipes are not copyrightable.
• If you run a blog or other regularly updated website, be on the look out for "scrappers." This term refers to people who will take your regular updates and add them to their own website.