Copyright expert Lois Wasoff, an intellectual property attorney who specializes in publishing-related issues, offers the following tips to help you better protect your copyrighted content.

1. Include copyright notices. Make sure your content contains appropriate copyright notices.

2. Stay abreast of encryption technology. Understand and use encryption and other technologies when you’re distributing your work in digital form. Current examples (among many others) include: Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Reader, Palm DOC and Mobipocket for e-books, SealedMedia for online materials, and Copyright Clearance Center’s Rightslink for automated secondary licensing from your content.

3. Streamline permissions. Make it easy for people to navigate your permissions processes so that they can reuse portions of your work legally. If you make it too difficult for them, they’re likely to use your content anyway without authorization.

4. Play well with others. Use collective licensing solutions that make it possible for people to use your work legally and for you to be compensated for the use of your work.

5. Be creative, and flexible, in defining new business models. Sometimes, as the music industry learned, piracy can be a kind of very expensive market research. If your customers want your products in a particular form, try to find a way to get those products to them legally, on business terms that work for you.

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