192 – Respect the Work: How to Protect Copyright in the Age of Sharing

December 11, 2025

Episode #192: Respect the Work: How to Protect Copyright in the Age of Sharing

In this episode of The Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson tackles a topic that’s becoming increasingly urgent in the nonprofit and volunteer engagement world: copyright, intellectual property, and the ethics of sharing content. 

As a content creator, trainer, and consultant, Tobi has seen a growing wave of copyright misuse, most often unintentional, but still harmful. From lifted slide decks to copied models to repurposed blog posts, the misuse of intellectual property not only creates legal risks but erodes trust within our professional community. 

This episode is your practical, plain-language guide to understanding copyright, protecting your organization’s intellectual property, and respecting the creative work of others, staff, volunteers, and sector leaders alike. 

Protect Copyright  – Episode Highlights 

• [00:53] – Understanding Copyright and Intellectual Property 
• [01:41] – Copyright Quiz: Legal, Ethical, or Neither? 
• [04:17] – Real-Life Copyright Infringement Examples 
• [09:06] – Why Copyright Matters for Nonprofits 
• [09:54] – Common Misconceptions About Copyright 
• [11:55] – How to Protect Your Copyright 
• [18:05] – Avoiding Copyright Infringement 
• [35:22] – What to Do If Your Work is Stolen 

Protect Copyright – Quotes from the Episode 

“As a content creator, my models and frameworks represent decades of experience. It may look like a simple image to someone else, but to me it is the culmination of years of work and it deserves respect.”  

“Just because sharing is easy in a digital world doesn’t mean it’s always right. Staff and volunteers must understand how to protect copyright and why it matters for the credibility of their organization.” 

Helpful Links

• Volunteer Management Progress Report 
• VolunteerPro Impact Lab  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #188: Let’s Talk Volunteering with Weave: the Social Fabric Project  
• Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration (CCVA) Professional Ethics in Volunteer Management  
• Creative Commons Website  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

Rate, Review, & Follow Us on Apple Podcasts

If you love the content Tobi shares on the Volunteer Nation podcast, consider rating and reviewing the show! This helps us reach more people – and help more good causes just like yours – successfully engage enthusiastic, dedicated volunteers with less stress and more joy.

Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars. Then, select “Write a Review” and let us know what you loved most about this episode!

Also, if you haven’t done so already, follow the podcast so you don’t miss a thing. Follow now!

Subscribe to ProNews: Our Weekly Resource Roundup

If you’d like to stay up to date on all new podcasts, blogs, freebies, and deals posted on our Tobi Johnson & Associates and VolunteerPro websites, subscribe to our weekly ProNews newsletter.

Every Wednesday, we’ll send you a digest of our freshest content, plus a bonus! Once you confirm your subscription, you’ll get our [Free eBook] The New Volunteer Manager: The First 90 Days.

Episode #192 Transcript: Respect the Work: How to Protect Copyright in the Age of Sharing 

Tobi: Hey friends, I hope you are enjoying your holiday season I am out west visiting family and enjoying myself, although I have to say it’s a little bit gray and drizzly, so I’m, I’ve got all the candles around the house, lit all the lights on ’cause it’s a bit. Dark up here in the Pacific Northwest right now. So if you’re in the cold Northern climate, you probably know what I’m talking about. 

I hope you’re enjoying your holidays. And today I wanted to talk about how to protect copyright. I have come across so many situations in the past few years of people who are, if not being. Only unethical also doing things that are illegal. And so it makes me think that people don’t understand copyright law and intellectual property, and so I thought I might give you a little bit of a guide to that, both to protect yourself. 

But to also operate ethically and help your volunteers understand, because if you don’t understand, then your volunteers may not, and it may put your organization at risk. So let’s talk about how to protect copyright, and let’s talk about respecting the work of each other in our field. So I want to kick us off with a quiz just for fun. 

So I want you to think about these questions. I’m gonna ask you a question and you just think to yourself, is this legal, ethical, or neither is this legal, ethical, or neither? Let’s start with this scenario. To take someone else’s training slide deck, put your title slide on it, and share it as your own. 

Maybe post it online. Is that legal, ethical, or neither? Okay. To use the questions from someone else’s survey to create your own survey and report. Is that legal, ethical, or neither? To take someone else’s graphic or photo, remove the logo and copyright indicia, which is that little circle, see with the circle around it. 

That’s called it, A copyright indicia, and to share it on social media. Is that legal, ethical, or neither to take someone else’s blog post, change a few sentences up and then post it as your own. Is that legal, ethical, or neither to copy the name of someone else’s model or training program? And use it as your own. 

Is that legal, ethical, or neither? To email a post or share a post of a resource that you obtain through a website? Opt-in form. Is that legal, ethical, or neither to share a link to a blog, post, podcast, or other content made available publicly in your newsletter? So basically you’re resharing links in your newsletter. 

Is that legal, ethical, or neither? To make copies of a workbook you received as part of a training and distribute it to volunteers or colleagues without permission. Is that legal, ethical, or neither to copy someone else’s content and cite it? Is that legal, ethical, or neither to require? That presenters at your event, whether P pay free or paid presenters sign a waiver that relinquish all future copyright claims to the content that they created. 

Is that legal, ethical, or neither? To cut and paste content directly from AI and call it your own. So if you go to chat GPT and ask chat g PT to write you up something. And you post it as your own blog, post newsletter, article, et cetera. Is that legal, ethical, or neither? And I will tell you that every single one of these things that I have mentioned just now has happened to me. 

As a content creator, I have found my own trainings online with another group’s title slide on it, and the rest of the slides were mine. And no mention of me, no, nobody contacted me and I never trained that group. No one ever contacted me to ask me if I could use those slides. Lately, I’ve been asked and others. 

Speakers have been asked to sign agreements for events where we are asked to give all of our content away as to relinquish any claims to ownership of our content. Now. I suspect that folks who are creating these kinds of agreements, speaking agreements don’t really quite understand what they’re doing or what they’re asking. 

And so I often reach out to people and say, Hey, do you know what this means? Because if I’m speaking at for another group and I’ve spent years creating this content, I’m certainly not going to give it away for free or give it away even for a speaker’s fee because I’ve spent my life, this is my life’s work. 

And I don’t give away my life’s work. So now there is the side of developing content and curriculum for a client. I’ve also done that in those cases, that client gets that intellectual property and they’re granted the intellectual property and the copyright for the work that work for hire that I was hired to create for them. 

I have heard folks tell me that they’ve seen my training materials posted online in portals that I haven’t authorized. Let’s see, I’m looking down this list. I, last week, someone took our model of our volunteer strategy success path model, cut and pasted it into a social post and cut out our logo and our copyright in Deisha. 

And did not even acknowledge that it was our work. Someone else had to acknowledge it in the comments so. I want you to think about these things. There’s a few things in this list that are, and many of those things, by the way, are illegal. A couple things that are legal and ethical and okay, so there’s a few things I listed to share, a link to a blog, post podcast, or other content that’s made public on a website. 

You are absolutely. That is absolutely within your right to do. You can link to other people’s content and say, here, go to this website and check this content out. If you download something from an opt-in, using an opt-in form and you want to make other people aware of that content, you can send them to that webpage unless it’s behind a a password protected portal. 

But we have plenty of those freebies on our website and we encourage people to send folks to those pages to download rather than downloading and then sharing and emailing them to a bunch of folks. So that’s totally okay, and it’s legal and ethical. The request to have presenters waive their rights to the content that they create is actually legal, but is it ethical? 

That’s my question. And there’s ethical dilemmas to that, and I think some folks are signing those agreements, not understanding that they’re signing away their IP or their intellectual property. So it is legal, but is it ethical? And then finally to cut and paste content directly from AI into your own blog is absolutely legal. 

There, it’s a gray area. Whether or not it’s ethical, it’s not always the best use of ai, I don’t think. AI doesn’t generally write up the perfect blog post or the perfect content. Usually it’s more, and I use AI quite extensively to help me write, for this podcast for example, I used AI to help me write the outline and think through what, how it was gonna present this. 

So I use AI like chat, GBT or Claude. I use AI as a, an assistant. Thing to bounce things off of. Something to help me think outside the box of something that I may not have considered, but I’m refining it and using it as a tool rather than having it create my content for me. I do find, however, that some of my own concepts that I talk about on the pod or that I’ve talked about in my training show up in AI and I don’t get credit for them. 

So there is something ethical about that. Right. But that’s where we’re at today, at least for now. So my goal for today’s episode, really, I hope just that quick quiz gave you some ideas, maybe perhaps in areas that, if not illegally, you may be operating in an unethical way. Because I wanna make sure that we all understand the why and the how of protecting copyright both legally and ethically. 

And when sharing content, why it protecting your organization’s Intellectual property matters as well as the intellectual property of others, and we are in a sharing culture. And there are misconceptions about copyright in nonprofits, so I’m gonna address those first before we get into more of the detail here. 

So there, some of the misconceptions are, we’re a nonprofit, so we’re exempt from the laws, and that’s false. Nonprofits are fully subject to copyright laws and your volunteers as representatives of your organization. Are also subject to copyright laws, even though they’re working for free or for no compensation, I should say. 

If I credit the creator, it’s fine. As long as I credit the creator, yes, I can use that information or that content. Not always, credit alone doesn’t replace permission. Now, often with our volunteer management progress report surveys. We often folks will quote us, will quote our data and then credit us and that’s fine. 

But to take five pages from the report and share it at a training, then that’s not really, that’s not really just crediting us, is it’s actually stealing the content. The other misconception is educational or mission related use is automatically fair use and that is limited, but often a risky in practice. 

And so let’s not think that because we’re working for in the nonprofit space, that we are exempt from the need to protect copyright. We are absolutely responsible and accountable to those laws. In today’s digital world, sharing content is super easy, but just because you can share it doesn’t mean you should. 

Not in all instances. It’s important for staff and volunteers to protect copyright in all their communications campaigns and content sharing, and expect the same courtesy from others. It’s a mutual respect situation, so not only you should you be engaged in protecting the copyright of others in the field. 

But also should expect others in the field to protect the copyright and the content of your organization. In this episode, I really wanna talk about what is copyright and intellectual property. I’m gonna talk about the definitions and what’s in it. I wanna talk about why protecting copyright matters. I wanna talk about how you can protect your own copyright and how to protect your intellectual property. 

And then I wanna talk about, after the break, I’m gonna talk about how to avoid copyright infringement, what to do if you’re accused, and what to do if your own work is stolen. And so there’s lots to know about this. I’m certainly not a lawyer, not a, an intellectual property lawyer. I’m not a trademark lawyer, so definitely double check. 

If you have questions, check with legal counsel. But I wanted to give you a little bit of a guide and a heads up just so folks have a better understanding that just because we’re in the nonprofit space does not mean it is a content free for all. And so let’s start with. What is copyright and intellectual property? 

So let’s start with the basics. What exactly is copyright? Simply put, copyright is a legal protection for original works of authorship. This could include books, videos, articles, music, software, basically anything you create that’s original and fixed in some form. It can also be a program model, like our volunteer strategy success path that is protected by copyright because that is our model. 

We created that. One important thing to know is that copyright protection is automatic. You don’t have to register your work with the government to be protected. It exists the moment you create something original. Now that’s the kicker here. Original. So copyright. Covers a wide range of works, literary works, books, articles, reports, visual including photographs, illustrations, or graphics. 

So if people, if someone creates an infographic, you can certainly, if someone created an infographic and shared it on social media, you could certainly link or comment on that social media post, but you cannot download that. Oh, you can, but it’s. Illegal. Download that image at infographic and share it as your own. 

Even if you share it and give someone else credit, say, this is so and so’s infographic. If you haven’t received permission, then you, that is a copyright infringement. Digital and multimedia works like videos, podcasts, or software. This podcast is. Protected by copyright. So you couldn’t take a, a recording of this podcast and post it on your website. 

That would be a copyright infringement. So in pre, in other words, pretty much any creative content that your nonprofit uses or produces is covered by copyright in some way. And it’s important to remember that these protections apply to everyone, including nonprofits and volunteers. So even though your organization is mission-driven or not-for-profit, you’re still legally obligated to respect the copyrights of others. 

And you also have a responsibility to protect your own creative work at your organization. And so when you’re having volunteers, for example, create work for your organization. It’s important to make sure they understand that who the work belongs to. In the end, let’s say you had a volunteer creating videos for you or a volunteer was creating training materials or designing graphics or writing blog posts for you, or taking photographs for you. 

It’s important to ensure that everybody understands who own ultimately owns the copyright. So that’s where your volunteer agreements come in or your agreements with pro bono staff. So why does it matter? I mean, we’re folks are probably listening going, why does it really matter? I mean, we’re all in, we’re all in a nonprofit space, aren’t we? 

Just one big community. Yes. However. There are legal reasons why we wanna protect copyright. One is copyright infringement is actionable under a law. Even for nonprofits. It is illegal and you could be sued. Consequences can include take down notices, legal fees, but more importantly, reputational damage. I think that’s the most important thing. 

What kind of standards are we holding ourselves to in our sector? That to me is the most important. Reputational damage. There’s ethical reasons too. Honoring the creator’s rights shows respect for the work and the effort of others, and it maintains credibility. Trust with supporters, partners in the broader community. 

It’s about trust and it’s about mutual respect. But when I saw my volunteer strategy success path model being used in someone else’s. Post I thought to myself, they have no idea how long and how much time myself and my team had put into creating that and refining it. That model took me over a decade. 

Plus 25 years working in the trenches to actually really be able to understand on a deep level what a success path for volunteer engagement should look like. And so that volunteer strategy success path just looks like an image, but it’s not, it has so much more meaning to me because. It is my life’s work. 

And so my life’s work deserves respect. And so I think we should respect the work and the thinking and the creativity and everything that went in behind and supports us to come to the designs that they come to. We come to. So why should we protect others’ Copyright. Well, I think a lot of it’s about protecting and living, protecting our reputations, and really respecting the work of others within our field. 

It’s about mutual respect. So let’s talk about how you can protect copyright. First off, when you’re wanting to share others’ content, there’s a few things you should think about. One is verifying licenses and permissions. So in order to use something, for example, recently on the pod, I sh reshared an interview panel that I was on with. 

The Weave Project, and I’ll link to that. I’m sure you’ve probably heard about it if you’re a regular listener, but I’ll post it a link in the show notes if you wanna listen. But it was a panel that I was on with others and in order to publish that panel discussion that I was just simply because I was a guest on it, did not give me the right to post it. 

In my podcast, even though my likeness, my voice was included, and so I came up with a quote unquote licensing agreement, which basically just an agreement, a short agreement that says, yes, you can post this. We under you understand that this content does not belong to you. You cannot post it elsewhere. You cannot use it for any other reason. 

But you have a license to use it this one time on your podcast. And so it was important for me and the folks at Weave to make sure we were working with mutual respect and understanding that the content was theirs and they were giving me permission to use it on the pod. Really important, verifying those licenses and permissions. 

Look for clues. Like copyright, indicia, registered trademark, you know, the R with the circle around it, or TM next to the title of the work. We call it our Volunteer Strategy Success Path, TM Trademark. It’s an intent to trademark that. Those are clues that the creator is telling you, Hey, just heads up, this is my original work and if you want to use it, you’re going to need to do, need to ask my permission, and I can decide yes or no if I want to. 

Grant you that permission when you are quoting others or sharing data from others reports, et cetera. Make sure you’re crediting the creator properly. Even if the creator has given you permission to share something, you should still credit them. Make sure that you’re using content from reputable, free or paid libraries. 

So we have a, a. A subscription to iStock photo, and we used to use a lot of the free libraries for photos, but I feel like I’m just going to pay for licensed media. The music intro to the podcast that’s paid licensed media. So we paid for all these things because we respect copyright, right? The other thing you wanna do is keep records of permissions or licenses. 

So if volunteers or anybody else, or you’re going out and asking for permission, just keep that on file somewhere in case an issue comes up later. And then finally, train staff and volunteers on copyright basics. They are your first line of protection, making sure everybody understands what’s okay to share and what’s not. 

How you go about sharing. Those are some ways you can protect copyright your own organization’s. Intellectual property is also important to protect your branded materials, reports, logos. Photos and campaigns are legally protected and protecting your content prevents, misuse, misrepresentation, plagiarism, or a dilution of your brand. 

And so it’s really important when you bring. New volunteers on board that are using your copywritten material and your intellectual property, that they understand where, when and how they can use that, that content and when they can’t and that it doesn’t follow with, follow them after they leave your organization. 

For example, we used to, I used to train and my organization helped people navigate healthcare coverage and Medicare and volunteers were not. Allowed, were not given license to use our materials after they left the organization. We, number one, we didn’t want people going out on their own and setting up healthcare navigation companies, first of all, because that just wasn’t what we were about. 

We were a volunteer run organization. And also our materials got updated at least once a year because the data and the information changed. The policies that were available, how much they cost, the legal guidelines that that O oversee Medicare and Medicaid and health insurance change frequently. And so we wanted to make sure that all our materials were the. 

Updated and the most accurate materials are being shared with the public. And so lots of reasons for us to have some control over that content. And then our volunteers were updated every month through 10, 10 months out of the year with update training, with new materials and new update training. So we actually really didn’t want people out in the community giving advice on old information. 

So it’s about protecting the public as well. So it’s important you may not think you think about nonprofits. Well, it’s not that big of a deal. We’re in a big community of people who share well, your intellectual property and your brand. You have worked very hard to establish your relationship with your community and your reputation, and you need to protect that. 

And one way to do it is through intellectual property protection. So make sure you include copyright notices on materials. I’m working with a client right now who all of their training materials, they realize they had not put their copyright indicia on them. So I said, make sure you do that right away. 

Control access to digital files and online content. Do not put everything open for download everywhere. You’ll notice often and across our website, our vol pro.net website. We have tons of free items and freebies that we want to share with our audience, but they are most often behind an opt-in form because we don’t wanna end the relationship with one item. 

We wanna have a conversation and continue to help educate the audience that comes and visits our website. And so when people add their information, they get added to our newsletter. They get our weekly newsletter, and then they get information about other things we have coming up. And so that’s the way we keep in contact with our audience. 

And so it’s a reciprocal relationship. If you give us your email, then we will keep you up to date on what we’ve got going. So that’s how we control a little bit the digital access. Also in our community, our paid communities, our courses, we have a logged in platform and then monitor for unauthorized use online and reach out to people. 

When you find that there’s being copyright infringement. An example might be someone using your logo or something that looks very close to your logo for a different cause, could mislead or confuse donors and could Redu re could result in fewer contributions to your organization. So copyright infringement really does have real. 

Effects on people. So let’s take a pause from our conversation about intellectual property and how to protect copyright. Don’t go anywhere because after the break I’m gonna talk a little bit more about how to avoid copyright infringement and what to do if your work is stolen or if you’re accused of sealing somebody’s work. 

So I’m gonna be right back, so don’t go anywhere. Hey,  

are you looking to upgrade and modernize your volunteer program? Or maybe you’re building one from scratch and you’re just not sure where to start. If so, we’ve got the perfect resource for you. The Volunteer Pro  

Impact Lab, having built several direct service programs from the ground up, I know that it doesn’t happen by accident. 

It’s a clear process that takes  

careful attention with a focus on. Impact in the end. You need a system in place that’s clear, standardized, efficient, and that gets results. In addition, and maybe this is the most important, you need a volunteer program design that directly contributes to your organization’s most critical goals. 

That’s where the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab comes in. When it comes to effective  

volunteer engagement, our bespoke volunteer strategy Success path model, which is the heart of our resources and  

strategic advising, will help you transform your volunteer strategy from fundamental. To a fully mature what’s working now approach and all in less time with our online assessment, you’ll quickly gain clarity on precisely where to focus your efforts and we’ll provide recommendations for the exact steps needed. 

For sustainable growth, regardless of how large or small your organization is or what your cause impact area or focus is. Our program development and implementation support model will help you build a  

strong  

foundation so  

volunteerism can thrive at your good cause.  

If you are interested in learning more, go to ball pro.net. 

Slash join and we’ll share how to get started and what’s involved. Again, that’s ball pro.net/join.  

Okay, we’re back. We’re talking about intellectual property and how to protect copyright. If you recall, before we got going, I gave you a list and asked you to decide whether things, or guess, whether things were legal, ethical, or neither. 

So we had a good. Chat about some of the things that are going on that are real instances, not a single one of those things I noted is made up in my head All, every single one of those things I’ve encountered and more so we definitely have an issue in our sector. I’m gonna call it out. We do. There is a lot of unauthorized sharing, and it is not respectful to the makers and the creators who have put their lifeblood into these things. 

And so I want us to learn how to manage this, understand what the legal and ethical ramifications are, and make sure that we’re respecting each other’s work. After all, we’re all working hard here. And I believe that we all deserve respect for the things that we’re doing to help improve the work for everybody else across our, we’re working in community, and when we work in community with others, we need to respect one another. 

It’s just the foundation of all great communities is mutual respect, don’t you think? So let’s talk about how to avoid copyright infringement and how to share. I also wanna share and discuss how to share your content. So. You can use, if you want to share your content, you can use what’s called a royalty free or Creative Commons Content, or Creative Commons license, I should say. 

And I used a Creative Con Commons license years ago. When I first started my consulting practice. I wrote a ebook called. The new volunteer manager the first 90 days, and I distributed via a Creative Commons license, which meant I didn’t put a copyright in Deisha on it. I put a Creative Commons license on it. 

Now, CC or Creative Commons, and I’ll link to that website in the show notes, but it is a set of licenses that creators can use to give permission. To others to use their work legally and ethically without needing to ask each time. So a Creative Commons license says, you’re welcome to use this, but only under these conditions. 

And those conditions can be something like giving credit or not using it for commercial purposes, or not making changes to the work. Just remember that the specific license for each piece of content. Needs to be identified. It’s not just creative com commons license. There’s actually different licenses, types of creative commons licensees, and you wanna make sure that you’re sharing the one that you want. 

So if. If you don’t indicate it, then folks might take your work, make a few tweaks, call it their own, and they’re off to the races. Which for those of us again, who have spent decades creating their body of life work, they actually, Hey, I wanna be respected. I want people coming and making changes to it, and then changes the integrity. 

Of what I’ve created. Nobody would go and take a, an artist’s work, like let’s just say I’m gonna take Monets water lilies, I’m gonna paint them exactly like as close as possible. Now we’d have to be really good if we could paint that well, but, and then I’m gonna call it my own. I’m gonna say these are Tobi’s water lilies. 

Folks would look at me like I’m crazy. Plus it would be illegal, right? So we need to think of the creative process and the curators like ourselves that are creating content that we are makers in our own right. And so we all know similarly, nobody would say, okay, I’m gonna take part of this, this novel. 

I’m gonna, I’m gonna cut out this chapter and then I’m gonna reproduce it and put my name on it. No, that’s not how it works, right? We want to respect the people who created our work or the work that we’re enjoying. So check out this Creative Commons website. I’ll link to that. Always give credit and check the licensed terms. 

If you’re using other content that’s Creative Commons licensed, seek permission. When in doubt when you don’t understand. Use the Creative Commons license if you would like to share your content with others. Try to create original content, whenever possible. Train your volunteers on how to protect copyright, and you can even refer them to this podcast. 

Now, you can’t copy and paste this recording inside your volunteer portal, but you can link to this podcast and it’s completely legal and ethical. And so I encourage you to do that. If you want other people to know about some, not everything about copyright, by all means, I’m not the, I’m not the legal expert on that. 

But to get a, a broad overview, this is a good one to listen to. And then there’s all kinds of stock photo libraries, music licensing platforms, and free content repositories where you can download and use without worry. Lots of content. Now I wanna go back to creating original content whenever possible for a minute, because when we think about ai. 

If everyone begins to use AI and all their content is mostly created by ai, how creative. Do you think our pool of content’s going to be over time? Is it gonna get more creative? Are there gonna be more new ideas, or are we simply going to be rehashing the same old ideas as a person who comes up with a lot of ideas and a person who. 

Prides herself on pushing the boundaries sometimes and asking us to, to ask hard questions about our profession and our field, and engaging the community. I hope that there are many of you out there who wanna continue to push the envelope and continue to come up with original ideas. AI will pick up on tho those ideas. 

AI will go and look, but at least there’s gonna be more and more diversity of thought rather than everybody using AI to rehash the same old ideas. And so create original content whenever you can Be brave, do it and protect it, and hopefully we can continue to evolve how we think about volunteers and how we think about engaging the community. 

And if we’re worried about AI being biased, then we need to continue to create content, original thought and original content that questions bias and that offers other models for looking at volunteers and volunteerism that are, I wouldn’t say unbiased, I would say less. Biased. We’re working towards an unbiased world and so if we have concerns about how AI is, we can conta create that original content that influences what AI is picking up around the internet. 

Okay. And then let me add, just add a couple more things before I wrap up, but if you are accused. And I’ve had to write cease and desist letters to particular folks who are using my stuff. And first off, if you get one of these cease and desist LE letters, don’t panic. Review the claim carefully. Also make sure the claim is legit. 

Sometimes these are phishing schemes, so I’ve had people reach out to me and say, X, Y, Z photo on your website is Arc intellectual property. And I’ll look and I’ll go, no, actually no, that was on that, that photo was taken off a X, Y, Z free content library. Or it’s used from iStock photo and it is absolutely. 

Not used because it’s not my company policy. And all my team, anybody who’s ever worked on my content is well aware and signs a contract that they know they can’t in infringe on copyright. So I know that these claims are not, and when I go to see, I go and I investigate where, what’s the image you’re look you’re asking about? 

Nope, sorry. So I just disregard. You don’t need to answer these people. They’re just phishing schemes trying to take your money. So you don’t need to answer if they’re trying to do something like that. So make sure the claim is legitimate. That is a good step. Also, if it is and you suspect there’s a problem, then remove or stop using the content temporarily. 

Contact the claimant. And once you identify it that it is a legitimate claim, then you need to take down the content for good. You need to remove, take it down. And if you are very ethical, you will reach out to people that you’ve given that content to if you’ve given a hard copy or distributed it and ask them to not share it. 

So if it’s a report that people have shared, you should really get back with people and say, please don’t share this. Now, I know that some folks don’t. Recognize that this is intellectual property. I remember a group used all of our questions in the volunteer management progress report one year and then distribute them through your community and then asked for their answers, and then they compare their answers to our global report and they noted us in their report. 

But the creative process, the original content, the original thinking. Is my design of that survey, of that questionnaire, of that research project that is my intellectual property. And so I had to write a cease and desist letter and I mentioned to them, Hey, if you’d like to hire me to help you develop a survey for your community, or to license my questions from this volunteer management progress report survey, I would be happy to do it. 

And it’s very clear. That these are questions are copywritten because in the survey instrument, I would include copyright indicia on the bottom of each page. And so it makes me think either people don’t know or they don’t care. And I’m, I choose to. Error on the side of don’t know, and that’s why I’m doing this podcast episode. 

All right. And then if you are accused, make sure that if you feel like it’s something you need, help legal help on that. You get a lawyer and talk to your intellectual property lawyer or your general counsel at your organization. Just make sure and. Let’s talk about what to do if your work is stolen. If your work is stolen by someone else, you have rights as a creator. 

So there are what’s called, there’s a few different actions you can take. One is A-D-M-C-A takedown notice. A-D-M-C-A-D-M-C-A stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is a US law that gives copyright holders a way to request that their copyrighted material be removed from websites. Social media platforms or other online services when it’s being used without permission. 

So if someone posts your copyrighted work, like your photos, reports, videos, or other content without permission, you can submit A-D-M-C-A take down notice to the website hosting that content. So it doesn’t necessarily have to go to the creator directly or the borrower I should say. They’re not creating anything. 

You created it. Most major platforms. Have a process in place to take these requests. The other thing you can do, as I said, send a cease and desist letter. You wanna tell people exactly what is being used misused, and that you would like them to stop immediately and you would like them to get back to you once they have stopped. 

You always wanna have people get back to you, and legal action may be necessary. When there’s wi repeated or willful in infringement, significant damage or risk to your reputation of your organization, refusal to comply with take down notice, or a cease and desist letters, those require you to take that next step. 

But for most nonprofits, legal action is really a last resort. Often a polite request, A-D-M-C-A notice or a mediation solves the issue. But it is important to know when to escalate and having legal guidance ready can protect your organization’s work and your mission. So I hope this has been helpful. 

Again, I. Really think folks don’t know. And I’ve been feeling this way for a while because I keep seeing these, this copyright infr infringement of my work and others. And after a while I’m like, you know what? I really think people do not understand this or they don’t care. And if you don’t care, you’ve gotta ask yourself, are you. 

Operating within the ethical principles of our profession. I’m gonna link to the council for certification in volunteer administration’s professional ethics and volunteer management. Just take a good look at that. If you really don’t care about protecting other people’s work, their life work, and some of ours. 

For some of us, it’s our life work. We’ve been doing this for a long time and it is the culmination of decades. In some cases of professional development and school of hard knocks and research and work with clients, that has helped us create such high quality content. It didn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen by mistake. 

And so it’s about mutual respect, and so I’m hoping this has given you a little bit better understanding. It’s not okay. To use people’s content without their permission. It’s not okay to infringe on people’s creative copyright, and it is okay and really important for us to protect copyright throughout our field. 

That’s part of what being a professional is all about and it’s part of what’s being, what it is to be in community with others. There are so many fantastic ideas out there, but what will happen. If people’s intellectual property is stolen, they will start to put it behind paywalls. They will start to make it available only to people who are inside their communities and the people they choose. 

We would like in our field to encourage a wide range of. Idea sharing a wide range of debate, a wide range of innovation, and that doesn’t happen if we’re not respecting each other’s work. So I hope this has been helpful. If you feel like it might help somebody else, or if you’ve got more questions, I hope you’ll reach out and I hope you’ll join us next week. 

Same time, same place. And go ahead and share this. Just share the link if you share the link to this episode. You are not infringing on copyright. All right everybody, so have a great rest of your day and I hope you enjoy the holiday season. Care everybody.