On my soapbox as it pertains to Virtual Assistants:

During my first couple of copyright escapades I came across this great site: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html.

Pay special attention to this section (excerpted from http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html):

“If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me.”

False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called “derivative works” — works based or derived from another copyrighted work — is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else’s work, you need that author’s permission.

For some additional light reading (I am being facetious) you can read all about the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html and the Universal Copyright Convention at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Copyright_Convention.

The argument that there are only so many ways that you can describe a Virtual Assistant is getting old. If you use the IVAA definition give them credit, if you use Virtual Accuracy’s definition give them credit, etc. However, always ask the individual organization or VA to use their definition prior to putting it on your site. Don’t plagiarize another person’s definition and claim it as your own.

Becki

Well it’s that time of the month everyone (no not THAT!), time to check to see if anyone is infringing on the copyright of your site. Go to http://www.CopyScape.com and type in each of your URLs for your entire site or copy and paste them. It’s that simple.

I did it last night and found someone using my content…AGAIN. This is extremely frustrating and she is the first person to not comply with my cease and desist. Needless to say I contacted her webhost today and I will be on the phone with the attorney tomorrow. Yes, I am a killer, I know. I don’t mess around and I am SICK and TIRED of people taking my content.

Yes there is a right click prohibit, but for SEO it sucks, to put it bluntly, plus they could just copy it from the source code anyway.

If you are a new VA or existing for that matter and you research other VA websites for content ideas…be careful not to plagiarize. It is not fair to those of us who came up with our own content and in some cases hired a professional copywriter to write it.

Becki Noles
Virtual Accuracy
Assistance for Coaches