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Photo Publisher’s Checklist: Seven New Year’s Legal Resolutions For Your Website
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As we near the end of the 2021, here are seven resolutions
– not including the obligatory “get in shape” or
“be more organized” – that you may want to
consider for 2022.
- Copyright Ownership. Check that you own
your website’s content, which generally requires that your
employees created the content in the regular course of their
duties, or that you have a proper copyright assignment or
“work-for-hire” agreement for outside contractors.
Confirm that your work-for-hire agreement covers the contemplated
work (not all types of work can be the subject of a WFH agreement),
is clear on the issue of ownership, and is signed before the
work’s creation. Confirm you have added copyright management
information (CMI) – which is “identifying
information” about the copyrighted work, the author, and the
copyright owner – to your site. This may help under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) if a potential infringer
removes or alters the CMI when they copy your content. - Timely Registration. Identify your most
important website content and consider registering it with the
Copyright Office. To be eligible for statutory damages, you must
generally register any published works within 90 days of
publication or before a claimed infringement begins. You can obtain
a registration for a minimal cost, particularly compared to the
potential statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. A
registration is a prerequisite to filing a copyright infringement
lawsuit, and it will aid you in removing your stolen content from
other infringing sites. - Domain Names. Confirm your domain name
is locked against transfers, calendar when the domain registration
will expire, and ensure that the current, full corporate name is
used as the registrant, particularly if there have been mergers or
changes in corporate form. Consider registering domain names with
misspellings or nicknames for the company to reduce the risk a
third-party will register them. Be sure that you are listed as
technical and administrator contacts. Sometimes website designers
will list themselves as the administrative contact. You will
usually want an employee in that position. And review your
agreement with that employee so that if the relationship turns
sour, they leave the company, or are unavailable, you can change
the registration information to prevent them from holding your
domain hostage. - Terms of Service. Review your terms of
service to confirm they are prominent, current, and provide a right
to update. Your site should offer site users the terms, allow them
an opportunity to review, and inform them of what actions
constitute their agreement to your terms. The terms are generally
more likely to be enforceable if a user is required to take action
to accept them (e.g. by clicking a box to indicate
acceptance). - DMCA Agent. If you allow third-party
content on your site, you should register a DMCA agent with the
U.S. Copyright Office (or if you previously registered one, confirm
the information is current). Rights holders who want to submit a
takedown request to you for third-party content might first check
the Copyright Office’s online agent directory. You should
provide this same designated agent information on your website.
Finally, implement a process to “expeditiously” respond
to each submitted takedown request (and otherwise comply with the
DMCA’s requirements) so that you can claim the “safe
harbor” protection against a subsequent copyright claim. - Privacy Policies. A privacy policy
generally tells site users the 4W’s and 1H of your collection
of their personal data – who collects their data, what data
you collect, when you collect it, why you collect it, and how you
use and disclose it. Your information collection practices and
privacy policy may need to comply with the California Consumer
Privacy Act (CCPA), and Europe’s General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR), depending on different facts (e.g., the type and
size of company, to whom your website is directed, etc.). You
should check your policy to make sure it is consistent with your
current practices, and that you have a business need for the data
you collect and retain. You do not want to collect – and be
under an obligation to protect – data that you no longer need
or use. - Trademarks. Review your website for
consistent use of trademarks and trademark symbols. If you obtained
federal trademark registrations, you should generally use the
registered trademark symbol ® with such marks, and if you claim
common law (i.e., unregistered) trademark rights, you can use the
™or SM trademark symbols.
From all of us at the In Focus Blog, we wish you a happy, and
healthy, New Year in 2022.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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