You have just spent long hours working on:
Think about the content of your training
Write your texts
Prepare your slides
Write your workbook
Record your voice or film yourself
Promoting your training…
And now that everything is ready, you can’t help but wonder: “what if one of my students stole my content and ideas”…
It is very annoying and frustrating to see that someone with bad intentions has copied and pasted your educational content and taken credit for your work.
Bad news: there is no 100% reliable way to protect your online training content .
But… there are deterrents and ways to defend yourself .
This is what we are going to talk about today, so that you can protect yourself from dishonest people that you might encounter in your life as a trainer (people who nevertheless remain in the minority).
But before giving you my advice for protecting the creation and content of your training, I wanted to share with you my experience as a student…
Sharing training access is theft: my awareness
When I bought my first online training, I told all my friends about it (at the time I didn’t know about affiliation yet otherwise I would have earned a lot of commissions with it
One of my friends wanted to take this training, but couldn’t afford to buy it. At the time, I thought I would share my access with her.
But I finally changed my mind…
The trainer had written a page to read before starting. Basically, he explained in a pedagogical manner that the training was the result of long hours of work and that he had put his whole heart into it.
He then recalled that access was strictly personal and could not be shared under any circumstances.
Reading this warning page made me realize what a stupid thing I was about to do. It made me realize that by sharing my access with my friend, it was like I was stealing part of her work . My basic intention was not bad because I was not trying to harm the trainer in any way. I simply wanted to help my friend.
Looking back, I’m relieved I didn’t share my access with her.
Of course, dishonest people won’t care about this kind of warning.
But I’m sure they represent a minority of your students because most of them are honest (even if some might share your content without bad intentions – as I wanted to do).
As a trainer, you have rights (which you may not yet know) and it is important that you protect your training content .
An update on your rights as a trainer
It is impossible to protect a training idea or concept. However, your materials are protected by copyright, which is acquired from the creation of your materials (written or oral).
Moral rights: you are protected as the author and you have the right to prohibit the dissemination of your training without your consent. This is a perpetual right that cannot be assigned.
Property rights: you can prohibit or authorize the use of your training and receive compensation in return. They extend up to 70 years after the disclosure of your training.
In addition, you can register your training’s trademark with the INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property). You then obtain a monopoly on exploitation on French territory for a period of 10 years (renewable indefinitely).
It’s a great way to get your product known and recognized and differentiate yourself from the competition. It also gives you the right to sue anyone who imitates or uses your brand.
In the rest of this article, I will give you 9 tips to protect yourself against counterfeiting of your training courses. However, this is not my specialty and when I have legal questions, I contact lawyers specializing in internet law and intellectual property .
I can only recommend that you take advantage of the expertise of Henri and Jean-Philippe (my lawyers).
If you want to go even further and sell on the Internet in compliance with the law
I recommend the free masterclass (negotiated exclusively for you)
of my lawyers
I am the masterclass for selling legally
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Now let’s move on to the 9 tips you can apply right now.
Tip #1 to protect your training: put a warning at the beginning
First tip to protect your training: the warning .
It worked for me as you could read in the previous part. A simple reminder can make students aware of the existence of copyright and the prohibition of using the content (or sharing it with other people who have not purchased the e-learning training).
This is what I systematically do at the beginning of my training courses in this form (you must have seen it if you have already purchased one of my training courses):
“Before we begin and in order to protect my work, I would like to remind you that purchasing the training gives you a strictly personal license. It is therefore forbidden to share your login details with a third party, whether for free or for a fee, as well as the PDF documents.”
To drive the point home, I would also like to remind you that the law provides for up to 6 months of imprisonment and a €300,000 fine and that I reserve the right to close access to the training if suspicious activity is detected (such as connecting to the training area with numerous IP addresses).
The risk of a hefty fine may deter dishonest people who would simply like to plagiarize your training .
Tip #2: Add footnotes to written documents
Second tip to limit the risk of intellectual property theft: make reminders on all pages of the written documents that you share.
When creating your training, you may have planned to share written materials in the form of a workbook with your students.
I advise you to add another layer…
At the beginning of the document, add a new warning that you can duplicate on all pages of the workbook, such as: “document for personal use reserved for holders of training XXX, cannot be sold, given or shared under penalty of legal action.”
Not only does this remind your students of the risks involved in distributing the document, but it is also a way to mark the written material with the name of your training.
Tip #3 for protecting your training: use the watermark tool
Third tip to protect yourself from plagiarists: adding distinctive signs using the watermark tool.
In Word, Excel or Powerpoint, the watermark tool allows you to mark each page with your logo, your name, your website and elements of your graphic charter.
In Word, just click on Create > Watermark. You can then add an image (your logo) or text.
Use Word’s watermark tool to secure your training content.
In Powerpoint, you need to find special database select View > Slide Master. You will be able to customize the watermark with your logo and text that will appear on all slides.
In addition to protecting your training material, it is a commercial approach. If your documents are ever shared without your consent with third parties, they will know where they come from and will be able to come back to you to consume other free or paid content from you.
Tip #4: Always share documents in PDF format
Fourth best practice: only share written materials in PDF format .
If you create your content using Powerpoint or Word, remember to save as PDF by clicking File > Save As > PDF Format.
Save your training materials as PDFs.
It is much more difficult to edit documents in PDF format than in Word (or Keynote, Powerpoint…), so it will be more difficult to copy you.
Tip #5 for having protected training: distribute unusable materials without the rest of the training
Another good practice to avoid having your content stolen: provide access to materials to be completed , unusable without the rest of the training.
Avoid distributing entire chapters of your training in written format. Favoring gap-filling materials that must be completed at the same time as the student follows the training makes them unusable without your training videos (in addition to being more educational for your students).
They cannot then be copied and distributed as is, which makes the plagiarist’s job much more complex.
Make your materials unusable without the rest of the training.
Excerpt from the workbook The Queens of Affiliation
Tip #6: Add the copyright symbol
Tip six: add the © symbol to all pages of your content.
Even though it is more of an English china phone numbers acronym and a protection concerning the exploitation of a work and not European copyright (which protects both the author and his work), the © symbol is known and recognized by most people.
So this is a good deterrent and a way to show that the content belongs to you and that it is forbidden to use or distribute it.
Tip #7 to prevent your training content from being stolen: Block connections from different IP addresses
Tip 7: You can automatically block connections from different IP addresses .
If you host your courses on WordPress (perhaps using the Thrive suite …), there is a plugin that allows you to block a user connecting with different IP addresses.
The IP address is the unique number assigned to a device connecting to the internet (computer, smartphone, tablet).
