You know that plagiarism runs rampant across the internet. When you Google a popular subject, you frequently find that three or four sites have the exact same content, and you recognize the cheap and sleazy quality of the copy and past maneuvers. Do you also recognize that their plagiarism is illegal? If you created the content others have appropriated for their own use, do you know how you can punish the pirates and protect your rights and prerogatives?

You have rights as the owner of intellectual property online.

If you routinely pour-out your heart and soul in a blog, or if you maintain your own website that showcases your creative gifts and sells your wares, you must protect yourself against plagiarism and piracy. You know that people easily can steal your text, images, videos, and other content, and your common sense surely tells you that, the better your stuff, the more likely you will become a victim of theft or piracy. If you depend on your website as one of your primary sources of income, you should register or copyright everything you post to the site. Study the copyright and trademarking laws, and seek professional assistance with the nuances; you may even consider creating a corporation for your online enterprise, because your legal standing will give you more leverage when you go after the people who purloin your stuff. Take a moment to feel flattered that people think your stuff is good enough to steal, and then prosecute them to the full extent of the law.

You do not always own your intellectual property online.

Thousands of aspiring writers have launched reasonably successful freelancing careers by writing web content for webmasters, sole proprietors, and online contractors. Often unschooled in the nuances of copyright laws, beginning freelancers often attempt to sell the same article to several different buyers, or they simultaneously post their work on their blogs as they send it to contractors, creating awkward situations in which they ironically plagiarize themselves. A large and essential element in the international copyright laws, the codes covering “writing for hire” spell-out who owns your intellectual property when you do the work at the behest of another person. In other words, “writing for hire” explains how, as soon as the website owner pays you for your writing, he owns the work, and only he can authorize reprinting or other publication. Even if the site proprietor generously grants you a byline, you still do not own the rights to the work. When you accept the money, your surrender your rights to your work. The same rules apply to drawings, videos, spreadsheets, diagrams, charts, and anything else you produce under contract to another person. Unless you negotiate for royalties, “writing for hire” means you receive one and only one payment for publication of your intellectual property online.

What to do when someone infringes on your intellectual property online

When you maintain a blog or website, you or a member of your staff periodically should Google and CopyScape your site, checking for plagiarism, theft, and piracy. In general, people may quote up to twenty-five words your original work as long as they give you proper citation; you may remember that guideline from essays and term papers in school. If, however, they fail to credit you, treating the work as their own, or if they take more than twenty-five words, you should pursue the pirates more aggressively. When you see that people have purloined your best work, you have a choice about how to proceed: you either may demand a royalty or reprint fee, or you may demand that they remove the content from their sites. If they refuse to honor your wishes, you may take aggressive legal action against them.

About the author of this article:

The concerns over intellectual property online are under hot discussion nowadays. Read more about it at our website.

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