Has someone ever “
borrowed” your work?
If you are a freelance writer, blogger, graphic artist, web designer, or photographer chances are that you’ve already had the unpleasant experience of finding your work on a site that did not pay you to use it.
Those of us who create intellectual property for a living seem particularly vulnerable to having our work stolen. Most people understand that physical property should not be taken without payment. Intellectual property is no different.
When I was growing up a childhood friend of my father’s, “Mr. C,” was a carpenter who made furniture for a living. He spent many hours crafting beautiful entertainment centers, bookshelves, dressers, and more. Creating furniture was “Mr. C’s” means of earning a living.
Everyone would agree that anyone who broke into “Mr. C’s” shop and took a piece of his beautiful furniture without paying for it was a thief. Yet, a few people who understand that payment is necessary for physical property don’t seem to realize that intellectual property should also be paid for.
As a freelance writer, I also spend hours working on my craft, which happens to writing. The blog posts and other materials that I write are my means of making a living. Yet, every so often, I find that a post that I’ve written has been copied word for word onto another site without my permission or my receiving any kind of payment for it.
As the Internet has grown in popularity, so have the incidences of plagiarism.
Many people mistakenly think that if a work of intellectual property is online it is part of the public domain. They think that because it is easy to “cut and paste” words, a photo, or an image onto their own site that it is okay to do so.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
(I’m not a lawyer, and the following information is not legal advice. If you are facing a copyright infringement situation, you may wish to seek professional legal counsel.)
Here are a few facts that all freelancers should know about plagiarism.
Facts About Plagiarism
A work need not be registered with the United States Copyright Office to be protected by copyright laws, although doing so may provide extra protection if you find it necessary to go to court.
Any work published after 1978 need not have the copyright symbol, ©, in order to be protected by copyright law. (Many people mistakenly think that if the symbol is not present the work is not copyrighted.)
Most online works are protected by copyright law unless the original author or owner specifies otherwise. In fact, unless a site specifically states otherwise, it’s best to assume all online works are copyrighted.
Many people wonder whether United States copyright law applies in other countries (a timely question since most of us are online.). The answer is that it just might. Many countries do have copyright treaties with the U.S.
The expression of an idea is protected. Simply changing a few words for their synonyms does not mean that you have created a new work. If in doubt, give credit and use quotes where appropriate.
Many people think that copyright just applies to written material, but the fact is that other forms of intellectual property such as photographs, computer software, music, video, and more are also protected.
What if You Don’t Know Whether Material Is Protected?
Are tweets (created at the popular social media site, Twitter) copy protected? What about reviews published on StumbleUpon, Digg, or other social media sites?
Often, you can find the answer to such confusing questions by reading the site’s “fine print,” usually called “terms of service,” or something similar on the site.
A good rule of thumb when you are not sure is to err on the side of assuming that the material you want to use is protected by copyright.
Your Options When Your Copyright Is Infringed
Let’s say that you post a photo onto your blog and later discover that photo on another website. The owner of the second site has not received your permission to use the photo. What do you do now?
You have several options when you discover that your intellectual property has been stolen:
Contact the site owner and ask them to remove the offending photo.
Contact the site owner and offer to sell them usage rights for the photo.
Contact an attorney and take legal action against the owner of the second site.
Ignore the copyright violation.
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