My work has been republished online and offline in all corners of the world by many different people and it always puts a smile on my face to know that someone out there appreciates my work and finds it worth sharing with their network. This in turn grows my network base as well. So I never frown upon sharing of my work as long as the appropriate credit (citation) is given. I think it’s only fair to do so!
A couple of months ago, I was giving a presentation to a group of consultants about the Social Media Hierarchy of Needs and the first comment I got from one of the attendees was “this is brilliant, did you copyright that?”, my reply was “who would it serve if I hog this information all to myself, besides the internet keeps a record of who said what first …”
Recently, I had someone simply copy one of my posts and publish it on their blog without any reference back to me. I was furious. I had every “right” to be though.
So this lead me to google more about internet copyright laws and understand my legal rights and the fine line between sharing and stealing other people’s work. As expected, I got roughly 22 million search results, but the one that caught my eye was by Brad Templeton, entitled 10 Big Myth About Copyright Explained that i strongly recommend reading. Here is a selection of some of the common myths explained in details by Templeton.
- “If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it’s not copyrighted.”
- “If I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation.”
- “My posting was just fair use”
- “If you don’t defend your copyright, you lose it!”
- “If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me.”
- “They emailed me a copy, so I can repost it”
- “It doesn’t hurt anybody, in fact it’s free advertising”
I’m assuming you do understand that all the above are myths, ie FALSE!
According to Templeton, copyrighting has two main purposes: a) “the protection of the author’s right to obtain commercial benefit from valuable work”, and b) “the protection of the author’s general right to control how a work is used.”
Does this mean you can’t republish or reproduce anything? Not at all! In most cases, all you need to do is just credit the author for his work – acknowledge his/her efforts, it’s always nice to say thank you. Think About It!
Tout a fait!!!! How about a Creative Commons (CC) license for your blog? 🙂
Thank you for the wonderful suggestion Micheline. I wasn’t aware of the Creative Common (CC) licence prior to your comment, so I did my homework and I have to say – it is amazing.
For those interested in a short summary about Creative Commons – basically these “tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The Creative Commons licenses enable people to easily change their copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.””
So in layman terms, you are granting access (actually inviting it) but setting your own conditions to that permission! check it out on http://creativecommons.org
thanks Micheline for sharing your great insight.
A pleasure. Great to see the CC now on your blog 🙂
Thank you guys for the CC thing. I’m launching my blog and that was so helpful. Just in time;)
Hi Nancy,
Good luck with your blog – let me know if I can be of further help. So what creative common license are you going for? you should have a look at CC’s videos – they are very useful in helping you decide.
GREAT THANKS GOES TO MICH 🙂
Great post John! I have encountered this same issue while creating my brand this year. Will have to also look further into CC licensing. =)
Thanks for keeping us informed of how to utilize social media from an authentic perspective. Kudos!
Wishing you a new year that is abundantly joyous and prosperous.
CLB
Nice comments about the CC. Good article. And also nice to see you giving some love to Gary Vee and Chris Brogan in your blog roll. Keep up the great writing.
giving credit where due is what sharing is all about my dear Jeremy. I think the CC idea just makes sharing easier and answers any doubts! I initially wrote this post as a belated reply to a personal incident – someone actually copied a whole post and reposted on their blog with no referencing at all. I landed on it thanks to socialmention.com – I felt robbed.