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Copyright is and has been one of the most important issues in blogging. After all, you pour your own blood, sweat, and tears into your posts and you don't want people stealing that content without attribution, right? That's why this week's article is about copyright and Creative Commons and the differences between the two.
Copyright is the ownership you hold over your work(s). Everything you write, whether it's a note in a seminar or a lengthy blog article on how to raise llamas, is automatically copyrighted. You own that content and, technically, it can't be reused without your express consent--it's all rights reserved by default. You may be less concerned about the copyright of the notes and more concerned about the copyright of the article, but copyright applies to both of them equally. The dilemma for you may be that you don't feel like you need to be contacted directly if someone wants to copy your notes. You're OK if they copy, as long as they tell people where the notes came from. Enter Creative Commons.
Creative Commons allows you to choose the conditions you want applied to your copyright:
"Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright."
The following are the conditions you can choose from Creative Commons (taken from their site):
- Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.
- Non-commercial: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only.
- No derivative works: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
- Share alike: You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
My understanding–and remember, I’m not a lawyer and I’m still learning too–is that if you use the text Copyright 2004-2009 (or something similar), then anyone interested in using your information must actually contact you for permission. If you use a Creative Commons license (CCL), they know that if it’s yours, they can use it without actually contacting you (provided they follow the actual CCL agreements at the Creative Commons site). The CCL is just a way of telling your readers that you agree to let them use your stuff in certain ways without asking.
Whether you want to adhere to strict copyright rules or are fine with the Creative Commons license, I encourage you to post your decision clearly on your blog. I know I already said that your stuff is copyrighted automatically, and it is, but clearly marking it as such helps to gently remind people that you take it seriously. Here's the HTML for the copyright symbol:
©
You can just insert that right into your sidebar with the necessary information (e.g., © 2004-2009 Blogging Basics 101).
Want to find out if your content is being used without your permission and without attribution? Set up at a Google Alert with your blog's name or with specific key words that relate to your blog (I have a Google Alert for Blogging Basics 101, for instance). Every day Google will e-mail you all the links that have that title or keyword. Then you can click over there and see if anything belongs to you. Not only is this a great way to keep tabs on copyright issues, but you can see who's talking about you too. You can also use Copyscape. This site allows you to type in your URL and see if anyone has copied your content without your permission.
Learn more about copyright, creative commons, public domain, and how they relate to bloggers:
Read more about how bloggers can deal with copyright issues:
- Bloggers show power and organizational muscle with AP boycott by Kim Pearson
- What Bloggers Should Know About Copyright Protection for Their Writing and Photographs by Mamarant
Melanie Nelson writes tips and instructions for beginning and intermediate bloggers at Blogging Basics 101. She enforces full copyright on her content.
