CYA, of course, stands for covering your assets. Let me tell you when it comes to online intellectual property, it’s very easy to land in hot water. First of all, in practical terms, even if you are sharing somebody’s work with absolutely no regard to the law, it probably is not going to be worth that person’s time to haul you into court. Why?

Well, first of all, that person might live very, very far away from you. That person might be in Florida and you might be halfway around the world in Shanghai, China. Good luck filing a lawsuit especially if the claim damage is less than a thousand dollars.

Practicalities aside, how can you properly cover your assets when using content produced by other people? The reason you’re using this, of course, is quite obvious: this is tried-and-proven content. This content has demonstrated that it can pull eyeballs.

When people see this content, they can’t help but share it. You know this content has traction. You know that this content is going places. That’s why you seek to piggyback your brand on this piece of content.

The more people see the content, the more people see your brand and the higher the chance somebody would click something and end up on your website. If enough of these people show up, there’s a good chance that you stand to make quite a bit of money.

Of course, you can turbocharge your results by focusing primarily on niche-specific content, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

How do you cover your assets when using this type of content?

Well, first of all, you have to include CTTO. This means “credit to the owner”. What you’re saying with this simple act is that you’re declaring to the world, “I am not the owner. I am not pretending to be the owner nor should I be mistaken for the owner.” This goes a long way in setting any illegal issues or legal confusion right.

Next, you have to link to the source. For example, if you have downloaded a video from YouTube and are sharing it on Facebook, the least you can do is to share the link to the channel you got that video from. This is what creates the win-win situation.

Remember, you are leveraging the popularity and viral appeal of the content that you are sharing. The least you can do is post the link from the creator so the person behind that viral piece of content that you’re benefiting from can get some traffic. That’s how you create a win-win situation.

Next, you have to add enough commentary in the content that you’re sharing. For example, if you’re sharing a video, it wouldn’t kill you to post a nice fifty-word commentary on why that video is important and whatever controversies you’d like to discuss.

This seemingly simple act goes a long way in protecting you from legal hassles. How come? Copyright law protects people from stealing other people’s intellectual property. When you share people’s videos, infographics, graphics or written content, you are technically infringing on their copyright.

Under the international intellectual property law, only the person who created that content and the person that they assigned certain rights to have the right to make a copy or distribute the content. If you violate this right, you may have to pay a big settlement. You may stand to lose a lot of money.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s quite impractical for small cases, but it can happen. So, do yourself a big favor. Jump through the extra hoop or overcome the extra hurdle of posting commentary to give yourself some legal cover.

Finally, it’s a bad idea to share the third-party content in its complete form. For example, if Warner Bros. came up with a very awesome movie, I can’t just post a link on my official Facebook account going to the complete movie. When people click on the link, they start downloading the movie. That’s a no-no. You are committing piracy when you do that.

Now, if you just capture maybe a small ten-second snippet from the movie, you’ll be okay because you’re not selling the whole book. You’re just drawing attention to that snippet as part of your commentary because you’re trying to make a point.

Maybe the point is political. Perhaps the point is artistic. Possibly, the point has something to do with something technical. It doesn’t really matter. You are operating outside of normal criminal territory.


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