Copyright is the law that gives the owner of a work (like a book, movie, picture, song, or website) the right to say how other people can use it. Copyright laws make it easier for authors to make money by selling their works. It is one part of a group of laws about intellectual property (the others being trademark and patent law). It protects the authors from copying of their works without permission and/or re-copying their works for commercial purposes.
With copyright, a work can only be copied if the owner gives permission. If someone copies a work without permission, the owner can say they infringed their copyright. When this happens, the owner may sue for the amount that should have been paid. Most cases are handled by civil law. In more serious cases, a person who copies a work that is protected under copyright could be arrested, fined or even go to prison. Commonly, the copyright law will protect the authors and their heirs from 50 to 100 years since the first day of the authors’ deaths.
In some countries, violating copyright law will be sued only to the civil law courts but some countries can also be charged by criminal courts too. (from wikipedia)
What is website copyright?
Websites that contain original content are automatically protected under international copyright law. In other words, you cannot copy the content of one website and publish it on another site without the author’s permission. Re-posting text, images, videos, audio clips, or any other content found on the Web without permission is a copyright infringement (aka PIRACY) Legal penalties for violating website copyright is in place and may be enforced by the copyright owner depending on the severity or perceived damage caused by the theft.
Naturally, most website owners won’t have any dealing with the copyright issues above unless of course they suddenly discover that their content has been stolen by a competitor!
I’ve heard about two cases in the last week!
The first instance came to light during an education briefing at the Hull Networking Group where fellow group member and copywriter Jo Watson Davies was explaining how the work she had created and been paid for by one local company, had been comprehensively copied and pasted into a brand new website by a rival company that had just set up shop in the town!
The second incident emerged in an email from one of my own clients, the owner of Horsebox Supplies told me that he was concerned about seeing some of the product images from his online store on eBay. They were being used to sell similar products by a competitor.
In the first case, the copyright clearly belonged to the original author and had been assigned to her client for use on the website, and a fee was paid. Clearly an act of theft, the infringement also created considerable distress together with a possible loss of reputation and business.
In the second case, the images were taken by the staff at Horsebox Supplies and belonged to their employer. The images for this particular website took around 3 weeks to create and represented a considerable investment of man-hours and equipment.
What to do about website copyright infringement.
Pursuing these matters with solicitors is clearly a last resort for most small business owners because the time, energy, and capital required for such undertakings can be considerable. which is why I firstly suggest pointing out the infringement to the guilty parties – which may in some cases be an actual web design firm and not the actual business owner who could have acted in good faith.
At the same time, it is worth noting that the organizations that are actually publishing the infringed work take a pretty dim view of Intellectual Property theft, particularly since 1998, when the United States Congress took steps to defend intellectual property by passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, commonly known as DMCA. This law defines specific types of digital copyright infringements and establishes serious penalties for violators. Most of the large platforms are subscribed to DMCA and will act to remove from their indexes any material that is a breach.
Google, in particular, has clear guidelines on the topic and they should be consulted as soon as you suspect an issue with your material. https://support.google.com/legal/topic/4558877 My understanding is that they remove first and ask questions later!
If the culprits are also boasting of their crimes on Facebook in an attempt to drum up traffic for their ‘new website’ it is worthwhile noting that this platform also has a strict copyright infringement policy.
Website Copyright Protection
In a digital age, copying content is often as simple as a copy and paste operation. This makes it remarkably easy for someone to copy and republish content in a few minutes that may have taken another person several years to create. Unless of course, you take active steps to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Referencing the Horsebox Supplies incident above we have deployed software on their website that not only disables the ‘right-click to download content, but also prevents the use of cut and paste actions using CTRL C and CTRL V on any website pages, whilst at the same time displaying the warning message! This content is copyright!
This solution will probably deter all but the most determined of content thieves. More aggressive techniques are available at a price but combined with a traditional copyright notice at the bottom of each page this minimal level of protection should suffice for 95% of users.
Website Copyright Protection NOTICE: If you ever want to use or republish content from the Web, you should always ask the author for permission and include an appropriate reference and link to the original content.