I write a lot of articles, contributions and blog posts, and nothing annoys me more than finding those posts elsewhere without credit. It doesn’t matter whether it’s taken me a few minutes to write or hours to research, the fact is that it’s MY hard earned time and property that someone else is stealing.
I use Copyscape to track down offenders, and usually I drop them a line first, before outing them on Twitter or in their blog comments if they don’t remove or add my credit to the posts.
But the more it happens the more fed up I get, so I turned to Janine Hughes, an Intellectual Property lawyer with LimeOne to ask the question a lot of us want answered:
What can I do if someone has stolen my website content?
Her answer is below:
ENFORCING YOUR COPYRIGHT
Intellectual Property (IP) effectively means a creation of the mind, an idea that takes a tangible form. The owners can obtain certain formal rights over those, such as trademarks, patents etc. The copyright, however, is theirs as soon as they commit their idea to a medium which makes it ‘tangible’. This may mean a sketch, drawing, outline, written text, audio recording or model, including all electronic versions of these.
Now picture the scenario – you are browsing the web when suddenly you come across an interesting looking article about importing leather handbags. As an importer of leather handbags you are naturally curious and read on. Two lines in, this seems familiar. A paragraph further in you realise that it is VERY familiar. It should be, you wrote it and it is already on your own website!
So what can you do about it?
If you find yourself in the position that someone has used your copyrighted material without your permission, this is what you can do
(1) Make sure that you actually own the copyright
This may sound a lot easier than it actually is in reality. Usually copyright is automatic for the original author of original tangible work and in the UK you don’t even have to use the © symbol with supporting details (some countries do require this) although it is advised because it serves as a visual reminder to users.
If, for example you produced something at work as an employee, your employer will probably own it (unless you have already agreed something different).
Are you the original author? If you commissioned someone to write an article for you, unless you actually got the copyright transferred to you, then the original author will still own it.
If you produced it with someone else (and the word ‘produced’ can be loose here, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a 50/50 joint effort) then you jointly own it with them so they have to be taken into consideration.
Are you sure you haven’t, no matter how casually (not even your friend Laura over a nice Chablis!) given anyone else permission to use it?
(2) Assuming that you do own the copyright, the first thing is to write a stern e-mail to the “user”
Keep it simple. Tell the user that you own the copyright and that if they don’t stop using your copyrighted material and remove it from wherever it is displayed within a given time period (14 days is very reasonable) then you will take further action under Copyright legislation.
(3) No reply to your e-mail?
Check whether the copyrighted material is still being used by that user.
(a) If not, just send a follow up e-mail letting them know that they have complied with what you asked but that you will be monitoring the situation.
OR
(b) If it is still being used then you have 2 options
(i) send the same e-mail in a more formal letter
OR (if (i) doesn’t produce results)
(ii) get your legal representative to send a formal letter outlining the problem. and making it clear what you will do. Your legal representative may advise you to include a retroactive licence where you charge the users for their use to date by providing then with a licence going back in time.
(4) No reply or no results?
What happens next really must be discussed with your legal representative. Pursuing copyright actions can be very costly and your legal representative will help you take a business and economic view (rather than concentrating on the “it’s not fair” view) and help you decide whether it is worth pursuing.
SOME OTHER INFORMATION TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT
Copyright is usually a civil law matter. (It can be criminal offence if, for example, large scale pirating of DVDs is involved etc). Therefore the remedies available to you, as a copyright owner, include
ü Injunctions – to stop the user using your work
ü Damages – money by way of compensation because of the use without your permission
Remember that there are defences to using copyright items which include
ü Fair dealing – research (but will only usually apply in this context to making one copy for non-commercial use)
ü Fair dealing – criticism, review and reporting
ü Not a substantial part – including just a very small part of your work in a larger project
ü Implied licence – where circumstance suggest that the copyright holder expected it to be used in the manner in which you have used it
© Lime One Ltd 2009 – all rights reserved
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Tags: Blogging, copying, copyright, intellectual property, stealing, theft
@GemmaWent – check out this article http://bit.ly/pl26U from @nikkipilkington – “What to do when someone steals your copyrighted material”
And if you’re stupid enough to steal from someone REALLY well known, you’re bound to get caught out. How dumb do you have to be to steal Chris Brogan’s stuff? http://www.chrisbrogan.com/not-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery/
@portentint some advice re: handling copyright theft http://bit.ly/pl26U