What to Do if Someone Steals Your Content

I just stepped out onto the balcony of our skyscraper-sized cruise ship (!! 🛳 ) to write to you today and I couldn’t be more excited to dive into another legal Q&A.

🌊 Yep, you read that write. I’m cruisin’ around the Caribbean this week, playing shuffleboard, and living my best 34-going-on-84 life. Let a girl live.

Long story short: Ryan and I wanted to go on vacation before his semester starts (he’s a Professor), executor stuff with my Dad has been SUPER stressful, I’m still very much grieving the loss of my Dad 2 months ago, and I…

literally 👏 didn’t 👏 have 👏 the 👏 energy 👏 to 👏 make 👏 plans

Been there before? After the past few years, I bet you have.

I know people have a funny attitude about cruises, but I’ve been on a few and when done right — they can actually be super fun. Unlimited food, living at sea, and not having to schlep your bags around? Sign me up, Captain. 👩‍✈️

🏊‍♀️ OK, I’m about to take a dip in the pool but before I do, I want to answer this week’s submitted Legal Q&A question!

If you haven’t submitted a question yet, do me a favor and comment below really quickly to tell me the #1 legal question burning your business mind.

If you read this email & get all the value from it but don’t reply — I’ll be sad 😂

Let’s jump into our legal Q&A sesh! 👇

The Question //

This week, we’ll tackle another great question, this time from Julia:

I’ve heard people say that in the case of copyright infringement that in addition to asking the person to cease and desist, you can also request a certain amount of money for damages in order to prevent further legal action. I’ve also heard this varies state to state. I have no clue where to start looking for more information on this. Would you be able to advise? Thank you!

The Answer //

Yes, that is true — depending on the circumstances.

What To Do If Your Content Is Stolen

If someone steals your free PDF and they just represent it as their own, don’t have it lead to a product, and never make any money off the PDF itself – probably not.

If you have registered that content with the US Copyright Office though, you’d be entitled to what we call “statutory damages.” That’s just a fancy word for: you get this money automatically if someone steals your stuff.

But if someone stole your paid course and then sold it as their own, yes you could go after the damages owed to you for any money they made off the sale of your intellectual property (your course) AND the statutory damages, as well (again – if your course was registered).

So, for example, if someone stole my legal templates and then sold them as their own — I could go after them not only for statutory damages, but I could also go after every nickel they made selling my templates as their own. I see you copycats 😉

It’s another reason why I’m such a big fan of registering your paid products, content, work etc (with the US Copyright Office). You want to put yourself in a position to collect both statutory and compensation damages for the sale of your goods as their own.

How To Protect Your Content

The trickier issue here would be whether you’ve taken the steps necessary to actually protect your content so you could do something about it if/when someone stole it and profited off it. I’ve got something major coming for you in the fall for this 😉

And that’s also why I dedicated a few of the 35+ lessons inside the Ultimate Bundle™️ to understanding copyrights, protecting your content, and what to do if someone steals your stuff.

Hope this was helpful! Can’t wait to see what question you submitted.

To the pool!

PS. Did you hear me spill the tea on all the biggest online coaching secrets in my new podcast episode?