Back in November 2020 I did an extensive post on privacy policies, cookies and disclaimers, and their importance protecting the privacy of your visitors, and also yourself.
Privacy policy, cookie banner and disclaimer: a short recap
On any site where you allow comments, you are storing personal information of your visitors, as they leave their names and email addresses. Even when they are ‘hiding’ behind a pseudonym, the information is still very much part of their person. That information needs to be protected, and in your privacy policy you explain exactly how you do that.
When someone visits your website, a cookie is stored on their computer to ‘improve’ the next visit to your website. Using a cookie banner, you give your visitor the option to decline having anything stored on their device.
The disclaimer on your website is to protect you from any legal action, for instance, when you write about health, you need to mention that you are writing about personal experience and not advocating for people to follow your advice.
Why is privacy important?
Privacy is a human right. We all have the right to protect ourselves from harm, and one of the ways to do so is protecting our private information. This give us the space to be who we are without judgment from others and to think freely without discrimination.
If someone has a desire to keep something private, it is disrespectful to ignore their wish. Of course, in this, there are situations where you can’t keep your name and personal information private, such as when you are admitted to a hospital, or want to order something online. However, when you do give your private information in those circumstances, you trust that your information will be used only for that purpose.
We all know, knowledge is power. When your information fall in the wrong hands, it can be used to control you or your life in some or other way. None of us want that, and this is why protecting not only your, but the privacy of others too. This is why, when you have a blog and you do collect personal information from others, you need to tell them exactly what you are doing with it, and how you protect is.
Copyright, protecting your content
Something else that needs protecting is your content. Everything you put on your blog is yours, your creation, providing you have not copied it from someone else. Your website contains your intellectual content, and you don’t want anyone to steal it from you.
The way to protect your content is putting a copyright notice on your site. It can be as straightforward as “All rights reserved 2021” (always add a date!), or as extensive as this one I have on my own website:
“© 2010-2021 All rights reserved
I hereby assert my rights as the author/creator of original material and images posted on this site. No part of this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission obtained from Marie Rebelle. Any person or persons found to be infringing copyright will face legal action.
~ Marie A. Rebelle & Rebel’s Notes.”
If ever you use the words spoken or written by someone else on your blog, put it between quote marks and make sure you credit them. This way you are protecting their content, as much as you want your own to be protected.
Examples
Please feel free to use the following as an example for your own site:
You are also welcome to copy the copyright notice above, and replace it with your own words.
Image from Pixabay
One thing I find real strange about copyright….so there are a number of strange blogs that are basically other people’s content.
Recently a blogger was publishing my posts on their blog. They did not start the post by saying anything like, “I enjoyed Jenna’s post, here it is for you to read” or “This is reblogged from Jenna’s site”….it was just my post with a link at the bottom where a reader could find my site.
I asked the blogger three times to remove my posts from their site – no response.
I asked a WordPress forum what they could do to help me. I received a mixed response. Two said I could report the blogger via a DMCR? but it was very unlikely I could win any legal action taken. Other bloggers just said I had to accept that any content I published in the public domain was liable to be copied by others and there was nothing I could do about it except make my site private.
It really surprised me.
If someone had the courtesy to ask permission to reblog any of my posts, I am sure I would say yes….but just to take without asking, and knowing some of them are very personal, about my relationships and emotions….well, it just doesn’t seem right at all.
That should not have happened Jenna. thou it has happened to many of us too. Often without even putting a link at the bottom. We managed to get the content taken down as it was someone who was self hosting who had stolen many peoples wok. So we contacted the people who hosted the naughty site and they sorted it out. WP.com is different as you don’t own your domain. Could you not find any contact details for the copycat blogger?
Mayx
You are right, Jenna, someone shouldn’t just post your words somewhere else. You can start by removing the ‘Reblog’ button at the bottom of your post, so people can’t reblog your content, and then a notice somewhere on your site that none of your content may be republished anywhere else without your explicit permission (see the footer on my site for an example). What you can also do is to end all your posts with a copyright sign and your name (all my posts has this at the bottom). Anything to ‘scare’ those copycats off.
As for the DMCA, yes, you can contact them to take down your content from other sites (I have done this successfully twice in the past), but I don’t know if this goes for wordpress.com sites, like May has already said. Let me know if you need any help.
And, if you ever see content of others anywhere it doesn’t belong, please let them know 🙂