The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 29. Jamie Lieberman shares her insight on the legal side of having a blog

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Jamie Lieberman, the owner and founder of Hashtag Legal, is here today to share her expertise on the legal side of having a blog. Hashtag Legal is a law firm that works with business owners in the online space and provides legal services for bloggers. Jamie shares the three things that she recommends a beginner blogger have in place to protect themselves, thinking about your blog as a business vs. a hobby, LLCs, trademarks, naming your blog, copyright law, what to do if someone copies your blog post, and the things to have in place legally when setting up your website (privacy polices, disclaimers, disclosures, etc.) Jamie is a wealth of knowledge and shares so much valuable information that can help us all. Tune in to hear everything she has to share.Check out the show notes (link below) for links and resources mentioned in this episode!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsIf you need questions answered before you start your blog, check out The Blog Depot, an online course and membership community!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode29

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. This is an episode we are so excited to bring you today. It is going to be eye-opening and helpful, and we couldn't think of a better person to invite on to talk about it. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Jamie Lieberman with Hashtag Legal. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yes. So Jamie, how about we start out with you telling our audience a little bit about yourself and your practice? Yeah. So like you said, my name is Jamie Lieberman. I'm the owner and founder of Hashtag Legal, which is a law firm that works with business owners in the online space. And a part of that is content creators. So I've been practicing law about 17 years. And the last nine of them, I've owned Hashtag Legal

and have focused my practice in a lot of these areas. The practice actually started working with bloggers. And we provide services for bloggers from company formation to contracts to intellectual property, website terms, privacy, employment, pretty much anything you could think of. And if we can't do it, we'll, we try to help you find someone who can. So what made you get into this sphere of just bloggers or influencers? You said you've been in the industry for 17 years. So what, what was the shift? What made you see this is an area that they need help? It's really interesting. So I started my career doing very typical legal work,

complex commercial litigation for a big law firm in New York City. I then worked for the federal government and I was basically fighting all day with other people. And so litigation, while it was really great as a foundation, I just didn't see myself doing it long-term and I didn't love it. So when I had my first son about 11 years ago, I thought to myself, there has to be another way that I can practice law that feels a little bit more authentic to myself and also allows me to be a mom and a lawyer. So I left my job and started to freelance. And I also at the time, much prior to this, was a blogger. So I had a blog spot a very long time ago. This was pre-monetization,

pre-word influencer. This was just honestly a creative outlet for people who were interested in publishing or putting photos online or writing goofy stories. And so I wrote about living in New York City. And as you can imagine, that was a really funny thing. A lot of times it's weird and interesting. And I actually got a pretty decent following on that blog. And then I got pregnant and it wasn't fun anymore. So I shut that blog down. But after I had my son and I started to think like, what else do I want to do? I went back to blogging, quickly realized like I didn't really want to blog about being a mom, but the industry had started to change. People at this

time, this was maybe 10 years ago, slowly starting to monetize or realizing we're getting larger followings. And this was pre-focused on social media. We were truly blogging. That was it. Maybe a social share here and there. And so I started working for a company that doesn't exist anymore called Type A Parent. They were one of the original blogging networks and blog conference along with BlogHer, which people in the industry may remember. And I did legal work and non-legal work for them. And the old owner of that company, she asked me to do a talk about legal issues for bloggers. And that's actually where Hashtag Legal was born. Because a whole bunch of bloggers came in and was

like, I need your help. Because I'm literally creating a business. I've realized I'm starting to make money, but nobody understands what I do. And that's how I got into the space. Yeah. People still think that. I know. I get that. I'm like, really? Oh, yeah. We've talked to lawyers before too about what we do. We're obviously bloggers as well ourselves and that have Spark Media. And it's very difficult to find someone who understands what we do and know how we need to be protected. And we do need to be protected. That's a really important piece of this puzzle that I think is

missing. We have this great idea like, oh, I want to share this content with everybody and I pick out this name and I'm going to blow up. But it's like, hold on. At some point, you have to take a look and say, okay, but how can I protect myself? Because we don't want to think about the bad things that could happen, but we kind of have to plan for them and make sure that we're covered. So I want to kind of dive into this with you a little bit. And we're going to speak to the beginner blogger, somebody who's either thinking about starting a blog or maybe has been blogging for a year or two, or maybe they haven't. Maybe you're blogging way longer than that and you haven't protected yourself at all. Please listen. That's you. So what would you recommend?

Let's talk about like three areas that you would recommend for a beginner to have situated on their blog in their business to protect themselves. Yeah. So I think the first thing you have to think about is, am I making this a business? So if this is a hobby, different story, you still have to understand a lot of these things, but maybe you're less concerned about forming a business or creating a company. So you have to decide, am I making this a business or not? And if I'm doing this to make a business, then you got to go in and do it to make a business. So one area to think about is whether or not you want to form a company. Another area you have to think about is trademark law. you want to form a company. Another area you have to think about is trademark law. You have to make sure that the name that you choose for your blog is available.

That's you're not infringing on somebody else's trademark. And you also have to think about, do I want to register this name for a trademark? Do I want to make sure that nobody else can use the name? A lot of bloggers, unfortunately, don't think about this. And then five years from now, when things start to get really big or we're making a lot of money, they suddenly realize, oh, I want to protect this name, but sometimes it's too late. So it is important to think about that.

And the last area you want to think about is you need to understand copyright law because you need to understand both what your rights are in your work and the rights in other people's work. Because I know a lot when we're starting out, we sometimes borrow from other people. Sometimes we want to do roundups from other people. And so having an understanding of what you can and can't do is really important. So when somebody does decide they want to start their blog as a business, how soon should they think about forming this company? Maybe they're not sure, am I ever even going to make money?

You know, I think you go into it and you're not necessarily confident that this is going to work. You're just kind of throwing this out there and testing it out. Should they consider it from day one or is there like a point in time where they meet like a threshold that they need to say, okay, now's the time to start the church or turn this into a business? Yeah. I mean, I think that if you are aiming to start a business, then you should assume you're making money. I really think that. I know a lot of people kind of go in hedging their bets because a lot of them think that it's a low dollar investment to start. So we think like, oh, I'm going to start a blog and all I need is you to throw up a website.

You're investing your time. So realize it may not feel like it's a lot of money that you're investing your time. So realize it may not feel like it's a lot of money that you're laying out, but your time is valuable. And so you are making a large investment in creating a blog. It's not easy to start a blog. And I think a lot of people think it's just going to be really simple. You're going to write down some things you like, and people are going to suddenly read it. That's not how it works. So I really do think you have to make the decision from the front, am I making this a business or am I not? And if you decide that you're going to, then set it up right. Start from the beginning, make the investment, put money aside and say, yes, I'm going to start this business. You have to have a plan in place for monetization if you

are planning to start a blog. So you can't just start a blog and hope for the best. You do have to figure out both how to create that blog, but also how to monetize it. So I think the assumption is if you are going in this to start a business, then yeah, you should start it as a business from the beginning. I would tell that to any business owner. There really is no threshold for a dollar amount because the fact is the reason why we start an entity, usually an LLC, is because we want to separate our business assets from our personal assets. So you kind of want to do that from the beginning, I would assume, because the minute you put yourself out there as creating a business or creating content, then there's potential for liability. So you have to assess that risk for yourself. There's no kind of one size fits all

and sort of figuring out what investment you want to make and how concerned you are about that risk is also important. So I think it's less about the dollars that you're making and more about, is this a business? Am I comfortable with the risk of having my personal assets at risk if something does go wrong? So do you recommend for all bloggers then to be an LLC? I can't make a blanket recommendation. I think it's very personal to each individual blogger slash business owner. In some instances, it absolutely makes sense. And in other instances, for that particular individual, it doesn't. Legal strategy, we're talking about legal

information here, right? Obviously, we can't give legal advice on a podcast, but legal strategy is very specific to each individual business owner. So it is just something you need to be thinking about and assessing based on your personal circumstances, your personal goals, and what you think this business is going to do. So do you recommend if somebody's kind of on the fence on that, who do you think is the best person to ask in regards to whether or not they need an LLC? Is that their accountant? Is that a lawyer? Is that both? Or who would they go to, to get that advice that they need to know what they

should do? Yeah, that's a great question. It's actually both. And I will say your accountant and your lawyer, they may not see eye to eye on this question because many accountants are going to tell you don't do it. They're going to say... My accountant. Yes. I know. And I'll be honest with you, it drives me insane. Accountants don't understand a lot of what it is that you're doing and they look at it as a pure dollar threshold. They'll say, you're not making any money, so don't bother making the LLC. And yes, if you're not making money for five years, then you have a hobby, you don't have a business. So if you're not monetizing after a couple of years, then you should either shut it down or you should just say, yeah, I have a hobby and I'm not that

worried about it because I'm not going to monetize at all. I'm not going to make any money. There's really very little risk here. So I think that oftentimes accountants and lawyers don't agree. I'm not looking at it from a tax perspective. That's the accountant's job. I'm looking at it from the legal perspective. You need both. So you should talk to both and you should find out, what does your lawyer think? What does your accountant think? Because oftentimes I'll tell you that my clients who have been given advice from their accountants not to form LLCs from a legal perspective, that is flat out wrong and it is bad advice. And I've told them that. And then we've had calls with the accountants and then the accountants, after I'm able to talk to them, are like, oh, yeah, you should go with what the lawyer's saying.

So that happens a lot. I'm so glad that we talked about that because I think that that's really important. I think it's two-sided here. One, you have to be willing to take yourself seriously enough to say, okay, I'm ready to have an LLC. And sometimes I think that that's what's missing. It's that business mindset from the beginning. That's something that's the first thing that we talk about within our blogging bootcamp is that mindset. We tell them you need to talk to an accountant or a lawyer about an LLC. But I think it's very easy for people who are just starting to blog by kind of like discounting what they're wanting to do. But I really am thankful that you're encouraging them to take themselves seriously out of the

gate because I think our success can follow that. And then I think it's important that we know who we kind of need to have in our corner. You do need an accountant and you do need to have a lawyer of some sort that you can go to and ask these questions to so a lawyer of some sort that you can go to and ask these questions to so you are protected. That's very important. Yeah. I mean, every business needs one. So you're their business or you're not. And I get it. Like I said, people think that this is sort of a low dollar threshold of investment, but it's really not. And if you're going to make a business, make a business. Hedging our bets

because we're nervous that it's not going to succeed, that's any business, anybody who holds themselves out there trying to make money at whatever business they're starting. It's true. We're all nervous about it. What is the reason to create, if it's an LLC or some other form of a business, what are the risks that someone's taking if they don't do that? Or why would they want to? What is the benefit of doing that? So the great example is you get that cease and desist letter because you started a blog and you pick somebody's name and they say, you're infringing my trademark and I want money. Or let's say you accidentally take somebody's photograph and you

don't realize you don't have permission and you get that cease and desist asking for licensing fees for an image you didn't have permission to use. That happens. And you got to pay for that. You got to deal with it. If it's through your LLC, then you don't have to worry about your bank account. But if it's just you, then your assets are obviously at risk for whatever the dollar amounts are. And that can be kind of scary for people. It depends also what you blog about. If I have somebody who's blogging about fashion, your risks are probably a little bit lower than say somebody who's blogging about mental health or somebody who's blogging about fitness. It depends on what your subject matter is. If you are a licensed professional,

like a lawyer, for example, or a doctor or a physical therapist, and let's say I blog something as an attorney or somebody thinks I'm giving them advice, they take it and it goes wrong. I could say all day long and I want to have my right disclaimers. Hey, this is not legal advice. You got to talk to a lawyer, but that is a potential issue. So I think you have to assess what type of sort of content that you're creating, what kind of blog you're creating, who you are, what your personal assets are and what those risks out there. They're different for everybody. I'm so glad that we're diving into this LLC part, because I do think it's a very, it's a common place that people, It's like this gray area that people

don't know what to do. So hopefully we've provided some insight in regards to the LLC and treating your blog as a business. Let's move next to trademark. Let's talk about what a trademark is and then how they can acquire getting one for themselves. Sure. So a trademark are the rights in your brand name, let's say. They are what we call, lawyers call source indicators. So that means if you look at, you see a Nike swoosh, you know those sneakers are from Nike. And what that means is consumers now know, this is the quality I'm getting. This is my expectation of what I'm buying. And so that's why trademarks are so important. They indicate source to consumers. So the whole point of a

trademark and trademark law and rights is so that consumers are protected from confusion. If I was able to create a company called Nike, N-I-C-K-E, then I might think that those are Nikes and Nike did a funny play on the words. And so I'd be pretty upset if those shoes were not of the same quality. So that's really the point. Consumers don't think that their goods or services are coming from a different source, that they actually are and we know what we're buying. And so to do that, you can't use the same name as somebody in your field. And it's not as simple as that. Trademark law is actually really complicated and really confusing. And people always try to DIY this. And I don't recommend that at all. It's hard. So when you're starting out, you need to make sure that you're

picking a name that doesn't infringe on somebody else's name. And sometimes we accidentally pick names that are too close to large corporations. I've had this happen. I've had clients get into legal battles with really massive companies, and we don't want to do that. So you really do need to have an understanding of who's in the space and what you can and can't do. And so that's why trademark is really important to bloggers, because your blog name is often your brand name. It's what you do. And so this is something that's often overlooked. So trademark is at least educate yourself on it and have an understanding of what trademark rights are. You do get trademark rights when you start to use the

name. So hashtag legal, for example, that's my trademark. I do have it registered, but I used it for a while before it was registered. And so the nature of my use meant that I do have some rights in it. Your rights are exponentially greater when you register a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, which is a federal part of the federal government. And so your rights are much bigger and they're much better. And particularly in an online world where we are nationwide, I mean, international even, it does make sense to think about. So besides just making sure nobody else is using the name, are there other things to think about when choosing a name for your blog to make sure if you want to trademark it, that it's something that you can trademark?

Yeah, that's a great question. So trademarks, we think about them when we evaluate the ability or the likelihood of success of an application, a trademark application. We look at it in about 1,000 different ways. But really, you guys don't need to worry about that. You need to think about it in only a small handful of ways. The first way is what I call the likelihood of confusion, right? So I talked about that already. That means that my mark as I've created it, my trademark is not the same

or similar to another mark in the category of goods and services that I'm using it in. So I'm going to use myself as an example, hashtag legal. I use it for legal services. I use it for educational services, things like that. And so nobody else could use hashtag legal or a version of it. So we can't like invert it, legal hashtag. We can't misspell it. There's lots of different things. So that is one way that you have to evaluate it. The other way you have to evaluate it is whether or not it's descriptive. Now, if I were to call it Jamie's Law Firm, that probably wouldn't be eligible for trademark registration because it's descriptive of what it is. It's a law firm and it's mine.

So that would be harder to get. I mean, maybe the word Jamie, but it's owned by me. So it's a little bit complicated. But even if I were to use an even better example than that, I can't try to trademark the word computer to talk about a line of computers, right? It can't be generic. It can't be descriptive. So that's really important to consider. Like a food blog where they're like a food blog about vegan food that's called vegan

recipes, that would be too descriptive. We can't use that. So descriptiveness. Now you can make a decision as a blogger, right? Like a food blog called Vegan Recipes would probably be really successful because the SEO is amazing. And so you have to make a decision sometimes between SEO and the ability to trademark. And I actually don't have an issue with either one. That's a personal decision, right? We want to make sure that we're deciding

this and we understand it because I do have people come to me and they have extremely descriptive names and they want to stop other people from using it. And I'm like, well, you can't, it describes what it is. So using vegan recipes as an example, I can't stop anybody else from using the term vegan recipes because that just describes what they are. So descriptiveness is another area that you have to think about and consider. So if it's too descriptive, then it will get rejected by the trademark office. How does the person go about finding out, like if they already have a blog, for instance, how can they go about finding, is this already trademarked? So do I have to backtrack or should I just really hurry and get

it done now? I highly, highly recommend that you talk to an experienced trademark lawyer. Trademark is really hard to figure out on your own. The analysis that we do is pretty intense when it comes to determining whether or not there's a conflict. And it's way broader than people think. And really, because we've been doing it for so long, we've seen some crazy things. So I can flag something that someone without experience just wouldn't be able to flag. You can though search it. There is a database through the trademark office called TESS, T-E-S-S. So if you Google TESS, T-E-S-S in the USPTO, you'll find that and you can search it yourself. It's a good place to be able to at least start to make sure, but it is not by any means conclusive. It is a very hard database to

search and it's fickle. So it's hard to use. You can also obviously Google. I mean, see if there's other people out there using the same name as you. That's a very simple way to do this yourself and to find out if there are clear conflicts. Do you want to start building a foundation for your blog? Do you have questions you need answered before you start? Do you wish that you had someone there to hold your hand through the process? We are so excited to share that we have created a membership community just for you. The Blog Depot is an online course and membership community that will teach you the foundations you need to build a blog. We teach you about

niching down, finding the right mindset, the best platform to build a blog on, and so much more with monthly coaching calls inside the community. You will find the support you need to finally make your dream a reality. The doors are open to join this amazing blogging community, and we can't wait to help you find the link to join the blog Depot in the show notes. So if somebody is already blogging and they have this panic moment and they're like, I want to trademark, but I don't think my name can be trademarked. What options do they have? I mean, rebranding or do they have any other recourse that they can take? It depends on the reason why they are unable to register the trademark. That's a really fact

specific thing. It's best to talk to an attorney who can say to you, because like, look, I have clients who started blogging 10 years ago, right? And 10 years ago, nobody was talking about this stuff. And these bloggers genuinely did not know, nor could they have known that they should think about trademark. Fast forward 10 years later, they're like, oh man, I want to trademark this, but maybe somebody else did it or it's just not available anymore or whatever the case may be. You've been using a name for 10 years and no one's come after you already. The odds are pretty good. And I'm not saying for sure that probably nobody's going to bother you about it. And so that's one consideration. But the other consideration obviously is other people

in the market and the use. So there's so many factors that go into it. It really does make sense to just understand what are the potential issues with the name? What can you do? I mean, I do have clients who've rebranded. I've also had clients who've made slight changes to the name. Because if you've been blogging for a long time, you don't want to lose your URL because that's everybody's worst nightmare. And so sometimes they'll keep their URL, but they'll make other tweaks to it. So we'll work with clients and we'll say, all right, I want you to move this around, or let's change this part of the name. We can get clever with it, but it is so specific to each individual person that that's why it's good to talk to a lawyer about it.

I love that you say that. There's no reason to really panic. It's probably fixable no matter what stage you're at, if you've already started your blog. Well, it's not always fixable. So I do want to be really clear. I have had clients that have spent $50,000 on rebranding and they didn't check their mark and there was a full-fledged,

you cannot use this name. So it is not always fixable. There are absolutely times I've had clients who have had to have been forced to rebrand. Sometimes we can't, but a lot of times we can. So I don't want anyone to panic. I don't want there to be despair. I think it's just... The reason we panic and we get very afraid is because we don't have all the information. So if you're listening to this, get the information, talk to a lawyer, figure it out, know your rights, know where the issues are and know what you need to do. Because once you know what you need to do, we just always get it done. Even that client is fine now, by the way. know what you need to do, we just always get it done. Even that client is fine now, by the way. Yeah. We always are fine. We might have panic moments, but you're an excellent resource for everyone online. So as you're listening to this, if you're starting to be like,

I need to figure this out, just contact Jamie and she can help you not panic. Exactly. help you not panic. Exactly. Okay. So let's dive into a little bit of copyright law and talk about that. Maybe describe what that looks like, what that means and how to protect themselves. Yeah. So copyright law is really about the works that you create. It's the rights in works that you create. And by works, I mean, it's your blog post. It's a photo that you take. It's a graphic that you create. It's a book that you write. These are things you've actually created. They're not ideas. So let's start there. If you have an amazing idea for a blog and you tell your best friend and then she makes it, don't tell your best friend. Maybe she wasn't

your best friend. I don't know. But ideas are not protected by copyright law. So these are actually what you've created and how you've created it. And so we have a lot of rights in copyright law and our rights start the minute we create something. So if we use a photograph as a perfect example, as soon as I take that photo, I'm the copyright owner. I took it. So I can do whatever I want with it. I can use it. I can display it. I can publish it. I can license it to somebody, which means I can give somebody the rights to do something with that photograph. I can do something called create a derivative work from it, which means I can create another work with that work as its baseline. There's lots of different things that you can do with

your copyright. And so having an understanding of copyright law is really important because you have to understand what materials are protectable. So for example, recipes, they're not protectable by copyright, just the recipes. Everything around the recipe, like your photos and what you wrote about, because this is your grandma's recipe, that could be protected by copyright, but the recipe itself. And also, and this happens all the time, people are constantly complaining that somebody sees a blog post that they wrote, and then they write their own version of it. And they think that that's copyright infringement. And it's not usually. If words have been changed, I mean,

if we lift paragraphs, that's different. But if I see an idea to write about, like, I want to create the world's greatest bread pudding recipe. And then somebody else creates the world's greatest bread pudding recipe. And maybe our bread pudding recipes are similar, but nothing else is the same. That's not copyright infringement because a recipe is not. And the idea of writing a recipe for the world's greatest bread pudding, not original, there's a million of them. So just having an understanding of what your rights actually are. Now, if somebody uses a photograph that you've taken without permission, that likely is copyright infringement. So having an understanding of those are really important. And knowing how to use somebody else's

work is really important too. I think that's a great point because when we have new bloggers who want to write recipes, they're like, how different do they have to be? We have a lot of food bloggers and they say, I'm inspired by this. What do I have to say if I created a recipe based on somebody else's recipe? No. I mean, if it's just the listing of ingredients, no, those are not protected by copyright. You don't want to lift what the other person wrote though. You should write your own instructions. You should take your own photos. You should write your own story behind it. Some bloggers do give a shout out. If they see a really cool or interesting recipe, they may say, hey, I was inspired by this recipe. I will tell you a lot of times that aggravates

people because they think you're copying. So sometimes that causes more harm and more dispute than actually it ends up doing good. Most people don't really want to inspire somebody else to write something. They kind of want you to write their own thing, which isn't to say we aren't inspired all the time. But yeah, I think your best bet is to just write your own stuff. Create your own works. Do your own thing. Don't consume other people's content. Just recreate it. Even if it's technically not copyright infringement, it's just not a great way to build a business. You want to have your own point of view. Yeah. I think that's just such good advice in general is stay in your own lane and don't worry so much about what everybody else

is doing. And don't go out and look at all their content to try to create your own content. No, that's just going to clutter your brain. Now, I know one thing that's happened to me is I've written a blog post and literally had the entire thing. Like I think they call it scraping or something like that and republished on another site. So not just the ingredients, not just the recipe, but the entire blog post photos and all. Yep. When that happens to me or to another blogger, what are we able to do in order to get that taken down? Because I think the risk there is that the traffic can start going to that other site. There's a lot of downsides to having your work copied. Yeah. So a scraping site is actually a really big deal.

And if you monetize using programmatic advertising, it can screw up your ads. It's important. So you can file what's called a DMCA takedown notice, which I'll say this, a DMCA takedown notice is a very powerful tool for online content creators. You just have to wield it appropriately. You can get into a lot of trouble if you're filing these all the time and they don't have merit. So the DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And that basically enables you to essentially send a notice to a website host or a blogger or what's usually to the website host that just basically says like, hey, this blogger, this person who you're hosting, they copied, they're scraping,

and you need to take the website down. And then the host is obligated to take a look and see whether or not there is copyright infringement. And if they are, they have to take action. So that is one really powerful tool. You can do it on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. People do it all the time. But I have had clients who have gone crazy filing all these DMCA takedown notices and have gotten into a lot of trouble because if it's not true, you could get fined. People can sue you over this. So just be really careful when you use a DMCA. It's a great tool. It's powerful.

It usually works. But you need to make sure that there actually is copyright infringement with a scraping site 99% of the time that there is. And it's important to get those shut down. You can also reach out directly to the blogger. Now, if you get a scraping site, that person is likely outside the United States. That can be harder. This obviously only applies in the United States. So I've certainly had clients who've had full-blown scraping sites that are located outside the United States, and we have struggled to get those taken down.

Eventually, they usually do, but it's really, really hard. So if it's a standard, if it's just like somebody copied you, reach out to them informally. Just say, hey, you copied. I'd really appreciate it if you take it down. If they don't, then you could use a DMCA. You can have a lawyer send a letter. Sometimes when I send a DMCA, it gets taken down faster. There are certain hosts that respond quicker to lawyers than they do to just an individual filing them. So there's tools at your disposal. You just have to make sure you're using them correctly. How much time would you recommend a blogger spend trying to go out there and look and see if people are copying their work?

Yeah. I mean, you can set up Google Alerts and there's definitely ways that you can kind of automate that to see. I wouldn't go insane looking for it. Google alerts. And there's definitely ways that you can kind of automate that to see. I wouldn't go insane looking for it. I mean, there are some people who are just constantly hypervigilant on it and it just becomes too much. The fact of the matter is when you create content and you put it out there, you're going to get copied. I mean, I get copied. And I'm a lawyer, right? You think, oh, that may never happen. No, it happens. You just sort of have to make that decision. How much time, effort, and energy do you want to put into it?

Find out about it. You should do something about it because your intellectual property is only as good as you're willing to protect it. So your rights in it do diminish if you allow people to copy your work or infringe your trademark or use your photographs. But you sort of have to make an assessment on like, what is the copying? What's actually going on, et cetera, so that you can decide. It's very much a business decision each time. And just to be clear, your work is copyrighted, even if you don't have a trademark. Is that correct?

Two different things. So a trademark is just your brand name, a copyright, or the rights in the work. You can register works for copyright protection. Anybody who's ever written a book, likely registered. Photographers will often register their photographs. If you register your works for copyright registration, you get a lot more rights. Most bloggers don't do it though. The Copyright Act and the Copyright Office is not very friendly for prolific content creators. It's really expensive. It can be very difficult unless you fall into a very narrow category of individuals. And for most bloggers who are maybe creating a blog post every day,

it just doesn't make sense to try to register every single blog post. The resources would be too great. But if you're creating courses, or you're doing downloads, or you've written a book, you should think about protecting and filing those registrations. Too many people don't do it. And then someone copies them. And you can stop someone, but getting monetary damage is a lot harder. You can't sue somebody unless you have a registration. That's so good to know. I think that there's so many of us, we don't know what we don't know. So this is just incredible information that I think is really going to be helpful today for any new blogger or even somebody who's already

started their blog to listen to. There's so much to think about. And I'm glad that we have resources where we can refer them to be able to consider all of this because it could be overwhelming. But like we always say, you just have to know who to ask. And there's always somebody that can help you. Agreed. When you set up your brand new website, are there things that you need to think about putting on your website, like pages, privacy policies, disclaimers, and how do you know what you need for your site? Yeah. So everybody who collects data from users, like if you're setting up an email newsletter and you're collecting an email address,

you're required by law to have a privacy policy. So you should have a privacy policy. If you're not collecting any data, if you've not set up any of those and you're literally just publishing and you don't know anything about your users, then you don't need one. But most bloggers are collecting data of some kind. So privacy policy is important. And if you are monetizing using affiliate links or advertising or sponsored content, you are required to have disclosures of those monetizations. So you want to make sure you have those. Terms and conditions for your website, that's great. And it is a really good practice. And I do recommend it. That would include your disclaimers, your disclosures, protections of intellectual property, limitations of liability. But those

are not required by law. They're just a really good practice. So those things would be to protect yourself from somebody coming and using your information in a way that they would come back to you and try to, I don't know, come after you saying that you gave them bad advice or something like that. Yep. That's one way that's for disclaimers. You also, you know, you want to make sure that people are put on notice of your intellectual property rights. So like telling people, you know, not just assuming like you can't copy this or't copy this or don't share it, things like that. Those are also helpful. You can set up limitations of liability and indemnification. These are all like all those legalese topics where people just like glaze over, but those are typically in terms

and conditions as well. But yeah, these are just sort of layering in those things that can help you minimize your risk. And tell us a little bit more about the privacy policy. What does that specifically do? Because I know that's fairly important in terms of having that on your website. Like you said, if you're collecting information in terms of like most of the bloggers that we help, they are setting up a form so they can collect email addresses. I would assume that would apply for like Google Analytics and things like that as well. Why is that important? Yeah, because you're required by a lot to tell your end users that you're collecting data about them. So people need to know if I'm coming to your website that Google Analytics is on.

If you're doing programmatic advertising, they need to understand how data is collected that way. There's lots of plugins that people use that they... Hotjar is a great example or Heatmap. There's a lot of these that people don't realize how much data is being collected. So you should understand what data you're collecting about your users and the plugins that you're using. So it's just, you're required to disclose it and your end user should know what's being collected about them. And is there just a blanket overall statement that every blogger needs to put on their site? Or is this going to be specific to each blogger and what they are including, what they're doing on their site?

It is specific to each blogger. Yeah. You just have to know how you're collecting data. So everybody's different. I think that just points out how important it is to know what you're doing, know what you're getting yourself into, have a plan, consult the appropriate resources, and just go into blogging with your eyes wide open and taking on the responsibility of you're now a business owner. And there's things that you're going to need to consider

beyond just getting a URL and throwing up a website. That is exactly right. And like saying you're going to copy your friend's privacy policy or cribbing it off of somebody else. One size does not fit all. Templates don't fit all. Every single business is different. And a lot of times we're using scotch tape to piece in the cracks. And so that's fine when you're starting. It's not, but it's better than nothing, I guess. But you just have to understand that when you're creating a business, you do have these responsibilities. It is a bigger deal than a lot of people make it out to be. And frankly, that's when I get my most panic phone calls from people is when they just had no clue. They're like, I didn't know. How was I supposed to know? I'm like, well, you started a blog. You sort of should have looked

this up, but people don't. And so I think it's just really important. And it's great that you guys are providing this resource so that people have an understanding that it isn't just as simple as buying a URL and just starting to create content. If you are looking at this as a business, you got to treat it like one. So if someone wants to have a privacy policy that is customized to their specific blog, are you able to help them with that? I think people have built up in their minds just how expensive legal services are. And for a really good lawyer, obviously, it is important to pay them what they're worth.

But it's oftentimes people are... They've blown up in their head that it's going to cost $10,000 to even talk to a lawyer. And that's just not true. So yes, we do offer that service. Awesome. I think that you're right. I think if people kind of probably get in their head a little bit like, well, if I have to hire a lawyer to do some of this stuff, then I'm going to be out X amount of money. But like we kind of talked about in the beginning, it's kind of that assessment of risk. So am I going to have more risk if I don't do anything? Or am I going to have more risk if I go ahead and just spend the money and then I'm protected

in the long run? It all goes back to treating it like a business. And that's where we have to start in regards to blogging in general. And then moving on to this legal aspect of it is, what is this? Is it a business? Is this how you're treating it? And if it is, then this is part of owning a business. And this is part of that. And just taking that responsibility, quite honestly. And then you can be a more successful business owner and know that you're protected and moving forward and that you have the right people in your corner that you can go to and talk to in regards to all the things that they need in order to set themselves up for success. And once this stuff is

set up... So for instance, when you get a privacy policy set up and your trademark and all that, are they just one and done? They're done for you? Or do you recommend that they come back and have to do any of these things later to update? Oh, that's a great question. So for privacy policies, they tend to need to be updated just because the more sophisticated the blogger gets, the more data they collect. But really, it's usually an event like, oh, we added this plugin. Do I need to change anything? Or we've started with programmatic advertising or we're doing whatever it is. We're selling a course now. And you just come back. You email us and say, hey, I had this update and we got it updated. Trademarks, once they're registered, you do have

to re-register. Well, re-register is the wrong word. You have to file a declaration with the trademark office to tell them you're still using the mark every five years. So there are filings, but it's not every year by any stretch. You have given us so much helpful information. I think that people are going to be reaching out for sure. Thank you for providing this information for people because I think it's hard to find, if I'm quite honest. It's hard for bloggers to know what they need in order to be protected. So I know that people are going to want to connect with you, Jamie, can you tell them how they can do so and how you can help?

Sure. So you can go to our website, hashtag spelled out dash legal.com. You can also check us out on Instagram because we share a lot of tidbits there. We're hashtag spelled out underscore legal. And I also have a podcast called the Un-Business Podcast. It's actually all about... We do seasons and we've done two seasons, one on conflict management resolution, which is good for any business owner and another on negotiation. We do sprinkle in legal stuff too, but most of the legal stuff, like information, is on Instagram and the website. So feel free and reach out. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jamie.

It's been a pleasure to have you on here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes for those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your

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