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Sex Laws Info
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Website content theft is an extremely common problem. Yet it isn’t “theft” in the criminal sense of the word. The unauthorised copying of website content will usually constitute a civil infringement of copyright, it will not usually constitute a criminal matter except in the most extreme of circumstances. The police and/or Trading Standards officers are therefore unlikely assist you if someone copies material from your website. There are, however, a number of steps you can take before you incurr the expense of a lawyer.
First, you should consider contacting the person responsible for the website asking for the material to be removed. If the website in question does not have a contact email address or HTML form, you can perform a WHOIS search and write to the email address(es) given.
A lot of people don't realise their registration details are available through WHOIS. A recorded delivery letter to their home may come as a shock. For a co.uk domain you can opt out of having your address published if you are a non-trading individual. This is commonly abused, but NominetUK will publish the address if a justified complaint is received. A recorded delivery letter to the address they thought was hidden may also have an effect.
If that does not produce the desired response, you should consider writing to the ISP hosting the website. You will usually be able to identify the servers hosting the site (and the relevant ISP) from the WHOIS search.
If the ISP is in the USA, you should make your notice to the ISP compliant with the requirements of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which can be read in full here: LINK
There is also a useful summary of the DCMA here: LINK
One particular point emerges which is worth bearing in mind: whilst in general terms the DMCA limits Internet service providers from copyright infringement liability for simply transmitting information over the Internet, service providers are expected to remove material from users' web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement.
Search engines, including the giant Google, may also take action against copyright infringers, once you have followed a specific and quite stringent complaints procedure which is outlined here: LINK
The prospect of having a website removed from Google searches may prove to be a far more effective sanction than seeking to pursue litigation in an overseas court. Google take the view that:
“It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. This page describes the information that should be present in these notices. It is designed to make submitting notices of alleged infringement to Google as straightforward as possible while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent or difficult to understand or verify. The form of notice specified below is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site, http://www.copyright.gov) but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well.
Regardless of whether we may be liable for such infringement under local country law or United States law, our response to these notices may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers. If we remove or disable access in response to such a notice, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of the affected site or content so that they may make a counter notification. We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. Please note that in addition to being forwarded to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content, a copy of this legal notice may be sent to a third-party which may publish and/or annotate it. As such, your letter (with your personal information removed) may be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication. You can see an example of such a publication at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=861.”
[Quotation reproduced here with our due acknowledgement to Google].
A further substantial list of designated agents for the service of DMCA notices is available on the US Copyright Offices website. In the case of a .com domain that has been registered by a proxy domain registration company, it might be worth also serving them with a Digital Millenium Copyright Act notice as above.
If the ISP is in the EU, you should point out in your notice that, as a result of your notice, the ISP may lose any protection under the E-commerce Directive that it may have had against proceedings relating to the infringing content. In theory, the Directive bans the commercial use of material copied from the internet. The text of the E-commerce Directive as implemented in the UK as Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 2013 : The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 can be read here: LINK
The Directive has been adopted by all full member states of the European Union.
In any case, your communications with the website owner and ISP should make it clear and specify
(a) what the infringing material is
(b) where the infringing material can be found
(c) your full name and address
(d) details of your rights in respect of the material (e.g. that you are the copyright owner of a photograph).
Be sure to keep the tone of your letter formal and polite, but state your point of view firmly. Do not be abusive, as your communication will almost certainly be ignored – remember that you need to win any argument by persuasion, not by ranting.
If neither the website owner or the ISP responds – or if neither responds helpfully – that is usually the time to consider legal proceedings and you should seek the advice of a solicitor well versed in Internet Law.
Much of this is like trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. The next step is to think of ways to prevent unauthorised use of your copyright from occurring in the first place. Consider the following:
- Watermarking your photos
- Registering your website content with the UK Copyright Service LINK
- Using a “tracker” service such as Copyscape. LINK
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Last Updated on Sunday, 28 June 2009 08:49 |
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