Erin Austin: Hello, welcome to this month's LinkedIn live. If you are new here, I do these every, uh, last Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern, where I talk about, uh, uh, you might hear a dog in the background from time to time, or I talk about topics of interest for B2B experts in protecting and leveraging our expertise.

Erin Austin: So I have been doing a series, and this is the 3rd, the last of 3, series of 3, this is the 3rd installment of it where I'm talking about copyright infringement. Now, this is being recorded for my podcast hourly to exit. This will be episode 67 and so if you haven't listened to the last couple of episodes, episode 65 was the 1st of the series where I talked about.

Erin Austin: What exactly constitutes copyright infringement? Believe it or not, copying someone's work doesn't always involve copyright infringement. And, uh, and sometimes things that you didn't think would be copyright infringement are. And so go back and listen to that one. If you haven't heard it, I also talk about what the penalties are, what the remedies are.

Erin Austin: which includes civil remedies as well as criminal penalties. Yes, there are circumstances where copyright infringement is a crime and can even result in imprisonment. And then episode 66 was part 2 where I talked about how to not accidentally infringe someone else's copyright. Because some things that we think are innocent, um, but are actually copyright infringements are still infringements, and there's this thing called statutory damages that are available even for innocent infringements.

Erin Austin: And so we want to make sure that we are, uh, respecting each other's rights. Um, I like to call it, you know, do on to others as you'd have them do on to you with respect to your intellectual property and your expertise. And so we want to be respectful of everyone's. Intellectual property rights. And so these are episode 66.

Erin Austin: We talk about how to make sure we aren't through our negligence or through our ignorance, um, infringing other people's intellectual property rights. So, today in part 3, we're going to talk about prevention measures. And how to make sure that we don't become a victim of copyright infringement now with that, um, I will say that, you know, it's virtually impossible to prevent, uh, copyright infringement, you know, there are just the bad actors, right?

Erin Austin: We know that there are certain places that are known for, uh, their piracy and, uh, and we could spend a lot of time, a lot of energy, um, Um, without much return trying to prevent every instance of copyright infringement and, uh, and I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to become obsessed with that, but there are a combination of legal, technical, and some practical strategies that we can use to reduce the likelihood that your copyright will be infringed.

Erin Austin: And if it is infringed, that you'll be able to access 1 of the remedies. So, 1st, the simplest, we should all do it, which is the copyright notice. You know, I can never tell if you can see the bottom of my slides or not. So, uh, I do have a copyright notice on my slides. I have them on all of my slides and it is very simply the C in a circle.

Erin Austin: The year, and that would be the year of publication. So, let's say you, you know, wrote a novel, you started writing your novel 5 years ago. You're finally ready to publish it. Um, that year would be the year publication and your name. I should say the copyright owner's name. Um, for instance. In my slides, it has Aaron Austin Law PLLC because that is my employer.

Erin Austin: And as my employer, it owns the copyright and all the things that I create. And so that would be the name of the copyright owner. Um, and the all rights reserved. I don't know. Sometimes I use that. Sometimes I don't. Um, but basically, uh, it's not because it's required because your copyright will attach.

Erin Austin: Regardless of the copyright notice it attaches at the moment of creation, but this is the way you put it's literally the notice. It puts the world on notice and we're most concerned. I mean, you know, again, the bad actors, you know, good luck. You're not you're not going to stop them. Right? But from Pete from the innocent infringers or the negligent or lazy infringer, um, that puts them on notice that, you know, something's up on the Internet.

Erin Austin: It actually isn't just there for your free use, someone claims copyright ownership in it, and that is what your first line of defense, or first line of offense, um, is letting people know that you are the copyright owner, and no, you just can't use this without my permission. And then the next line would be registering your work.

Erin Austin: Uh, Yes, you know, again, the copyright protection automatically attaches when it's created, but you do need to be registered. That work needs to be registered with the U. S. Copyright Office in order to enforce your rights against an actual infringer. So if we go back to episodes 60, uh, 65, where I talk about the remedies and the penalties.

Erin Austin: The work does need to be registered in the US Copyright Office in order to access those remedies, um, and those penalties and not a super complicated process, but it does have, um, there is a little bit of cost to it. There is an application process. Um, and so I don't recommend it for everything you create.

Erin Austin: If you're anything like me, you're creating content all day, every day. But I do recommend it for those, uh, parts of your work that you would go, I want to sue them for taking that, like whatever that is. Like they, they took my book, they took my course there, you know, they copied my whole website. You know, um, these are the things that you would hire a lawyer to enforce.

Erin Austin: Those are the things that you want to have registered and you need to understand and use. Contracts, you know, we're going to talk about licenses a little bit more later on, but what some people don't understand is that your client agreements. Include a license to use your work and so you need to make sure that the parameters are clearly stated in that contract agreement about how your client can use or reuse your work.

Erin Austin: And so, when you have that clearly stated in your agreement, then you can access those remedies if they use it in a way that's not permitted under your client agreement. Talk about this a lot in other trainings, um, because it is so important in the work that we do when we are experts with corporate clients.

Erin Austin: We are entering these agreements all the time. The client friendly language that you may be presented with. You do need to look at it, understand it and make sure you are limiting your client's ability to reuse your materials. Watermarking. So now we're going to get into some technical, um, ways to, to the first three would be legal.

Erin Austin: This would be, these would be some technical ways you can help deter infringement. So watermarking. Now, I will say that if anyone out there has experience with some of these techniques, Technical measures, because I personally do not. I'd love to have you share them with everyone. So we can kind of think about how we might be able to use them in our businesses as well as the cost.

Erin Austin: I have not kind of put some cost to these either, but watermarking is a way that you can put something that's either visual. Let's say it's a photograph that is in there that says, um, uh, that. Someone else owns it, or just couldn't even say watermark so that someone just can't take it and stick it on their website.

Erin Austin: It would, they would have to literally kind of. I'm going to go through the effort of removing this watermark so I can use it. That will keep something from just very casually taking your work and they're also invisible watermarks that can be detected, you know, only through use of some other technology that would read where the source of something is, um, with someone has.

Erin Austin: A copy of something that they are permitted to have it, but they're not supposed to make copies of it and distribute it. You can have that watermark in there. So if it shows up somewhere, like, how did that come from that? You can go in and decipher that watermark and it will tell you. Who created those copies?

Erin Austin: And so that is another way to prevent distribution without your permission. Digital rights management or DMR. That's a kind of software as well. Of course, not free, but it is embedded in digital content to make sure that you control how it is distributed. So it can prevent it from being, um, further distributed.

Erin Austin: Like, if you get something on Kindle or audible, it'll prevent you from just kind of sharing it with everybody. Um, when you get a new lap, uh, laptop or desktop, and it has software, like, there's a version of it in there, but you have to have a key in order to unlock it. That is a virgin. Uh, yeah. A version of D.

Erin Austin: R. M. Uh, I read this, although I wasn't aware of this, and hopefully you can confirm this that apple iTunes use D. R. M. to limit the number of devices you can use, um, the music with and I wasn't aware of that. But, um, but those are ways that we can prevent also prevent it from being, um, Uh, uh, distributed outside of the U.

Erin Austin: S. So, if you want to make sure that your materials don't leave the U. S. you can, you can use as well. Um, that is a little bit of a heavier, uh, lift. Um, so that would be for something that, you know, obviously is very valuable to you that you really want to control. Online monitoring tools is another 1 that, um, very effective, but expensive.

Erin Austin: Um, so, for instance, if you have, or you've probably heard of someone receiving that cease and desist letter, we'll talk about cease and desist letters in a minute. So. Um, from Getty images saying, hey, I noticed that you have 1 of our images on your website and they send you a license agreement for it.

Erin Austin: Well, they're using online monitoring. So they have a way of something to troll the Internet and to pick up any use of 1 or their images. I imagine they have their own bespoke software to do that, but you can also, uh, subscribe, uh, for that. Um, and, uh, and so you can find, hi, Heather, so you can find, um, uh, uh, any other use of your, of your materials on the internet.

Erin Austin: Um, one of the suggested ways of using this, which is I think is kind of interesting, which is basically the Getty Images model. Is that you can, you find people who are using your materials and you use it as an opportunity to get a license from them to continue to use it. If, if you rather that they continue to use it and get paid for it, rather than have them take it down.

Erin Austin: Um, and so maybe you'll even find that there is. Some part of your content that is frequently used, and maybe that would be something that you would want to create some sort of licensable content out of that, because you know that there's actually a demand out there for it and some practical things, you know, offering a legitimate way to access your materials kind of back to the, to the last point, you know, there may be things that people want to use, but it's just.

Erin Austin: Kind of a lot of work to figure out how to do it. How do I get a license? Who owns it? What do I have to do? You know, and just from that alone, it creates enough friction that they just kind of take it and hope nobody notices, you know, I think this probably happens a fair amount in connection with, you know, presentations where people will go, you know, I want to refer to this graphic or this book or this.

Erin Austin: Thing, and do I need to get a license? Can I have permission to use it? Well, you know, I, I don't have the time or the resources to figure it out. So I'm just going to use it and hope nobody notices and probably, you know, probably nobody does notice, but we do want to make sure that we are complying with the law because of somebody.

Erin Austin: Does notice it is in fact, copyright infringement, and there are statutory damages attached to those infringements. And so I like to encourage people, like, if there's something that there's an easy way to give them access to it, then do it. I mean, for me, it is on my to do list. I don't know even what number it is on my to do list, but is to get creative commons license, which I talk about.

Erin Austin: Thank you. A lot in the prior episodes, um, those are like standard licenses that have predetermined, uh, terms for how someone can use your copyrighted material. And so you can have a creative common license that says, hey, you know, uh, you can use this. For commercial purposes, but you have to give me attribution, or you can only use it for non commercial purposes, or, or, you know, you could always you can use it.

Erin Austin: So long as you don't change anything. And so that gives a very easy way. People can see right on there. There are symbols that tell you how you can use this work, um, and be in compliance with. The copyright license to use that work. And for me, I have a ton of free content and I am happy for people to spread the word.

Erin Austin: I want everyone to spread the word that is everywhere and that, you know, we can create saleable scalable and saleable businesses. I want the more of the people talk about it, the better it is and in achieving, you know, my mission to make sure we help more wealth, more wealth in the hands of women. And so I'd be happy to have people use my free content, but I would like.

Erin Austin: To get credit for it. So I like from the use it with attribution. I would not like someone to take my free content and package it and sell it. So I would like them to use it, but use it in a way that there it's also free non commercial use. So, when we make it easy for people to license our materials, then they're less, they're more likely to, to comply with those licenses and not get sneaky about it.

Erin Austin: So, so I do like that. Um, and the other ways is just to have it on a platform that can do that for you, such as if you are a photographer, or you have a course, when you put them on a platform where people can just automatically access it, um, it will have the terms of how you can use that material right there.

Erin Austin: They don't have to negotiate anything. They can see right there. They don't have to. Have a nervous conversation that can just get access to it and use it within, um, the bounds of that license and then educating the public. It's important that we have these conversations. It's important that if you have a community, especially for those of you who are business coaches for us to talk about how important it is for us to respect each other's intellectual property.

Erin Austin: And, um, you know, I know. Business coaches that you get questions from your clients about, you know, can I use this course? Can I use this book in my course? You know, how do I prevent my, my, um, client from your use my materials? You know, can I use this thing off of the Internet? And these are things that we.

Erin Austin: Can educate ourselves about through things like this to make sure we kind of understand the basics. No, 1's trying to, you know, make you an IP lawyer, but just to understand the basics of what good intellectual property hygiene is, maybe put it that way and to talk to our communities about it as well and keeping records, uh, you know, not that.

Erin Austin: I wish I had an example, maybe I will try to have an example. The next time I talk about this is that, you know, if you don't register something, like, I'm not going to register this, this, uh, presentation, you know, when somebody steals it, like, it's good to have a record to show that. You were the originator of that material.

Erin Austin: You don't want someone to steal your material, register in the copyright office, and then say, hey, you know, she's infringing on my rights. You want to make sure that you're able to show when something was created, who created it and, uh, you know, have that documentation. Let's say you hired a contractor to create something.

Erin Austin: So you hired someone to. Uh, create your logo and you think it's original and you're using it, but then they use that same logo with somebody else thinking you're never going to notice. And then you have a conflict, you know, making sure that you have documentation to show that you own something is important.

Erin Austin: So it's important to keep records, um, as well, and then limit distribution, uh, back kind of to the DMR, you know, being clear about where you put things, you know, there's some places where you have a more sophisticated. Audience that's unlikely to steal your materials, you know, things that you publish on linkedin, the things you publish on medium, you know, things that you publish.

Erin Austin: Well, I don't know about YouTube, but, um, you know, that, that people kind of understand that they can't steal it versus, you know, maybe there may be some other places, um, where if you publish things that it may be more of a free for all atmosphere. And, uh, And it's even possible that it says somewhere in the terms and conditions that anything that you publish here, you give a license to that platform or to that website to use it as it will.

Erin Austin: It says that in terms of conditions that by publishing something there, you're granting them a license. So you need to be aware of where you're publishing things and what the terms of that. And then actively enforce your rights. So to that cease and desist letter, if you find someone has stolen your materials and they're using it in a way that you think is a copyright infringement, then you should send a cease and desist letter.

Erin Austin: Um, it is something that, you know, obviously has more gravity if it comes from a lawyer, but it doesn't have to. Um, there are. You know, examples of cease and desist letters on the Internet. It is on my to do list to have a sample for you to use. I will, I will, um. Do that and let you know when I have one of those available for free, um, to send to the infringer saying, hey, I saw that you have republished my website as your own and it demands that they cease and desist distribution of your materials.

Erin Austin: And, of course, you reserve your rights in case you need to take it to the next step. Another way is through a takedown notice. And that is something that you send to the, um, the ISP, like, so let's say you see, you're on YouTube and you see that somebody has uploaded a video of yours and, uh, and so you would send a takedown notice to YouTube and, and it has, they're very clear, like the statute says exactly what.

Erin Austin: The takedown notice needs to say, and you follow, and, and the ISP should also have that in their terms of use. They should also have what you need to do to send them a takedown notice, who you send it to, and then the ISP is obligated to take to act on that if they don't want to be, um, accused of covering infringement themselves.

Erin Austin: And then, if these, you know, kind of less formal, uh, techniques don't work, you've sent your cease and desist, you've sent your takedown notice, someone still continues to infringe, or if there's a habitual or intentional, um, infringements, then that's time to talk to a lawyer. Um, again, those would be for things that you'd be willing to pay for someone's legal fees for, um, lawyers, uh, typically don't work for free.

Erin Austin: Um, and they typically don't work on contingency basis either. So, it would need to be something that, um, has the value to you. To enforce those rights, um, through a use of a lawyer. Now, I mean, there can be, you know, certainly it can scare people away. That letter coming from a lawyer can be the, uh, kind of an escalation before you get to the serious legal fees, um, to get people to stop doing what they're doing.

Erin Austin: So, you know, again, there's no. Single strategy, there's no, um, absolutes regarding copyright infringements. It's going to happen by bad actors, but it'll also happen, you know, just through negligence or innocence. And so that's really what we want to just make sure that we are. Um, doing what we need to do to protect our rights and reduce the incidence of copyright infringement and the severity when it does happen.

Erin Austin: So, with that, I would be happy to take any questions. You can pop them into the chat and I'd also love to hear about any experiences that you've had with copyright infringement or any, um. Uh, technical techniques you've used to prevent it.

Erin Austin: Well, if you don't, uh, again, I do this every last Wednesday of the month at noon, Eastern. So any questions that you have that you didn't have a chance to ask today, please send them to me and I will address them. And also, I'm happy to take suggestions for future. Uh, LinkedIn lives or future regular podcast episodes, and I do encourage you to check out the prior 2 episodes that are parts 1 and 2 of the copyright infringement series and also, um, to get your copy of.

Erin Austin: Is, uh, my expertise copyrightable, which is a free assessment that takes you through the, um, that takes you through the process of whether or not something can be registered, can be protected through copyright law, including, you know, things like, you know, Things like, uh, IA generated content because an essential element for copyright ability is that something is created by a human, but that's just one of many of the elements that need to be analyzed to see if something is eligible for copyright protection.

Erin Austin: You can get a copy of that on my website, thinkbeyondip. com. And of course, if we aren't connected, please do connect with me here on LinkedIn. Thanks.