5 Ways to Protect Your Digital Product from Intellectual Property Theft
Leslie Cason
Helping creatives turn their talent into profit through digital products and courses | Kajabi Expert | Education for DIYers
This post should not be construed as legal advice. What follows is for informational purposes only. Always consult your attorney for legal advice about digital products.
This is the part of product creation that’s not fun – thinking about what you need to do to prevent people from stealing your hard work. It’s something our clients think about (and ask me about) when we’re working together to launch their course or program.
The good news is there are some things you can put in place early to keep away the people who are looking to profit from what you’ve created (AKA steal your content and resell it under their own name or to a pirate website). It happens more than it should.
The bad news is you can’t prevent it entirely. That’s just the nature of the online environment. If there’s a way something can be stolen, someone will figure it out.
As a practical matter, you shouldn’t worry about it too much. The reality is that this kind of thing happens from time to time, no matter what you do. So put these five things in place now and you’ll be in a much better position to deal with anything that comes up.
Some of these might not be possible, but do what you can. Having something in place is better than nothing.
TRADEMARK YOUR PRODUCT NAME
This one may or may not be practical for you, especially when you’re first launching your product (it’s a long process and not always successful). But trademarking a name offers you some protection, so it might be worth doing if you’re able.
It might also be something to look at if/when your product blows up and becomes very successful. At that point, you’re more likely to attract thieves. Just don’t wait too long to start the process. With trademarking, the person who has their application in first usually prevails.
If a name is already trademarked (at least in the US), you can’t use it if you’re in a similar field. Here’s the explanation from the Digital Media Law Project:
“Stated briefly, trademark law makes it unlawful for a business to use a trademark (e.g., a slogan, a logo, a name) in connection with a good or service if that use is confusingly similar to another business’s use of a trademark.”
So before you choose a name for your product, search the trademark database to see if someone owns the trademark. Even if the person who owns it isn’t using it, if it’s trademarked it won’t be available to you.
And if you do want to trademark your product name or anything else in your business, you can use a service like LegalZoom to do the work for you. There are also law firms that specifically cater to online businesses that can walk you through the process.
It’s not really something that can be done successfully on your own.
GET YOUR POLICIES IN PLACE
Our clients are always surprised when we tell them how many policies they need for their product. But they are selling something just like Target or Starbucks, so they need to have consumer policies in place that dictate the rules of buying from them and the protections those consumers have.
Spending the time to get your policies together and really think about how you want to operate could be the difference between winning a dispute and seeing your business kind of implode. It’s that important.
If you’re in the US, make sure your policies align with FTC rules for advertising and delivering products.
At a minimum, these are the policies you need:
You might be thinking, “how am I gonna write all that?!” Like everything else, there are resources that do a lot of the work for you. These are our go-to policy generators.
Don’t just download them and use them as is! That’s not gonna cover you. You need to spend some time reading through them and adding or changing where necessary. These are the policies you’ll refer to if something happens. They are worth the effort.
REPORT THE OFFENDERS
Google pretty much rules the world when it comes to getting found online. So not being in their search engine is a big hit to a business.
If you find that someone has stolen your content, even if it’s not from your product (like a blog post or page copy), you can file a removal request with Google. That won’t take the offending site down completely, but it will remove it from Google’s powerful search engine. And that’s a big deal.
It might not always be necessary for you to go that far. You’ll have to assess whether or not having your content out there really hurts you that much. But there’s the principle of it to consider too. We have to stand up for ourselves.
It might be worth it to at least give the thief a chance to make it right. Try contacting them with your proof and see if that resolves it before taking more action.
USE YOUR LOGO AND A WATERMARK
We have dark and light versions of the Studio’s logo for this purpose. Every part of your product content should have your mark on it. That can be your logo or it can be a watermark. Even just your name or business name with the copyright symbol. Something that identifies you as the owner. Put it where it will be difficult to crop out or remove.
GATE YOUR CONTENT
Lots of product creators want to use their own website or YouTube to host their products, thinking that’s the easiest and cheapest way to do it. This is especially true for online courses.
There are some real pitfalls to doing that. Techie people can easily get around those password gates and a YouTube video is just unlisted. If the links get out, that’s it. Your content is gone.
Those are just a few reasons why we recommend using a course hosting platform to host your digital courses and programs. You have built-in safety measures that you don’t get with embedding videos on a webpage. And having to enroll on a platform acts as a deterrent for a lot of people who are just out to steal whatever they can get.
Is there a foolproof way to protect your content? Sadly, no. As long as there is money to be made, there will be assholes who are looking to capitalize on your hard work. Don’t help them. Do these five things to put in place the protection you need, regardless of what you’re selling.
And then you can at least have peace of mind that you’ve done what you can to prevent people from getting your stuff for free.
RESOURCES
WORK WITH THE STUDIO
In this Studio, you’ll find a combination of strategic know-how, techie expertise and elegant design that elevates your online presence and makes selling your knowledge a breeze
1?? The Strategy Intensive: If you have a product or course idea, but not much else, this is the place to start. Intensives are your time to work with founder Leslie Cason on things like developing a plan for building or selling your product, finding your best idea or creating a content strategy.
2?? The Product Ecosystem: If you’re in the process of creating your product and are ready to explore the mechanics of running it, this is for you. Work with Leslie to build out the learning environment you’ll need on one of our preferred platforms.
3?? The Marketing Runway: If your product is done and ready to launch (or very close), this option will help you develop your marketing strategy and assets. Work with Leslie on your content strategy and create the pathways to your product.