The other day I was searching the web for an interview with a leading Internet marketer. I wanted to find an interview that I would be permitted to add to my site as part of a feature on building an “Internet Master Mind Alliance”. Unfortunately, every interview with the guy I wanted to feature came with strict copyright restrictions attached.



Presumably the authors of those interview articles wanted to preserve the uniqueness of the content and restrict distribution to their sites alone. That’s fine, but in doing so they are missing a crucial point about the current state of Internet marketing, namely:

it is better to be anal expulsive than anal retentive!

Think about it for a moment. These guys who won’t let their articles leave the confines of their own websites are missing out on a huge amount of viral traffic building potential. One of the conditions of allowing other people to post your articles on their websites is that they also have to attach your signature (including at least one link back to your website) at the foot of the article. So, by refusing to share their work, many Internet publishers are missing out on one of the most effective ways of building links and getting free exposure on the Internet today.

But what about protecting your copyright? The good news is that when your articles are posted on other people’s sites they do not have to go unprotected. For example, if you make use of a Creative Commons licence (http://www.creativecommons.org), you will gain three important benefits:

• You will be able to offer some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions, depending on the licence you choose.

• You do not give up your copyright, which remains legally protected.

• Any article you attach a Creative Commons logo to will also be listed in the Creative Commons searchable database where people can search for it and add it to their websites.

The difference between the traditional “all rights reserved” and a newer “some rights reserved” copyright is like the difference between a clenched fist and an open hand. The more open-handed we can be in our approach to Inernet marketing the better chance we have of thriving in a highly competitive market.

I too had been eager to keep my precious work under the seal of an “all rights reserved” copyright. However, once I had grasped the advantages offered by switching from a traditional “all rights reserved” posture to a “some rights reserved” posture protected by the Creative Commons licensing system, I went straight over to http://www.creativecommons.org and got myself one of their licences. The process is very straightforward and easy. It is also completely free.

Once you have signed up, you get to choose the best licence for you. For example, if you are looking to attract traffic to a business site then you should probably go for a licence that allows the other party to reproduce your article for commercial as well as non-commercial purposes. That way, your article stands a greater chance of being placed on related business sites where it is likely to deliver more highly targeted traffic back to your site.

Placing the license and logo beneath your articles is a simple cut-and-paste job. Once an article with the Creative Commons logo attached has been published it will automatically appear in the Creative Commons listings, channeling another stream of traffic to your site. Anybody who wants to publish your article can simply copy it from your site and publish it on theirs, with the Creative Commons logo and attributions attached.

So, to conclude, don’t be too possessive over your good copy. If you want to trumpet your site all over the Internet, releasing good copy is one of the best ways of doing it. The more people who host your articles on their sites the better it is for you. You get the kudos, your name gets exposure, your website gets numerous relevant links and both your traffic and your search engine rankings go up. And, what’s more, with the advent of a free service like Creative Commons, it is not even necessary to give up any of your rights.