Protecting Your Intellectual Property

According to Cornell Law, intellectual property is “any product of the human intellect that the law protects from unauthorized use by others.  Intellectual property is traditionally comprised of four categories: patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets.”

Your work is your intellectual property.  It’s not just your actual recordings that you have to be careful to protect, but also the blog posts, white papers, and articles that you write about industry-related topics.  Immoral persons will attempt to steal this material and pass it off as their own.  There are some that will go so far as to copy everything on your website, which you have taken so long to craft and care for.

There are several ways that you help to defend against the theft of your intellectual property.  For instance, there are plug-ins for website builders that will prevent people from right-clicking on a photo to copy and paste it elsewhere.  You can also employ watermarks in high-quality images to prevent theft.

Watermarking is an effective tool for protecting audio files as well.  Though it differs slightly than that seen in photography, the principle is the same.  It is possible to embed an audio signal so that it cannot be easily removed by those intending to claim your work as their own.  It is also possible to prevent your audio from being downloaded, if you fear intellectual theft.

Disclaimers are also surprisingly powerful.  Adding disclaimers that state that the posted material – photo, audio, or text – is the intellectual property of the website host and that all attempt to steal that content will result in legal action can drastically reduce the likelihood of someone attempting to pass it off as his or her own.  Follow up with appropriate actions if someone does attempt to do so.  If you discover that someone has stolen your intellectual property, ask your attorney to draft a cease and desist letter, requesting that the material be removed and suggesting further legal action will be taken if the request is not abided by.