#nbimmo Post: Protect Your Blog!
Email this Welcome to the tl-dr Newbie Blogger Initiative Post! Big props go out to Syp and his blog Biobreak for starting up this concept. It’s a great way for new bloggers to get into writing for whatever their reasons are. I hope to be able to spread some of the love around here. I have a ton of new blogs to start reading, but I think it will be a while before I can get to all of them.
I posted about this briefly in the NBI Forums, but I wanted to get into it in blog format so that it was here for people to reference if needed. It is a much overlooked issue that I think really needs to be talked about. It is a really un-sexy topic, but I’m taking a bullet for the team (my page views! Nooooooo!), so that everyone is protected from legal issues that (could) pester them.
The C Word
Everyone talks about it, but most do not really understand the ins and outs of how to really protect themselves from the dreaded copyright problem. We all hear about SOPA/PIPA, CISPA, and Piracy, but there is a lot of magic that happens behind the curtain that we trust the Wizard to take care of. I’m going to keep the Wizard behind that curtain, but tell you how to keep him happy.
Do not be scared of creative commons licenses. They are extremely easy, and they provide a HUGE amount of protection to your content. Go to the link above and you can read about all of the different licenses, they are very user friendly and written in language lay-people can understand. I laud them highly for that, cause legal stuff can be confusing.
The quick break-down:
Attribution: “If you quote me, say my name!” ’nuff said.
Share-Alike: If someone quotes you, or remixes your work, they have to use the same (or comparable) license as you.
Non-Commercial: They can’t make money off the content they get from you. (Does not stop YOU from making money on your own work)
NoDerivs: People can share your work, but they can’t change or remix it.
Now, the way the licenses work is you take the 4 options above and you pick the options you like and combine them until you’re happy. “Attribution” is the only one you have to have (because without it, you wouldn’t need a license would ya?).
This blog uses an Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike license. We (Diane and I) chose this because it means that people can use our content and remix it or build upon it any way they like. As long as they are not selling it (making people pay to read it for example), and if they do quote us or remix/use the content, they should use the same license as us. We chose not to have a “NoDerivs” because remixing content is the soul of the internet. Take it and make it better!
After you choose the license you want (easy 3 question survey about how you want to protect your content), it provides you with some embed code. All you do is go to the HTML view on your blog (the “HTML” button on the upper right of the drafting box on WordPress), and insert it at the bottom of the page. You can see what it looks like at the bottom of this post. It really is that easy.
Note: Someone can always come to you and ask you to “waive” the license for them to use the post so they can use it somewhere without the restrictions of the license. You just need to give them permission before they can do it. Just give them permission in writing and keep a copy of what they are using it for.
Other People’s Copyright
This one is not so fun or easy. Sorry 
Just imagine why you licensed your content (above in the CC section), and imagine someone else did that. Or didn’t. Creating something gives them basic copyright protection. So you can’t just rip it off and pass it as your own. Remember those talks of plagiarism your teachers and librarians gave you in school? Basically that. It is ok to quote them. Just say: “This guy said, ‘blah blah blah blah.’” That will save you the headaches of legal issues and drama. Same goes with pictures and videos. Just make sure you link to the original place of content.
Note about copyright: You can talk shit about anyone or anything, as long as you quote the source material. Freedom of speech allows that. If people are telling you to take content down because of something you have done, or they send you a DMCA takedown notice, do not just automatically do it. You can ask questions first. If this happens to you and you are scared, hit me up, I will help you with it. I can’t be your lawyer, but I can get you in touch with information on how to deal with it. Just because you’re saying something negative doesn’t mean you’re breaking the law. Criticism and parody are protected under U.S. law (a lot of international laws too).
tl-dr
Copyright is a bit magical on the back end, but it’s easy to protect yourself if you are conscious of how to do so.
Ding! You’ve Leveled Up! Please see your local librarian for training.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Readable, short piece on linking to content: http://wraltechwire.com/business/tech_wire/opinion/story/2665398/
Thanks Tig!
For everyone else: you can trust Tig on this stuff as he is a law librarian and had his J.D. He specializes in copyright stuff. So thanks again tig!
Thanks for posting that – it’s really useful. I’ve just bookmarked the CCL page to have a good look at later.
Glad to help Bhag
If you have any additional questions or anything, feel free to speak up. We librarians are big fans of finding good info for people. 
Just one question: Does putting up ads on my site make it commercial? Because, then I would be making money off of your content (granted a very small amount of money — hopefully enough to cover the domain name).
Good question Aricelle. It’s kind of a complicated answer, so bear with me.
When you put a CC-NC (non commercial) license on your site, you’re actually placing it on that specific post. So it’s like if the post was a word document, and you were only placing the license on that specific document. So, for someone else to make money off the exact content in that post, they would have to obtain your permission.
Placing ads on your website is not making money specifically off of your licensed content. You’re making money off the site, so it has nothing to do with the CC-NC license on your post.
“But what if I put a CC-NC license on my site?” is the next logical question I can see coming, and the answer is that you’re still fine. Generally the way it works with advertising is you sign or approve some sort of agreement to say they can advertise on your site with X,Y,Z restrictions. That agreement for advertising is you providing a waiver to the CC-NC license for X,Y,Z types of uses. The key here: make sure you fully read the agreement they have you sign about advertising. It’s long and gross and a pain in the butt, but they slip all kinds of things in there that can hurt you.
This is immensely helpful, thank you! !
I have a question:
I have had several issues with plagiarism while having a CC license on my blog.
While trying to do my research about what was legal and what wasn’t, I found evidence that suggested that a CC license gives others the right to post the ENTIRE article as long as they attribute it to me – i.e. link back and gives specific credit to my name. Meaning the license goes futher than “fair use” as in quoting a paragraph or line.
I found this very disturbing as every blog then is hugely vulnerable to having the full content all over the internet, with only a link tracing back.
But I don’t know if this is how CC works?
I would very much like to use a CC license, but due to my history I’m very protective of my writing. Can you clear this up for me please? I would be very thankful as I’ve battled with this for a while.
Hi Ironyca, glad I can help
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Or, in the words of Jay-Z, “I ain’t passed the bar, but I know a little bit.”
If you have a CC license and they quote your article and link it back to you, that’s exactly what the CC license is for. And that’s the idea behind blogging and intellectual property and copyright. To allow the content creator to take credit for creating the work.
“Fair Use” is a U.S. concept that allows the VIOLATION of copyright. “Fair Use” is just a specific defense that can be used in court to protect yourself from violating someone else’s copyright.
Basically, CC licensing is a specific (much more open) way of protecting your content. If you want more robust protection of your content (an actually copyright, and not a CC license), you need to submit it all through the copyright clearance center. Which will cost you some $$$. But, you get additional protection. (Only if you’re in the U.S. If you’re someone else, the rules are probably different).
My question:
Why do you have a problem with people quoting your whole articles on their blog and giving you credit? Because they are receiving commercial compensation for doing that and you are not? If so, you need to talk to a copyright lawyer, because it starts getting too technical for me.
And the idea behind a blog (and CC licenses), is so that your content IS all over the web AND tracking back to you. That’s how the system works. Without the sharing, the internet/blogosphere would be broken. But if people are linking back to you and giving you credit for what you wrote, *it is not plagiarism*. As long as you are getting credit, and people are following the specific provisions of the license you selected, it’s not breaking the law. It’s when they do not give you credit for something you have written that you can do something about it.
I hope that clears it up, it’s kind of a murky situation.
Thanks for answering my questions!
“If you have a CC license and they quote your article and link it back to you, that’s exactly what the CC license is for.”
My whole articles were not quoted, and I was not given credit to any of the incidences I know of where my articles were published elsewhere. Someone pretended they had written it and this even happened several times, and probably more that I am not aware of. They did it to earn reputation through a reward system on a certain site where people can rise in rank to become respected contributors.
I don’t earn anything on my blogging and don’t attempt to, so this is not an issue.
I don’t care if people make derivative works, if they remix, reuse some of my ideas, I would only be flattered. The only thing that makes me uncomfortable is that someone can actually make an “Everything is credited to Ironyca-blog”.
I’ve actually never seen anyone copy entire posts of someone else on their own blog in the WoW blogosphere.
But anyways, thanks for being helpful about this (to me) very complicated issue.
ah yeah. In that case, that’s a direct violation of your license. But even without a CC license, they’re violating your copyright. You’d have to talk to a lawyer probably, but you’d be allowed to submit a DMCA takedown notice to them informing them of their copyright infringement. After that, you’d need a lawyer to actually go after them in a legal manner.
Having the CC license will just give you more justification for going to court and saying to people “this is mine and I’ve licensed it to be that way.”
I would highly recommend any CC license you want then, just gives you that added protection in case people are plagairising you
gl with it, and happy to try and answer more questions if I can! If it gets too complicated, I can always find someone to refer you to, lol.