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Last post, I talked about how you can respond to plagiarism on the web. Hopefully those who’ve read it and been in the same situation before could put it to good use. Now, since taking those steps mentioned in the last post might require you to provide proof of ownership, it would be such a shame if you cannot provide any.

Truth is that, for you to be able to file a law suit in federal court for copyright infringement, you would need to pay for copyright registration. However, anything you have created is still your intellectual property and hence, still belongs to you. Here are some ways to be able to provide proof of ownership:

1. Prove Your Content was posted at an Earlier Date

This is, perhaps, the most obvious thing you can do. You can prove your content was posted at an earlier date by:

a) Taking a screenshot of the files uploaded in your server. This only works if you have not modified the file after the offender has posted a copy of your content on his web site.

b) Use the Internet Archive. Input your domain on the text box and be taken on a trip back in time. Of course, the Internet Archive might not be able to save all your pages, so you have to hope the pages containing the content in question are there.

2. Proof of Content Ownership by Saving Dated Documents

Dated documents are a fool-proof way to proving your ownership. Here are some suggestions:

a) Save a document file with the copyright insignia beside your name and the date. Do NOT modify this file at a later date even if you change some of the content in your web site later on.

b) Save that same document file with your name, copyright insignia, and the date, as a PDF file. If you do not have a program for creating PDF files, you can try Primo PDF creator — it’s free.

After doing the instructions above, you could also take further lengths and upload the dated files to your server.

If you’re a writer sending samples of your work to potential clients, you could also take the steps written above to ensure that no shady publication “accidentally” publishes your sample — yes, it happens, and most of the time, on purpose too. You could even take additional measures such as setting your PDF creation settings to “no copy” and “no print”.

That’s all the advice I can give for now. I hope it will be of help to some of you!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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