How To Fight Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is defined as using documents “protected by copyright law without permission for a usage where such permission is required.” 

Copyright infringement means that the rights to a copyrighted work guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright laws are being breached by a third party for a set period.

If you suspect a breach, you will want to use a copyright infringement checker such as Copyleaks.

What do you do about plagiarism in the form of copyright infringement

Copyright is a form of intellectual property (IP). Copyright provides an artist or a writer an exclusive right for a specified period. Copyrights can extend to any idea or product, including software, art, poetry, graphic designs, musical lyrics and compositions, novels, film, original architectural drawings, website content, etc.

Individuals and companies who develop new products and ideas register for copyright protection to ensure that they can commercially benefit from their original work. Other parties and companies may be granted permission to use those works through licensing arrangements or by buying the copyright holder’s works. But using it without permission from the owner for any reason whatsoever counts as a violation of copyright lawIn addition, it can be subject to legal actions and lawsuits.

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Types of copyright infringement

Image and text are the two most common types of copyright infringement plagiarism. Whether music lyrics, academic writing, or stock photos, usually using them without informing the owner counts as copyright infringement. Here are some copyright infringement examples to watch for.

  • 1. Photocopying or Scanning:

Photocopying or scanning (digital form) or copying and pasting any original work is considered using the original work without the author’s permission in most cases and can be regarded as infringement.

  • 2. E-mail:

This is a lesser-known type of infringement. The sender of an e-mail holds complete rights over the e-mail sent. Hence, if you are printing or forwarding it, without the author’s permission, it violates the author’s exclusive rights. The most important type of email that one needs to pay attention to is copyright notices and warnings on the email or adjoining attachments.

  • 3. Networking:

A user can infringe copyright by posting content on a public or private network for others to access without permission from the author or original publication.

  • 4. File Sharing:

File sharing is uploading or downloading a content file onto or off an online service where anyone can copy it.

  • 5. Piracy and Counterfeiting:

Making a copy of someone else’s content and selling it in any way counts as pirating the copyright owner’s rights.

Tips to avoid copyright infringement

  • Read the terms of use carefully. Usually, operators do not wish to share their work without some benefit or gain. And all such arrangements are written in the form of a license. Hence it is necessary to read the license arrangements before using any work.
  • Citing sources: If one forgets to ask for permission, citing sources is always an alternative though not without legal risk.

     

  • Become familiar with how to check if a text is copyrighted. Stanford University has created this comprehensive guide, though when in doubt it’s always best to assume a text is copyright protected until you can prove otherwise.

How to detect copyright infringement or plagiarized content

To determine if content has been plagiarized, don’t just scan the text but also the URLs, regardless of what language it is in, including code. Copyleaks detects plagiarism of a document written in any language or code to provide you with a solution for what to do about copyright infringement.

If you want to receive accurate results, you will have to schedule your scan with the Copyleaks API. Copyleaks prides itself on aiding our customers in achieving accurate results across all of our products, making it easy to detect and avoid plagiarism.

What to do if your content has been duplicated

To determine the plagiarized content, don’t just scan a text but also the URLs. Don’t worry about the language of the content. Copyleaks detects plagiarism of a document written in any language.

If you want to receive accurate results, you will have to schedule your scan with the Copyleaks API.

How to document suspected copyright infringement

You can do that in the following steps:

  1. Take a screenshot of the web page in question.

  2. Next, download the source code. To do that, just click on “File” and then “Save Page As.” Now your source code is downloaded.

  3. Then, take the code and search any related sites to see if it has been used.

  4. If the search code has been used, you can present the evidence, along with the screenshots, in a court of law.

It is important to note that you need relevant information such as the browser (including what version of the browser) you were using to find the copyright infringement.

Also, a lawyer must be consulted regarding the matter.

How to find out when your content was first used

Use the following steps:

  1. Search for the date when the article first went live.

  2. Check how long the page in question is live with WHO-IS. Why? Well, because it tracks the whole site, if not the individual pages.

  3. Visit Archive.org to have a look at the version of the website. It is done because, at times, the page that contains the content is not available, so for a future courtroom battle, you should have all these things within reach.

How to find out if there is monetization

A Common way to check that is by the existence of any advertisement campaign being run. If it is present, it can be said that money was made from that webpage. In that case, a notification to the advertisement agency ensures that the campaign is terminated. Apart from all these, some online agencies and extensions can help know whether the duplicate content in use is monetized.

How duplicate content affects your ranking in Google and other search engines

If the imposter’s web page is indexed, and if your original content isn’t, then there is a possibility that you will lose your ranking. To determine whether your web page ranking is hurt, just use the targeted keywords on the search engine. If your suspected site appears at a higher rank and yours at a lower rank (or doesn’t appear at all), then the damage has been done.

How to get the content removed

First of all, contact the site owner and let them know that the content they are using is the result of your hard work. Share the URL of your web page to validate your facts. 

How do you contact the site owner? Well, there’s always the “Contact Us” form. However, if you don’t reply after that, you can use the ‘Terms of use’ as often the company address is written there. 

You can also get the address from the WHO-IS. After you have sent the removal request to the site owner, the content will likely be removed. However, if it is still there, you can also go take legal action.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A copyright is granted naturally to any original content and is valid until after 70 years of the owner’s death. After that, it is removed if not claimed again.

It is always useful to find out if something is copyrighted before using it. One can search the US Copyrights Office webpage where one can view the current copyright registrations. Copyrights registered in and after 1978 are accessible online.

Registering a copyright with the US Copyright Office is voluntary. Copyright protection is extended even without registration. However, a copyright must be registered with the US Copyright Office to fight a legal battle in court.

Any intellectual property is, by default, copyrighted. However, to be sure, it is better to search the US Copyrights Office webpage to check if it is copyrighted.

It is essential to take copyright infringement notices seriously. You should remove the content or show a license attesting to the legal authority to use it. A reply to such an effect should also be conveyed to the owner.

The person charged with infringement has to pay the actual amount of damages and profits. In severe criminal copyright infringement plagiarism cases, the person can face very high fines and even real jail time.

When looking at developing content, using a plagiarism checker will allow you to ensure your content is entirely authentic and allow you to detect if your content has been plagiarized elsewhere. Again, we make this easy; simply upload your content into the checker, and we will handle the rest.

Should you find that your content has been used elsewhere, there are three steps you can take. These are as follows:

  • Requesting an injunction to stop that person from further infringing.

  • Claim damages from the copyright infringement.

  • The infringing party would then give up goods to the copyright owner.

This will ensure you are protected