Based on discussion with other small-business owners, I have noticed an overall sense that business is improving. Sales are generally up for many of my clients, colleagues and friends.
This upward sales trend is encouraging, and nothing is better for a small business than riding the wave to the top of a recovery, especially when one can see that the top is a long way off. Such a view provides the optimistic entrepreneur the ensuring sense that the only way to go is up.
However, nothing can crash that euphoric feeling like getting served with a lawsuit or receiving a cease-and-desist order in the mail. Unfortunately, as a professional in the Web-design industry, I hear of such events often.
Recently, a client retrieved an interesting article that he had saved from the Internet years before. He then posted the information on his blog, and a few months later, he received a threatening letter from an attorney representing someone who claimed ownership of the article. My client quickly removed the content and apologized for posting it.
The attorney was not satisfied and threatened to sue if he didn’t pay $50,000. After retaining an attorney and spending months in negotiations, the parties settled on a lower amount.
I relay this story to remind business owners to make sure they have the rights to use images, music, videos and text within the content of a website, newsletter or blog post.
While I am not an attorney and do not provide legal advice, I am offering a sort of public service announcement to urge you to review your content and the content provided by a graphic artist or webmaster to make sure that it does not violate a copyright.
Obviously, one way to avoid potential issues is to create new content by writing your own material and taking your own pictures. If generating original content becomes too costly or time consuming, then consider purchasing stock images, content, video or music.
Royalty-free stock images, videos, and music can be found on sites, such as istockphoto.com, gettyimages.com and shutterstock.com. While these sites allow you to pay for the rights to use the images, they do not grant permission to use the content for all applications. It is important to read the terms of use carefully for each material source.
Another way to make sure that something is acceptable for use on a commercial website, blog or newsletter is simply to ask the owner. If possible, locate the author or owner of the material and get written permission to use it.
Finally, if you are unsure of whether the content is protected by copyright laws, consult with an intellectual property attorney. He or she should be able to advise on the legality of using content drawn from various sources. Attorney fees for this type of consultation are much less than their fees to defend you in court or negotiate a settlement.
Conversely, it is also a good idea to consider filing a copyright to protect your original works.
For more information, visit www.copyright.gov or consult an intellectual property attorney.
Brian Cuda is co-founder of Conceptinet, a website design, development, hosting, social media and marketing firm located in Santa Clarita and can be reached at 661-338-0830 www.conceptinet.com. Mr. Cuda’s column reflects his own views and not necessarily those of The Signal. Readers can submit questions to: brian@geek2us.com.
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