Creator Know-How

As a creator, is my content automatically copyrighted?

April 23, 2022
  •  
7 minute read
Harvel
Toucan

When you upload content to the internet, whether it’s an Instagram post or a paid course, you assume that it belongs exclusively to you. After all, you made the content. You’ve put hard work, time, and often money into creating your content. All too often, the content you’ve put your heart and soul into will end up on another website for free. These copyright infringements are becoming more common. We’re covering everything you need to know about your copyright and how we can help keep your content protected.

Content creators are a growing industry, bringing value and educational content to their audience. While it’s not something you want to consider, the content you’ve put online has likely been stolen and placed on a free website. This process happens not only to readily available content like social media posts, but also paid-for courses, website themes, and even fitness plans.

Did you know that in 2016 Google was dealing with 75 million DMCA requests every month? That’s around 2 million requests a day. If you’re a content creator or influencer, you’ll inevitably find yourself using this service.

How Copyright Works

Copyright protects your work and means other people can’t use it without your expressed permission. You don’t have to worry about registering your content, it’s automatically copyrighted to you. You can decide to place the copyright symbol (©) somewhere on your content, along with your name and the year. This step isn’t necessary and doesn’t impact your copyright protection.

Your work is automatically copyrighted if it is originally produced by you. This type of work includes video recordings, original writing (such as paid courses), and artistic work.

What Copyright Protects

When your work is copyrighted, it’s protected in several scenarios. Other creators cannot copy your work, such as creating a mirror equivalent of your work. A copyright infringement that commonly occurs is when websites distribute copies of your content for free or charges for copies of it without being an approved distributor. Your work can also not be adapted or showed in public without your permission.

International Copyright

Copyright regulations are largely the same all over the world. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was set up from the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Your copyright over your content lasts for life, or at least 25 years for photography. While this differs depending on the type of content, most of the content produced by influencers and course coordinators will be covered by lifetime copyright.

What Can I Do to Protect My Work?

There are active steps you can take to help protect your work and reduce your risk of copyright infringement. You can add footprints and watermarks to your digital content to make it easy to identify the creator of the content. It’s a good idea to hold onto evidence of your work, including earlier drafts and your plans. You can also display a copyright notice on your website or alongside the content to show that you’re aware of your rights to protect your content and that you’ll follow up on any cases of infringement.

It’s worth noting that following these steps won’t stop the most persistent of content thieves from stealing your work and uploading it elsewhere. Even content that requires membership through websites like Patron can still be stolen and re-uploaded elsewhere online.

Once you’ve created your content, your focus will always be on marketing it to drive up your revenue. Your focus should be on expanding your content and growing your audience.

Do you have time to police the internet to see if someone’s stolen your content?

Probably not.

That’s where we come in.

At Harvel, we keep your content protected by scanning the internet every day to detect piracy and copyright infringement. Our anti-piracy tools are on hand to keep your content protect 24/7. We scan over a million sites every day, providing you with daily and weekly reports on your content. You’ll have the extra peace of mind in knowing what’s happening with your content.

What happens if we find that someone has stolen your content?

Depending on the platform, we’ll send a DMCA takedown request to the relevant authorities to have it removed from both the site itself and search engines. We’ll get to work straight away once we identify an instance of piracy or copyright infringement. We’ll deal with the situation, so you can focus on running your course, producing new content, or growing your influencer platform.

You might be wondering what a DMCA takedown is and how it works.

It’s a well-established process used by the owners of content that is stolen or where there is a copyright infringement. Anyone has the right to issue a DMCA takedown notice against the owner of a website or their online service provider. A DMCA takedown notice can be issued to any website that is infringing on your copyright to have the content removed from the internet.

Who Can Benefit from Our Takedown Service?

If you’re someone who creates content online, whether it’s e-books or digital art, you need to be thinking about protecting your copyright. If someone is available to find your content for free, it means you’ll be losing valuable revenue. If your car was stolen, you would report it to the police. Your original content deserves the same protection.

Investing in copyright protection services can protect your brand integrity and revenue stream by reducing the risk of thieves profiting from your content. With content creation being the future of marketing, it’s never been more important to be aware of copyright issues. Taking proactive steps can mitigate your risk of copyright infringement.

At Harvel, we offer copyright protection for next-gen creators. Our packages come in two options – the basic and pro packages - that work for both small content creators and influencers with larger exposure. We offer a 7-day trial, including daily reports.

Got any questions about copyright protection? You can get in touch at hey@harvel.io or drop us a message on social media @harvel_hq.

Harvel
Toucan
On behalf of the whole team who takes part in writing blogs essential to creators and the creator economy.

More news

Creator Know-How

Manually File a DMCA Takedown to Protect Your Intellectual Property & Reputation - FREE

Regardless of how you slice it, piracy is a criminal offense. There are many people, young and old, who believe that sharing artworks, assets, games or music is merely a way to save money or help the community. But that’s easy to say when they aren’t the original creators of the content and aren’t affected by the significant economic harm digital piracy brings.

Read Article
Creator Know-How

How Do Digital Pirates Make Money

Regardless of how you slice it, piracy is a criminal offense. There are many people, young and old, who believe that sharing artworks, assets, games or music is merely a way to save money or help the community. But that’s easy to say when they aren’t the original creators of the content and aren’t affected by the significant economic harm digital piracy brings.

Read Article
Creator Know-How

How to Protect Your Content from Copyright Infringement

It’s a question that every content creator and developer asks themselves – “how can I protect my content?”. For every original creator online, there’s a dozen waiting in the wings to steal your content and use it for their own gain.

Read Article