You might have seen that my face is appearing in more of the cover images for my blog site posts and in more of the cover images for my videos. There is a factor for that and its not that Ive found a brand-new vanity in my mid-40s. The reason is that in my on-going battle against sites that republish my material without authorization it is a lot easier for me to show evidence of ownership and creativity when my face is in the cover image. If youre interested in the description of that, check out on..

I embedded your YouTube video into my class/ school website, is that okay?.
Yes, thats absolutely fine as long as youre using the embed or link supplied by YouTube and not downloading the video then republishing it (read YouTubes TOS for more details)..

Assist Understanding Copyright, Creative Commons, and Fair Use.

You might have seen that my face is appearing in more of the cover images for my blog site posts and in more of the cover images for my videos. The reason is that in my on-going battle against websites that republish my material without approval it is much easier for me to show evidence of ownership and originality when my face is in the cover image. Filing DMCA takedown notifications is lengthy and even when submitted appropriately some hosting companies still need even more proof of original work and ownership. Being able to state, “hey, thats my photo of myself using my preferred flannel t-shirt” is a lot much easier and faster than composing an explanation of the creativity of my blog post.

I get a lot of follow-up concerns Whenever I release something about copyright. These are a few of the often asked concerns..

Its fairly easy to write a script that scrapes all of the material from an RSS feed and imports it into a various site. Thats a little more difficult to stop so my recourse is to submit DMCA takedown notices with Google to get them to eliminate the offending material from their results pages.
Filing DMCA takedown notifications is time-consuming and even when submitted properly some hosting business still need even more evidence of initial work and ownership. Being able to say, “hey, thats my picture of myself using my favorite flannel shirt” is a lot easier and faster than composing an explanation of the creativity of my blog post.

Resources if Youre in a Similar Situation.
If you have a website or blog that is likewise regularly scraped, here are some resources that might be valuable to you..

I like to share the title or a little summary of your post with my personnel, is that all right?
Yes, as long as youre not republishing the entire thing and or passing it off as your own. If you desire someone to read the entire article, provide the link to it..

Can I forward your newsletter to my coworkers?
Yes, naturally. Hit the forward button in your inbox and share it as I wrote it (over-use of parentheses and hyphens is among the trademarks of my blog posts so dont be tempted to modify those out)..