Too Many Things Today – Prevent Content Theft

I don’t know where to start today because there are just too many things bugging me. This is what’s bugging me today!

Now, I normally tell you what’s bugging me and why and then try to offer my solution. Today I’m not sure what the solution is and I don’t want to go into details now. But I do suggest that you read the following and take the necessary steps to protect the content on your blogs if you haven’t already done so.

Instead of just giving you the link to the page at WordPress.com, I’ve chosen to include it in my post because I know that many won’t click-through but if it’s here you will at least give the list a scan.

Let’s just say this is part of what’s bugging me today and why I have finally added my copyright to the blog and Copyscape.

I’m suggesting that you think about this and consider doing the same.

Prevent Content Theft « Support — WordPress.com.

TOS & Copyright

Prevent Content Theft

DMCA, Stolen, Theft

Related

• Advertising
• Content Theft – What to Do
• Creative Commons
• Disputes: Defamation, Court Orders, Subpoenas, Privacy
• IP Addresses
• Recycling Blog Names
• Report Mature or Spam Blogs
• Suspended Blogs

There are several steps that you can take in order to prevent your material from being used in an unauthorized manner. Keep in mind, however, that there is no way to fully guarantee the complete protection of your work (after all, this is the internet).

If your content is found to be stolen, please review the necessary steps to file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice:

1) Include a very clear copyright notice on your blog. In this, be sure to specify what you will allow and will NOT allow. Here is an example of a valid copyright notice that may be placed on your blog:

© [Full Name] and [Blog Name], [Current Year or Year Range]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Your Name] and [Your Blog Name] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Place the copyright notice in your sidebar so that it may be visible at all times; this can be accomplished using a text widget from Appearance -> Widgets in the menu. Moreover, be sure to include a copyright note in each and every one of your blog posts (either at the beginning or end of the article).

Your wording of the copyright notice should differ, depending on the type of blog you currently maintain. The aforementioned example notice is most appropriate for your standard blog. If you have a photo blog (or blog that is highly focused on some sort of document type), you may want to modify the language accordingly.

2) Obtain an appropriate Creative Commons License, according to how much you are willing to share. You can, similar to the first option mentioned above, designate precisely what you will and will not allow regarding your personal work and obtain an official license according to these guidelines. Free licenses may be obtained here. Even if you decide to obtain and use a Creative Commons License, it is recommended that you still include a copyright notice, as illustrated in the first point within this article.

3) Configure your RSS feed so that it displays post summaries. This will add an extra layer of protection against scrapers using RSS feeds to illegally obtain their content. You can set this option from the Reading Settings.

4) Search for your content using Google. This is fairly easy to do; simply take chunks of your blog posts, and search for the identical contents on Google and/or other search engines (enclosing the contents in quotations helps). Otherwise, you may never know if your content is being stolen or scraped; bloggers are not always aware of unauthorized use that is taking place. If you do, in fact, discover that your content is being stolen, you may take the necessary steps to file a formal DMCA notice.

5) Set up a Google Alert to scan for your name or blog name/title. You can set up a custom Google Alert here – http://www.google.com/alerts. Note that you do need a Google account.

6) Use Copyscape. You can use the service’s search feature to check for unauthorized copies of your pages and even include a free banner on your blog. There are also even paid services, including automatic web monitoring.

7) Protect your images and other documents, as well. Although you are not able to completely prevent the copying of your images and documents, it is highly recommended that you place a watermark on them in or order to thwart any unauthorized use. Normally, this can be accomplished within the files’ respective editing programs (Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, etc.). Run some Google searches or check out the documentation of your particular software package for more information on this. There are also several third-party applications that allow you to add watermarks to images.

8) Get some more information and even report sites over at http://stolen.wordpress.com

This is what’s bugging me today!!

Trying real hard to keep the smile on my face.

🙂

Quote for today

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.
Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
Helen Keller

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• Combating Copyright Infringement: DMCA Take Down Notices (ipwatchdog.com)

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