In today’s digital world, it is almost inevitable that your business has pieces of original digital content in its arsenal. For one, your business may have a website that advertises its provided products and services. Then, on this website, you may post blogs and other written content, along with digital graphics, photographs, and video recordings related to your business and brand identity. All of this to say, it is important for you to copyright this digital content. Please read on to discover why you should protect your digital content and how a seasoned New Jersey copyright lawyer at The Ingber Law Firm can help you adopt the proper initiatives.
How is a copyright for digital content different from traditional content?
In essence, a copyright may function similarly and offer the same protections for digital content as it does for traditional content, such as books, movies, photographs, paintings, etc. That is, both are protected under the Copyright Act of 1976, which grants exclusive rights to authors to reproduce, distribute, display, and create derivative works of their original content in both digital and traditional channels.
The only contrast here may be that digital content introduces unique challenges for enforcing intellectual property rights and seizing unauthorized distributions. More specific examples of these unique difficulties are as follows:
- Digital content may be replicated and shared across the Intent with minimal effort or skills required.
- Digital content may be subject to cybersecurity threats when saved in your business’s private system or network.
- Digital content may not be subject to physical control and thereby made vulnerable to unauthorized access globally.
- Digital content may be subject to human error and thereby made vulnerable when saved on unsecured workstations, mobile devices, or wireless networks.
Why should I take the extra step to protect my digital content with a copyright?
For all the reasons we have already given, we encourage you to protect your digital content with a copyright, and possibly even take extra initiatives to protect it than you would for your traditional content. Namely, it may be in your best interest to adopt a Digital Rights Management (DRM) tool. This is a technology designated to protect copyrighted digital content from unauthorized access, use, and distribution. Specifically, DRM may involve encryption, access control, usage permissions, software licenses and keys, user authentication, and other technologies.
This is not to mention the importance of having a lawyer in your corner to help safeguard your digital content. Not only may we help you apply for copyright protection to begin with, but we may step in and initiate legal action should you ever identify possible infringement activities. At any rate, if you are ready to obtain a copyright or otherwise, now is a better time than ever to contact a competent Essex County, New Jersey intellectual property lawyer. The Ingber Law Firm is here to help.