Photo by takomabibelot. www.flickr.com/people/takomabibelot
As soon as I saw the shattered glass, I knew. I’d been robbed.
The back window of my car had been smashed in and my purse was gone. I felt sick to my stomach. Someone had my stuff! They were riffling through my purse right now, taking the credit cards and cash, my cell phone and probably trashing the rest.
Foolishly, I’d tried to “hide” my purse under a blanket in the back seat in order to take a long walk with a friend through a local wooded park. (Who wants to carry a purse on a long walk?) I thought it would be safe and sound. But I learned, after my purse was stolen, that parking lots near park trail heads are notorious for being burglarized.
Two days later, our garage was broken into. My husband’s truck was stolen, along with a lot of expensive tools, a gas generator and whatever else the thieves could fit into the truck bed.
If you’ve ever been robbed, you know just how horrible it feels. It’s as if you’ve been personally attacked, violated. And it’s almost impossible not to feel victimized and powerless.
The same is true when someone steals your content, your words, your ideas, your intellectual property. It just. feels. rotten.
And unfortunately, the Internet has spawned a whole new epidemic of stealing. Just recently, someone (or some Internet bot) stole my Twitter profile, my name and my photo to create a false “me” under a different Twitter handle.
A few weeks ago, a client of mine discovered her proprietary system (and even her tag line) was stolen by a colleague. Talk about sickening! It’s bad enough when some nameless thug steals your stuff, but someone you know? Ugh!
But here’s the sad truth. If you create a piece of worthy content of any sort, whether it’s an article, blog post, tag line, or even your website copy, there’s a chance people will steal it and use it to serve their own selfish, small-minded purposes.
So, what can you do about it?
State Your Copyright
Any original content you publish on your website or blog is your intellectual property. Here’s what the U.S. Copyright Office has to say about it (bold emphasis used is mine):
Copyright protects original authorship fixed in tangible form (17 USC sec. 102(a)). For works transmitted online, the copyrightable authorship may consist of text, artwork, music, audiovisual material (including any sounds), sound recordings, etc. Copyright does not protect ideas, procedures, systems, or methods of operation (17 USC sec. 102(b)).
Under U. S. law, copyright protection subsists from the time the work is fixed in any tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Copyright registration is not mandatory, but it has important benefits.
While you don’t have to officially copyright your content, you may want to add the copyright symbol (©) and date to any piece you create and publish. I know some bloggers who add the copyright symbol and date to every blog post. You could add it to every page of your website as well, and I recommend adding it to every page of any information product you give away or sell.
If you have an audio product, include some kind of statement in the introduction that this material is not to be reproduced in any form without your written permission.
Will this prevent someone from stealing your stuff? No.
But it may strengthen your case should you need to go after someone after they’ve stolen it.
Give Permission And Specific Instructions
When smart entrepreneurs publish their ezine or e-newsletter, they often conclude their feature article with a blurb that gives others permission to reproduce that article as long as they follow specific rules instructions. For instance, it might say something like:
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR BLOG? You are welcome to do so as long as you include the following paragraph in its entirety, including the live links: Rickey Rizzo is a lanky, short-haired cat who spends his days sleeping, watching squirrels and scouting for catnip. If you’d like to know Rickey’s recommendations for primo catnip, you can download his free special report here: Catnip With Charisma: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Best.
If you submit your articles to an article directory, like EzineArticles.com, that directory will have very specific rules for how articles can be used by a third party or publisher. For example, here are the Terms of Service for EzineArticles.com.
Now, there are people who will take your article and reprint it as if it’s their own. They know the rules. They just choose to break them. Keep reading to find out how to deal with those kinds of thieves.
Google Alerts & Other Content Detectives
When I first started to do a lot of article marketing, I used Google Alerts to find possible acts of thievery. Here’s what I’d do.
Anytime I submitted an article to any article directory (or posted a blog post, I’d create a Google Alert for the title of my article/post along with any relevant keywords. This way, if someone stole it to use as theirs on their own blog, I would know.
(If you don’t know about Google Alerts, I highly recommend you check them out! You can use them to “alert” you about all kinds of things, like news items or whenever your name or the name of your company appears online.)
On his blog “Time For Blogging,” Joshua Dorkin gives some other tools for finding sites or blogs that may have stolen your content, like CopyScape. In fact, Joshua’s post, “How to Protect Your Website’s Copyright When Someone Steals Your Content” is a great resource for dealing with content theft.
Now What?
If you find your content has been stolen, what should you do?
Well, if someone used your article or blog post without giving you credit or including the blurb you stated was mandatory, here’s what you can do. I got this from Jeff Herring, the master of article marketing.
Email the person who owns the blog.
If you can’t identify who owns the blog by reading it, use Whois.sc. Write to the owner and say something like this:
“Hey, I noticed you used my article on your blog. I’m glad you found it valuable. But I also noticed that you forgot to include the required information, like my byline and the information in the resource box. I’ve included that required information in this email so you can add it right away. Thank you!”
If you prefer not to have your content on that blog or site, ask them to take it down immediately.
Contact the hosting company for the website or blog that stole your stuff.
Hosting companies do not look kindly on customers who steal other people’s content. And most hosting companies have specific instructions on how to handle copyright infringements. You can usually find them in the Terms of Service section or Legal Page.
According to Sam Jadali at Host Duplex (my preferred hosting service), you will want to file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) Complaint. “Send a copy of the complaint to the web host,” says Sam. “As long as the complaint form is filled out properly, the hosting provider has an obligation to act. Generally, they will first contact their client and ask them to remove the data. If the accused does not take it down, then the hosting company must act to remove the copyrighted data.”
The Most Important Thing To Do
They say plagiarism is the highest form of flattery. But actually, it really sucks. I’ve had tag lines stolen, articles stolen, ideas stolen, and now even my Twitter identity!
And this is what you need to know.
People can steal your words, your ideas, and even your Twitter profile. But they can’t steal your expertise, information, energy or style. They can’t do what you do and they’ll never be able to offer what you offer.
And that’s why they steal.
Because they have nothing. And you have a ton of talent, creativity, heart and skill. You have the goods. Go deliver them. No one can steal what truly belongs to you.