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TWENTY-SEVEN

Protect Your Intellectual Property

It’s inevitable. If you are successful as a blogger, people are going to steal your content, otherwise known as intellectual property. That’s like someone’s trying to steal part of your home base, and it’s not a pleasant experience. You’ll wake up one morning to a Google Alert notifying you that your name was mentioned on another blog.

Great, you’ll think, I love free publicity. I also know that inbound links help increase my search engine rankings.

You then click on the link to read the post. To your horror, you discover that another blogger has reposted one of your entire blog posts, word for word.

This has happened to me several times. Each time, it takes my breath away. I feel violated. I think, I spent a considerable amount of time creating that post, and he just reposted it without my permission?

What do you do?

First of all, breathe. This is not the end of the world. As a writer, your biggest problem is obscurity, not piracy. The very fact that someone thought enough of your work to repost it on his own blog means he values it. You should first of all take it as a compliment.

There are eight ways you can protect your intellectual property online. If you follow these steps, they will dramatically reduce the chances of your content being stolen. They will also provide a strategy for dealing with it when it happens.

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1. Understand copyright law. Your post is protected from the moment you create it. You don’t have to register it. It is your intellectual property, and no one can legally reproduce it. Be that as it may, the law only protects the expression of your idea, not the idea itself. If someone writes about your post in his or her own words, that is perfectly legitimate. In fact, you should welcome it. Consider it free publicity.

2. Publish an official copyright notice. This is not required in order to protect your work, nor does it grant you any additional rights. However, it reminds the world that this is your intellectual property. You own it. Using a copyright notice (e.g., “© 2012, Michael Hyatt”) can thus serve as a deterrent. I put mine in my blog’s footer, so it appears at the bottom of every page.

3. Create an explicit permissions policy. Create a separate page spelling out exactly what people may do with your content. I have divided my Permissions Policy¹ into two sections: what others can do without my permission and what they can do with my permission. (See also chapter 55, “Develop a Comments Policy.”) Be explicit. This will keep people from contacting you about every use of your content, but it will also give you a published standard to refer to when someone violates it.

4. Give the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone who reposts your content does so maliciously. In my experience, most people simply don’t know the law. They are not intentionally infringing on your rights. Usually, they are fans who are excited about your work and want to share it with their readers. They are just uninformed about copyright law and need an education.

5. Request that your post be removed. You can do this either via e-mail (preferred) or in a comment. Still, be gracious and assume the unauthorized user’s motives are good. Don’t throttle his enthusiasm. You want him to promote your work; you just don’t want him to violate your rights. I start by thanking him for posting it but graciously explain that this is actually illegal. I then point him to my permissions policy and suggest that he post an excerpt instead. In every case, people have apologized to me and complied with my request. (Your mileage may vary.)

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6. Demand that the unauthorized user take down your content. I have never had to go this far in the online world with my own content. If the offender doesn’t respond well to the last step, however, you will need to escalate your response from a request to a demand. You do this by sending a “demand letter” (or e-mail), insisting that the content be taken down. Even here, I would still be gracious (at least the first time), assuming he or she simply doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation.

7. Notify the infringer’s hosting service. If you still can’t get the offender to cooperate, you need to do a little research. Find his “WhoIs Record,” using a tool like DomainTools.² This will show you his domain registration information, including who hosts the site. Then send an e-mail to the hosting service. Usually it is an address like abuse@ [the name of the hosting service]. Tell the host you are requesting a “take-down” of the website and explain why. Legitimate services will investigate and, if they agree, send their own demand to the offender. If he doesn’t comply, they will take down the site.

8. Hire an attorney to take action. If the service provider is shady, incompetent, or offshore, you may need to hire an attorney to represent you. You have to weigh the cost of litigation against the damage you believe is being done. It can get expensive fast, and there is no guarantee of success. Real pirates are incredibly evasive and can disappear and reappear online faster than you can work through the legal process.

The last thing I leave you with on this topic is this: don’t let the tail wag the dog. In other words, don’t deprive your legitimate audience—the vast majority of your readers—from your content just because you have an occasional person who violates your copyright. It’s just not worth it. As I said at the beginning, your biggest problem as a writer is obscurity. The more people reproduce your content, the more people will be exposed to it. Ultimately this will benefit you.