You've spent a year building a membership site: a custom platform, a few hundred pages of written material, and a video library. Then a lookalike appears, or your videos turn up on a file-sharing site, or a former contractor launches something built from your code.
What you can do about it was mostly decided before it happened.
The short answer: protect a content business in layers. Make sure you own what you paid for. Register the copyrights before launch. Mark everything. Bind users with enforceable terms. Control access at the server. Then monitor and enforce. Each layer is inexpensive, and each one covers a gap the others leave.
Layer 1: Own it
You can't register, license, or enforce what you don't own, and paying for work doesn't make you the owner.
- Employees: work within the scope of the job belongs to the employer. 17 U.S.C. § 201(b).
- Contractors: the contractor owns the work unless a signed writing says otherwise. 17 U.S.C. § 204(a).
- Software by a contractor needs an assignment. See Who owns the code your developer wrote?
- Video can be a work made for hire with a signed agreement, and presenters need releases. See Who owns your videos?
- Third-party material (stock footage, licensed music, other people's worksheets, fonts, and open-source code) stays theirs. Keep the licenses.
Cost: a few hours to audit, and a short agreement per contributor. Payoff: everything else depends on it.
Layer 2: Register it
Copyright exists automatically. Registration is what makes it enforceable in practice.
- You can't sue for infringement of a U.S. work until it's registered. 17 U.S.C. § 411(a); Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296 (2019).
- Statutory damages ($750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 if willful) and attorney's fees are available only if you registered before the infringement began, or within three months after first publication. 17 U.S.C. § 412; § 504(c). See When to register a copyright.
What to register, and how:
| Asset | How | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Platform software | One application per version; deposit a redacted portion of the source code | Registering software without exposing your source code |
| Website text and graphics | As a literary or visual work, as of a specific date | Copyright registration of websites and website content |
| Videos | One by one, or in groups of ten if unpublished | Copyright registration of videos and online courses |
| Worksheets, guides, lesson text | One by one, or in groups of ten if unpublished | Group registration of unpublished works |
| Photographs | Group registration for photographs | Copyright registration of photographs |
Two timing points:
- Before launch is cheapest. Unpublished works can be registered in groups of ten for one fee, and a library that's only streamed is generally still unpublished. See Is streaming "publication"?
- Fees are rising. See the 2026 Copyright Office fee increase.
Cost: $65 to $85 per application in government fees as of November 2026. Payoff: the difference between a claim worth bringing and one that isn't.
Layer 3: Mark it
- Put "© [year] [owner]. All rights reserved." in the site footer, on every handout page, and at the end of every video. Notice isn't required for protection, but it defeats an "innocent infringer" argument in most cases. 17 U.S.C. § 401(d).
- Put a logo on video frames and credits next to images.
- A removed watermark or credit can support a separate claim with its own statutory damages. See Watermarks, credits, and metadata.
- Copyright doesn't protect your name. Register the brand as a trademark. See Copyright vs. trademark.
Cost: close to nothing. Payoff: deterrence, evidence, and an extra claim.
Layer 4: Contract for it
Copyright leaves gaps: ideas, methods, facts, and data aren't protected. See Someone cloned my app. Contracts fill some of them.
- Terms of service that members actually accept: a personal, non-transferable license; no downloading, recording, sharing of logins, scraping, or reverse engineering; and the right to suspend accounts. Use a checkbox or a clearly labeled sign-up button, not a footer link. See Website terms of service and online contract formation.
- Organization or team licenses that say how many users, whether content can be shown to groups, and what happens at termination.
- Confidentiality agreements with developers, editors, and partners who see unreleased material or source code.
Cost: a one-time drafting project. Payoff: claims that don't depend on copyright, against people you can identify.
Layer 5: Lock it down
- Don't serve paid files from public links. Use private storage and signed, expiring URLs. See Your "no download" button is not protection.
- Add per-user watermarks for high-value video.
- Keep source code in a private repository with access limited to people who need it. That's also what trade secret law requires.
- Log access, and rate-limit accounts that behave like scrapers.
Cost: a few days of engineering. Payoff: less copying, evidence of who copied, and an anti-circumvention claim under 17 U.S.C. § 1201.
Layer 6: Watch and enforce
- Monitor. Search for distinctive sentences from your material, run reverse image searches, and set alerts for your course titles.
- Preserve evidence first: dated captures, URLs, files, and account records.
- Takedown notices. A notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) to the host or platform is fast and inexpensive, and doesn't require a registration. See How to file a DMCA takedown notice and respond to one.
- Demand letters carry weight when a timely registration is behind them.
- The Copyright Claims Board hears smaller cases without federal court, with total damages capped at $30,000. See The Copyright Claims Board.
- Federal court, for serious or repeated infringement.
A pre-launch checklist
- List every contributor and confirm a signed agreement for each.
- List third-party material and confirm each license covers paid use.
- Register the software, the site content, and the videos.
- Add notices and marks to every asset.
- Put clickwrap terms in the sign-up flow.
- Test whether media files load without a login.
- Calendar re-registration for major updates.
- Set up monitoring.
Practical takeaways
- Ownership comes first. Most failed enforcement efforts fail there.
- Register before launch. It's cheaper, and it preserves statutory damages.
- Technical and contractual protection cover what copyright doesn't.
- Have the evidence and the registrations in place before you need them.
I help companies set this up before launch and enforce it afterward. If you'd like a review of where your content business stands, get in touch.
Primary authority
- 17 U.S.C. § 201; § 204(a); § 401(d); § 411(a); § 412; § 504(c); § 512(c)(3); § 1201.
- Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. 296 (2019).
- U.S. Copyright Office, fee schedule.
Related resources
- Copyright overview
- Legal protection of software
- Copyright enforcement and DMCA toolkit
- Copyright damages and remedies
- Building a trade secret protection program from scratch
This article provides general information and is not legal advice. Copyright Office practices and fees change, and the law varies by circuit; confirm current requirements at copyright.gov and consult qualified counsel about your situation.
