Paul Jacobson is a South African Web and Digital Media lawyer practising in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has been a solo attorney since August 2005 when he left a large law firm and hung his own shingle. He focusses on legal issues arising out of social media and digital media.

You are probably familiar with this logo: ©

You are probably also familiar with the phrase that often accompanies it: “All rights reserved”

These two things are used to indicate that copyright subsists in a piece of content. That means that whoever created that content owns all the rights in that content (there are some exceptions but this is the general rule) and those rights include the rights to make copies, sell the content and create more content based on the original content. The phrase “All rights reserved” indicates that the content owner is keeping all those rights for himself. That means you can’t really exercise those rights except where the law lets you do that through exceptions to copyright like fair use and fair dealing (different legal systems use different terms which can mean different things – be sure to read Dan Schwartz’s post titled “How to (Try to) Stay Out of Trouble When Blogging” for more guidance).

Exceptions to copyright give you a little flexibility in limited circumstances but they are often not enough. People want to share content in a variety of ways that these exceptions often don’t allow for. You may also find that exceptions that are available in one country, aren’t available in another country. The United States has a fairly well developed exception called “fair use” which permits a range of uses which may not be permissible in South Africa, for example.

As a blogger you want as many people as possible to see your blog and your content. Bloggers use a variety of widgets and plugins to enable visitors to let others know about their content in the hope that those people will, in turn, visit the blog and tell all their friends about it. The catch is that some of the ways readers may want to share your content would violate your copyright in your content or may not be acceptable to you. You may be perfectly happy with a reader making a copy of your blog post and emailing it to her friends but you may not want a reader making copies of your posts and selling them. It all starts to become rather complicated both being a reader trying to work out which forms of sharing are acceptable and being the blogger trying to manage how readers share the content.

There is a way that you, as a blogger, can let your readers know how they can share your content and have them share that content in a way that is acceptable to you. It is called a Creative Commons license and there are a few options to choose from. Here is a handy video that will help explain what this is all about.

You may recall that I mentioned that copyright is a collection of rights the content owner has in the content. One way you let other people exercise those rights in your content is to license your content to them. That means you give them permission to use your content in certain ways while remaining the owner of the content. Creative Commons licenses are free licenses (no lawyer’s fees to use the license although you may want to check with your lawyer which license is best for you) which you can use to grant readers some of your rights. In fact, Creative Commons licenses are sometimes associated with the phrase “Some rights reserved” (instead of “All rights reserved”).

Once you have decided what your readers can do with your content (here is a handy tool to help you), you can let them know by posting one of the Creative Commons license badges on your blog. This will tell your readers that you have licensed your content under a Creative Commons license. By clicking on the link provided and visiting the human readable version of the license, your readers will be able to determine for themselves what the license allows them to do with your content. It is important to remember that these licenses are legal documents that some courts have already tested and found to be binding so make sure you research them properly before using them.

That being said, once you start using Creative Commons licenses on your content, you pave the way to more constructive sharing. That means your readers can share your content in ways you have authorised and, in the process, help make more people aware of your blog.

Please note that this post is not legal advice. This post is also not intended to cover any specific set of circumstances and is meant for a general audience. Please consult with your lawyer if you require legal advice.