Blog Training and How-To Guide for Business Blogging

Why is copyright important to you as a blogger?

Because avoiding copyright entanglements reduces your stress level and helps you offer the best possible content to your readers.

What is the DMCA?

The DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, basically says that it's illegal to copy something on the Web without the author's permission.

What is the culturally accepted norm among bloggers?

It's basically okay to copy anything you find as long as the author didn't say it's not okay and you link to the Web page where you found it.

What do search engines like Google think?

Well, they don't actually think - that's still a few years off. :)

But search engines typically ignore or penalize duplicate content. If something is already in their indexes and then a copy of it appears, they tend to rank the copy much lower or exclude it from their search listings altogether.

But they don't mind a brief quote or a link with proper attribution.

So how can you make sure you have the right to copy text, images, audio or videos into your blog posts?

1. Don't panic. Quoting an article or including an image from another site is highly unlikely to get you in trouble. However ...

2. Be original. As a general rule, don't copy more than 3-4 lines of text (or one brief paragraph) from any source. Copy an image or an audio file or a video if you're pretty sure the author won't mind.

3. Avoid using images with fancy watermarks - they just look odd.

4. If you're really unsure about copying something, try to ask the author for permission. Most people say, "Sure! Of course."

5. If an author comes after you complaining and asking you to remove something from your blog, just do it. There's so much content out there that you can copy without running into problems.

How does good use of others' work help me?

For one, it saves you the time of doing things yourself. For another, it can enhance your original content greatly. Also, in this day when everyone and their dog uses the Web to converse and connect with others, it's great to build interlinking relationships by displaying a snippet from somebody else and adding or responding to it in your own content.

More information on copyright coming at you later this week. Stay tuned.