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10 Tips To Protect Your Website Content

Written By:

Emily D. Baker

I know how much time it takes to build a website and an online business…heck, I have done both myself. I also know that you want to serve people with your content and products so when people rip off your shit it sucks! It doesn’t matter if they are stealing a product name, website copy, images or your whole business feel, it’s theft. More and more the online business space is becoming the wild west and it can be hard to get those intentionally and unintentionally stealing your stuff to knock it off. So let’s focus on protecting your content so you don’t have to start dealing with cease and desist letters and DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices (though if you need those things, e-mail me, I’m here to help).

These 10 tips will put you not only protect your content but it also puts you in the best position to defend yourself if your content is taken. The benefit of being a lawyer and an online business owner is that I can tell you what other business gurus can’t. Well…let’s get to it.

Start with basic Website Protection

1. Terms of Use

While you aren’t legally required to have Terms of Use on your site, it is a good idea. The Terms of Use tell others how they are allowed to interact with your content. It’s your contract with the user if you will. You can set terms of use that content on your site may not be altered when shared, may only be shared using the provided methods and set up a way for people to contact you if they want to share your content outside of the stated uses…hello brand deals. The Terms of Use also give you leverage if someone violates them, think of social media sites and YouTube banning and suing over TOU violations. These terms are enforceable and are the first step in protecting your content.

2. Privacy Policy

You are legally required to have this one if your website promotes or sells anything…if your website doesn’t do this please email me and let me know why you have a site because I haven’t yet met anyone who doesn’t promote or sell. Your privacy policy tells others how you protect their data. While this may not seem at its face like it’s protecting you, it is. If you don’t have a proper privacy policy it’s more difficult to go after someone for violating the rules on your site. You are less inclined to fight for your content protection when you are also not fully legally protected. Having your business protected from a three hundred and sixty-degree standpoint allows you to stand firm. Trust me, when I am going after people on behalf of my clients this is one of the first things I look at to see how ‘serious’ of a business they are. Being protected like a business allows you to protect your content like a business.

3. California Privacy Rights Statement

This is a quick note because it is a pet peeve of mine. A proper (legally required) privacy policy must have a California Privacy Rights Statement. All the documents I sell contain this disclaimer but if you are using your own Privacy Policy and this isn’t in there, pop your email down below and I will send you one. As I said, pet peeve. California requires any site that does business with residents of California to have this statement in their Privacy Policy.

4. Jurisdiction and Venue Clauses

These handy little clauses are necessary to make sure that if you do have a dispute regarding your site, or regarding the theft of your content and intellectual property, that it happens where you live and not where they live. This is tremendously helpful knowing that you don’t have to haul all over the country to defend your site, you can make people come an answer in your home jurisdiction, which is often enough of a deterrent to get them to work with you.

Let’s Talk Copyright!

5. Copyright Disclaimer

You need this on the bottom of every page of your site. It should read © property of (Your Name or Legal Business Name) (current year) all rights reserved. For example © property of Ask Now, Inc. 2019.

6. Embedded Copyright

You can embed a copyright notice in most photo editing software and on the backend of sites like WordPress. Just adding the same sentence as above without the year is sufficient. Having this embedded in your images makes it easier for you to show that they originated with you if it ever comes to that.

PRO TIP – You have a common law copyright in the things you create and you can also register your copyright online . For social sites like Facebook you can upload copyright protected images if you have issues with things like your logo or created designs being used by others.

Practical Tips to try right now!

7. Name It and Claim It

I can’t stress this enough. If you have that ‘thing’ that you are becoming known for, Name it and Claim It. Claiming it includes grabbing the URL for it, making sure you can get the socials and taking up that digital real estate so that someone can’t easily move in on your thing.

8. Google Alert

Set up a google alert for your key phrases, when you name it and claim it this becomes easier. This way if someone is starting to advertise a product with the same name you should be alerted to it. I also use google alerts for things I am really interested in keeping up on…like the LuLaRoe lawsuits but that’s a topic for another blog post….

9. CopyScape

This is a great service that searches the web for duplicate content and is also really helpful for checking for plagiarism.

PRO TIP – Disable Right Click! Yes! You can disable the ability to right click on content on your website. There are a number of plugin options that will disable the right click function that would allow someone to easily click and copy content from your site. Go to your website and see how easy it is to grab content. What your goal is here is to ensure that people can share your content the way you want them too, be that sharing to pinterest or facebook, make sure you give them only one way to do it, so they don’t steal it. I like Right Click Disable Original for WordPress but there are others.

If you feel like it’s all a bit much, that’s ok. The legal stuff in business can be really overwhelming, but that’s why I am here! I take the scary out of this legal stuff. Sign up with my email squad down below and I promise I will keep you in the loop with what you need to know, without flooding your email box!

LAST UPDATED: January 15, 2019

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