Which ones? Well if you are reading this article you already know one of the most prominent ones. If you ask any professional working on digital marketing what is the most valuable online asset for a business, you’ll get pretty the same answer. Content. And what are the top 3 the most valuable professionals? Writers/Copywriters will certainly be an answer. 

For writers and copywriters this is their opportunity to negotiate the terms of the work in all aspects, giving them the chance to achieve the thing many of us always wanted. Self employment, financial independence, flexible working hours and work from anywhere is at the reach of their hands. And this is how we see the online freelancing professional blooming.  Such freedom though, comes with certain responsibilities, skills and knowledge that a freelance writer should acquire to be successful. For that preparation and self- education is fundamental. 

The most important element of a freelance writer’s job is to write original articles that the readers will find interesting enough to read. The second one is to get ownership of their copyright, know their rights under the copyright laws and how to protect them. 

What is original work? 

According to the copyright laws, a work that has required significant mental activity to create, and is, therefore, considered original, automatically becomes its creator’s intellectual property. 

Recent studies reveal that there are over 5 billion blogs and 7 million blog posts are published every day! Such a thing leaves you wondering, are we honestly creating so much original content on a daily basis? Obviously no. 

Every writer is aware of the practises out there to plagiarize or citate content from other authors, either because they’ve done it, or because they have seen it done to them, or both. Both practises though can be copyright infringement cases, meaning you are not producing an original work, thus not entitled to copyright over it. 

To make sure you are creating a work entitled to copyright, you need to make sure your article is not infringing on someone else copyright, and that you have actually created an original work. To do that, remember two things

1. You should be mindful of how to use someone else’s work. If you just change a few sentences and don’t give credits to the author, you are plagiarising. 
2. In case you use work from another author, the best practise is to add a citation. Now if you use too many citations in your work, it’s not original anymore.   

To be certain that you are creating original work, use other authors’ work for inspiration and spend more time to work the outline of your piece to express your point of view. That’s the reason why you became a writer in the first place right?

What is copyright?

Otherwise known as “author’s right,” copyright is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their intellectual property. Copyright means “the right to copy,” therefore, only the creator – or people permitted by the creator – have the right to reproduce the work.

As a creator of original work, you are awarded copyright automatically when you produce a work that is in a tangible form (i.e. blog post, article, social post, etc.). However, registering your copyright gives you additional legal protection. This is because you may need to provide proof of ownership (or strong evidence of it) in a court of law when someone uses, copies, or distributes your work without permission.

And now what?

At this point, you have created your original work, got proof of ownership for it and now as the rightful owner you are ready to go secure a sale for it. This point is critical for you as you need to understand the rights you have over your work to negotiate a beneficial deal for you. Read carefully the contracts passed to you by your collaborators or self publishing services or even social media and DO NOT give away the ownership of your copyright. 

Work for Hire

When signing a work for hire contract you are passing all the ownership of your copyright to the person who hired you. This practically means that you can no longer make any decisions or negotiate deals and income for your work. This is the reason why most of the people interested in your work would like you to do, so they can benefit from your work as rightful owners. And this is exactly why you should avoid it. 

First & Secondary serials rights

To unlock the benefits of passive income first and secondary serials rights are two terms that you should familiarize yourself with. 

As the owner of the work when closing a deal, you should make sure that you’ve only just agreed on the right to publish, and have not sold your rights to your article or piece.

To put it simply, this means that your collaborator has paid for the right to publish your original work for the first time in a specific location. 

And at this point, you are able to unlock the passive income deriving from your secondary serial rights. As the rightful owner,  you can modify, adapt or alter in any way you see fit in order to re-sell and publish your article or piece generating income from your original work. 

To sum up, to live the dream of self employment and financial freedom, you have to educate yourself on the copyright laws and the rights you have as a creator of original work.  Be very careful on the terms of your agreement to make sure you are not passing your rights over to someone else, as you will be passing over all rights to generate income from it too. 

#1 Ideas can be copyright protected.

Ideas may be the most important part of being creative, but they can’t be “stolen” as they technically don’t belong to anyone. That’s the reason why they also can’t be copyright-protected. By “ideas,” I don’t mean patent ideas and inventions, of course, which also can’t be copyright protected. 

They can be trademarked and registered as patents. Either way, I think you know where I’m going with this: Many people can work on the same idea, and produce a totally different result. An idea can’t be copyright protected because it doesn’t mean much unless you put the work into making it a reality. An idea needs to become “tangible” for it to be copyright protected. 

The Pareto rule of 20/80 suggests that it’s 20% idea and 80% execution, and if you take a moment and think about it you’ll see that it’s true for you as well. 

An idea is conceived at the speed of light, yet an artist puts hours, days, and months into making that idea a reality. It is work and energy that make a creation significant – not the idea. 

Furthermore, the idea that inspires an artist to create a work of art can be dull or seem insignificant to others. 

We all have an unreasonable fear of sharing ideas and having them stolen. As far as I’m concerned, that actually limits creativity – and does not enhance it. 

#2 Copyright is automatic, so why register? 

Copyright is indeed “automatic”, but copyright registration is not. According to the Berne Convention, the legal framework that governs copyright globally, copyright is awarded automatically when a work is created after significant mental activity. 

However, the beneficiary of the work is the person who has the strongest and earliest proof of ownership of it. 

That’s exactly why registering a copyright is so important. It generates evidence about who the owner of the copyright is and when this copyright was claimed. 

Therefore, while timing is important, the proof of copyright also needs to be indisputable. Without registration, there is no evidence that can stand in a court of law when disputing ownership. 

#3 Copyright registration is useless, I’ve never used it in my life. 

Copyright registration is only “useless” if a creator considers their art a hobby. If they want to make a living, copyright registration is not only useful but necessary. It’s their ticket to generating revenue from their intellectual property. 

Having proof of copyright ownership over a creation allows an artist to claim damages in case of infringement, and perhaps most importantly, allows them to license their work – or even sell rights to it. 

An artist can own the copyright, but might not own the evidence of this ownership. When two artists claim to both own the copyright of a certain creation it will be one’s word against the other. 

And what happens when two people co-create a work of art, which then becomes famous? 

In the beginning, both are happy for the collaboration and proud of the work they created. They’re not thinking about what will happen if their work becomes a source of revenue for them. 

The story often ends in disagreement, lawsuits, and debates that take time, and are usually settled with compensation – and a significant amount in legal fees. 

All because there was no proof of copyright stating who the owner or co-owner is, and to what extent. 

#4 Copyright registration by sending it via mail or email to oneself. 

Sending yourself proof of ownership for your creation in a self-addressed envelope (or via email) is a way to gather evidence. It’s known as “poor man’s copyright,” as it’s very cheap. However, it’s also very weak, as it can easily be hacked and manipulated. 

The best way to acquire indisputable proof – if you don’t want to involve your lawyer –  is to trust a service like CopyrightsWorld, which has the technology to provide proof easily and reliably. 

Our platform uses blockchain technology to generate a Certificate of Ownership – an indisputable proof of ownership – allowing a creator to claim damages in case of infringement, or generate revenue by licensing rights. 

#5 Copyright registration is expensive and time-consuming. 

This claim was relevant some time ago. Copyright registration required a long bureaucratic process and a lot of paperwork needing to be filled. Less savvy people couldn’t even do it alone. 

This made the use of a lawyer – or a legal representative – necessary, adding significant cost to the process. 

It is not true anymore, and especially for digitally-created work. Furthermore, there are many very credible copyright registration providers out there that can provide you with a proof of ownership in minutes – and at a very affordable cost. 

We take pride in being one of those providers. We also go one step further, however. While we provide indisputable proof of ownership in just minutes, we can also help you monitor who uses your work, leading to possible revenue opportunities. 

To conclude, it’s very important for all creators to become more aware of their rights, find the most suitable ways to protect their work, and be able to make a living from it. 

To do so, they need to educate themselves further, believe in the value of their work, and take actions to protect their intellectual property. 

The digital era has come to provide opportunities to do this easily, reliably, and affordably. 

Bio 

Georgia is a digital marketing professional who has worked in content marketing for the past 8 years. Seeing copyright infringement take place in digital content, over the years, made her decide to join CopyrightsWorld – a platform that provides services for copyright registration, digital asset protection, and infringement monitoring – and work on offering creators ways to protect their works in the digital era. 

Sources: 

1. Different brain structures associated with artistic and scientific creativity: a voxel-based morphometry study,  https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42911 

In today’s digital world, with the advent of the internet, and even worse, with the existence of all the social media platforms, the battle seems to be lost. Social media platforms offer access to a huge amount of information and allow the connection among millions of internet users who share their creations in a way that was never before possible. 

But what about intellectual property rights? 

Many people believe that the best way  to protect your intellectual property in social media, is not to put it there at all. Nevertheless, we all use social media, and every day more and more people share with the rest of the world everything they create, such as photos, videos and music, without taking time or effort to read each platform’s terms of use. 

A quick look in those terms shows that no platform owns what has been posted on their site. The copyright still belongs to the owner. But when we come to the license of use, things change. 

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular social media platforms and their copyright terms of use. 

Facebook:

The Facebook terms of use state that once you share, post or upload your creation, of which you own the intellectual property rights, you retain those rights. You grant though the host the ability to use, modify, copy, distribute to others, or even create derivative works of it, without giving you any royalties or credits. When you delete your content from the platform, this license stops existing.  

Twitter:

Twitter’s terms of use are quite similar to those of Facebook. You still hold the copyright of your creation, but by posting it on the platform, you give Twitter the license to use, copy, modify, and make it available to the rest of the world and with retweet let others do the same. This content can be used in any other media or distribution channels now known or later developed, without any compensation paid to you.

Tiktok: 

In Tiktok’s terms of use, things are even “stricter”. You still own the copyright of what you create, but here you submit the “unconditional irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide” license to use, download, modify, share, publish and distribute, not only to Tiktok but to other users and third parties as well. This is different from other social media platforms which state that users either upload their own original content or content that they have permission to use.

Moreover you grant the free license to use your username, image, voice to identify you as the source of any of your User Content

Pinterest: 

In Pinterest you can upload and share photos from your website or business and thus promote your work. 

In Pinterest’s terms of use is stated that the copyright of those photos remains to you, but as an exchange you grant Pinterest the license to use, store, save, reproduce and distribute your content for free, without paying something back to you.

If you think that someone infringes upon your intellectual rights in any way, Pinterst gives you the opportunity to submit a DMCA notice by filling out a copyright complaint form. 

It is more than clear that by posting on social media, you still keep the copyright of your creation. Nothing changes with it. 

The key word is the word “licence” which you give up for a variety of purposes depending on the platform you use. In some platforms you even grant the host the ability to keep a copy of your post and use it even if you delete it. 

So, before posting anything on any platform, spend some time reading its terms of use, and then decide whether to use it or not.

I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping up supporting us and our vision. We know it was not easy.

On our side we did everything possible not only to sustain our service level, but to make it even better. 

During the past few months we did so many things. We rebranded our services, we upgraded our software in every level, we made Defender(TM) and COO(TM) even stronger and we have already plans for new exciting services for the near future. 

But the truth is we wouldn’t be able to do any of those things without your support. 

I know some changes were not expected, but bear in mind that we are still testing stuff and your input is more valuable than ever. If you have something to share, please do. Your opinion is gold to us.

The new status quo has transformed rapidly the way we work, entertain ourselves and communicate with each other. Digital assets are produced more and more by everyone with a smartphone or a computer.More than 2,5EB per day. That’s unimaginable. 
Managing those assets will be a challenge as we go forward. And we are determined to provide answers and solutions to those challenges the new era brings apron us. 

Also, we all know that Christmas time and New Years will be very different this year. You are probably going to spend this family-time apart from your loved ones, and that’s hard.Remember, we are all together in this.

I want to wish for a new year that will bring us back together again. Talking, hugging and being with each other again. This pandemic has highlighted in my head what really matters the most. 

And living, laughing, playing, talking, walking with other people is something that pops out every time. It’s invaluable.

So, let’s all raise our virtual glasses and drink to that.To a happy Christmas and a new year that will bring us all back together. 

I can’t thank you enough for being with us this year. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can do together in 2021! 

Happy holidays to all!

Stay Safe, 
Georgios 
CEO, CopyrightsWorld