Internet Copyright Infringement Attorney

The first question that we always get is: what is internet copyright infringement?  And the answer is, as you might suppose is pretty simple, internet copyright infringement is a violation of a copyright which occurs online, so it is also called online copyright infringement or copyright infringement on the web.

The reason why copyright infringement on the Internet has become such a big problem is because of cut and paste technology, user-generated content, the ease by which someone can upload or download images, music, books, someone can scrape blog posts or web site content in order to put it onto their own website.  Copyright and trademark law has always been around to protect an intellectual property right owner, but once the Internet came into play, things really dramatically changed.

On the Internet, you must protect your copyright protected works, and that can be an extremely challenging thing to achieve.  When your copyright protected work, whether it be a song or a YouTube video, whether it’s your website content that’s being copied onto someone else’s web page or website, you have got to protect your copyright protected work, if you want to be able to assert rights in that copyright work later.  What this means is that a doctrine such as laches or waiver will come in later on if you have a serious infringement issue that you have to deal with and you want to sue someone for copyright infringement and you hire a copyright infringement attorney to do so.  The first thing that attorney is going to do is take a look at how you have protected your copyright work previously, and if your copyright protected work is being violated across the Internet, then you’re going to have a much more difficult time protecting that work from a serious infringement problem, so you need to monitor the internet to make sure that your copyright protected works aren’t be illegally copied downloaded, duplicated, posted, etc.

How do you do that?  There are a multiple services for both images and music which can help you see if, in fact, someone is posting your copyright protected work.  A Good copyright attorney will be able to help you put a strategy in place to monitor the Internet to make sure that your works aren’t being posted on the Internet without your permission, license or knowledge.  You cannot simply claim ignorance when it comes to copyright infringement on the Internet.  Courts will expect you to be able to Google your protected work in order to see if it is out there.  They will look to see if you have used services like Copyscape to see if your content is being duplicated, and they will expect that you will embed a digital image on your images, photographs, logos, etc. in order to see whether or not they’re being used illegally by third parties.

The first thing that you need to do if you have got a copyright that you believe is worth money or that you believe that has value to you or your business, is you’ve got to put a system in place to protect it.  And that means copyright monitoring.

Our copyright enforcement group can help design a system for you, and a good copyright infringement attorney will help you within your legal budget to put together a plan for not only copyright monitoring, but sending copyright infringement threat letters, sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices and going after copyright infringement when it appears that you have a real problem and where it appears that it makes sense from a return on investment standpoint to pursue a person who is violating your copyright.

My name is Copyright Attorney Enrico Schaefer and we will see you next time.

You’ve been listening to Copyright Law Radio, where copyright infringement, licensing, litigation, and news are always the topic of the day.  Whether you are a copyright attorney or a client, we are the number one resource for all your copyright questions.