Copyright infringement can be a cumbersome experience, be it for an individual creator, a small business or a million-dollar business. This article discusses four strategies to prevent theft of your content. But before we delve into that, let’s learn some of the factors, restrictions, and limitations inherent in adopting these different techniques.
How To Align Your Website With Copyright?
- Check to see if the website is genuinely using your work “fairly” rather than illegally violating your copyright. Additionally, you might want to ensure that you’ve got your website’s copyright registration application in place, all the legal fees are paid, and the relevant information is well updated.
- Gather enough resources and information to claim your content’s right of ownership. Once done, you’ll be better positioned to send take-down notices to the other website.
- If you’re sure about the infringement of your copyrighted content, try researching their registration and domains.
Once you have gathered enough proof of your ownership, you might take these four steps to prevent infringement by any other user over the web. Let’s take a look!
Four Tips To Prevent Users From Content Infringement
#1 Start by asking the website owner!
Yes, this might not align with your plans at first. But most of the time, the individuals scraping your website are highly skilled. They’re attempting to cash in on your unique approach. Regardless, going for this step at first saves you a lot of time and hours of interaction with your copyright registration service.
As a result, several website owners have this policy of informing the website owner regarding the infringing content before taking further action. Then, if the infringer’s actions are innocent mistakes, they will immediately remove the content. This way, you’ll have peace of mind and save time.
#2 Proceed with a take-down notice to ‘OSP.’
The next step is to get in touch with the organization hosting the website (“online service provider” or “OSP”) and request that it take down the illegal site. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) under US Copyright law offers protection from litigation to OSPs in exchange for speedy takedown responses, incentivizing them to block infringing websites.
However, taking down websites won’t always be that simple! For instance, let’s assume you couldn’t locate a website’s contact details. Instead, you might visit the American Copyright Office and look for the website for additional information.
#3 Send Take-Down notice to the company registering the URL
Content infringement has many aspects to it! Over the years, new measures against copyright have allowed many registrars to disable the domains that violate other parties’ rights. Therefore, if you identify them, you may also send the website owner a DMCA Take-Down Notice.
For instance, if the said website is xyz.com. You’ll find it easier to access their copyright infringement policy on the website. To suspend the domain of the infringing website, XYZ would require the same information as the server. So, by simply addressing the notification to both the hosting firm and the registrar, you may send a notice to both parties.
However, it won’t be a foolproof method for businesses residing outside the US as it won’t come under the copyright policy. Therefore, this step won’t be helpful if someone from a different country copies your website content. But don’t give up; the best method is yet to come!
#4 Send A Take Down Notice To Search Engine
The last step on our list is to alert the search engines! Most of these search engines have their own guidelines against illegal information, so if you’re the legal owner of some content, they may remove the copied results from search results.
Now You Know!
No matter the size of your business, copyrights are essential! You may consider copyright registration costs an additional expense, but it is necessary to realize its benefits in the long run!
Remember, copyright is a tool that can save you from all the hurdles of infringement. Make sure you protect your work with copyright registration.
