4 No-Brainer Ways to Protect Your Online Course
Do you offer an online course as part of your business? If not, maybe you’ve thought about it.
There are entire businesses (like my friend Amanda’s) devoted to helping you build and sell an online course.
And it makes sense!
You only have so much time in a day as a practitioner or expert. So why not monetize your knowledge and your smarts by selling an online course?
There is literally NO limit to the amount of income a course can bring in.
But.
A lot of course creators forget to protect themselves on the front end. (Which can save sooooo much headache, fire energy, and stress on the back end.)
So today I’m talking through four things you can do to legally protect your online course.
I’m Maria Spear Ollis, aka The Lunar Lawyer, and I’m going to shine some light on four ways to legally protect your online course.
Add a copyright notice where you can.
This is important because it shows would-be copycats that this stuff is YOUR copyrighted property.
And no, you do not need to have your materials registered with the Copyright Office to use the copyright symbol! ©
The “elements” that go in a legally correct copyright notice AND the order you put them in actually matter.
Here’s the order:
The copyright symbol, plus
The year it was published, plus
The legal name of the owner. 💁🏻♀️
(Also, not legally required but doesn’t hurt: add “All rights reserved.”)
Hot tip: If you need a copyright notice and disclaimer for your website, check out my free website disclaimer creator here.
Where to add a copyright notice on your course materials
You can add it on the bottom of any worksheets, presentations, transcripts, and even as a watermark on video recordings.
What a copyright notice does
A copyright notice prevents copycats from claiming “innocent infringement.” Innocent infringement can knock down the $$ you can get when someone copies you (aka “damages”) to as little as…$250. Total. So we don’t want that.
2. Make sure you actually own it all (so you can enforce your rights if needed).
Did you know the default rule for copyright ownership is that contractors own whatever they create?
(That is, unless a signed, written document says otherwise.)
This means you have to make sure the contributors and contractors that you paid give you the rights to their contributions (in writing). You can do this via an independent contractor agreement or “IP rights”/work-for-hire agreement.
3. Put rules in place for your students. (Before they sign up and pay.)
This is a big mistake that I see business owners make all. the. TIME.
You enroll someone, and
1. You don’t have a refund policy posted for students to see before they buy, or
2. You have “rules” posted inside the course or community. (So… the student didn’t have to agree to those rules before enrolling.)
You can’t hold someone to rules that they didn’t know about when they entered into a “contract” or relationship with you!
That’s why it’s so important to have rules in place ahead of time that speak to things like:
-Your refund policy
-How long they’ll have access to the materials
-Any prohibitions on use of your IP (like using your course materials to train others or posting sneak peeks to social media).
Psst, I’ve got Online Course Terms and Conditions ready for you, here.
4. Register your course materials with the Copyright Office.
There are so many things in an online course that are protectable under copyright law. Workbooks, videos, audio trainings… anything creative!
The Copyright Office website has a lot of tutorials on how to register online works.
Here’s a refresher on the benefits of copyright registration. But basically, it comes down to guaranteed money in your pocket if someone infringes and creating a public record of your copyright ownership.
“I need terms and conditions for my online course, stat!”
Pshhhh. I got you. 😉 ⬇️ You’ve got options.
Option 1: Grab those Online Course Terms and Conditions a la carte.
Cover yourself with legal terms like
1. your refund policy;
2. restrictions on uses of your creative content and intellectual property; and
3. disclaimers to protect your 🍑
Get instant access for $444, here. ⬅️
Option 2: Get all of the contracts you need to grow your business in The Legal Apothecary.
All 17 templates inside the Apothecary would cost about $7500 if you bought each one a la carte. But you can get them all for one payment of $1222 or twelve payments of $122.
It just depends on whether you need two or more templates, or just one!
Learn more about The Legal Apothecary ➡️ here.