Copyright protection for blogs

Jan162017
Glenn W. Peterson

The internet has brought about many new concerns about intellectual property rights for California residents. One specific area where people may have concerns is over the copyright protection on blogs. It is fairly easy for someone to copy content, both texts and images, off a blog. In addition, blog owners often create new posts on a regular basis, meaning they are publishing a lot of content in a short period. The concern often is that securing a copyright may take too much time and slow down blog post production. The reality, though, is that securing copyright protection is not that difficult.

According to iCopyright, blog owners should become familiar with copyright protection. Doing this will enable them to see that whenever they write something and post it online for the public to see, it is automatically covered by copyright protection. There is no need for them to register the copyright to secure protection. However, they should post a copyright notice. It is also a good idea for owners to post information about reusing blog content, including how to secure permission to do so.

WordPress.com suggests that blog owners may want to adopt a Creative Commons license, which will define what uses of their blogs are and are not allowed, and place a copyright notice in a sidebar using a widget so it is always visible. When it comes to images, watermarks can be a great way to prevent unauthorized use. To catch copyright infringement, a blog owner should do regular searches for their content on search engines and use Copyscape to look for their content on other websites.