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When the 3step team switched onto the work computer last week one thing we did not expect to be dealing with was an infringement of copyrights.     We had produced copy earlier in the year promoting our Red Hot Wedding Show which will take place on 9^th October 2011 at Ditton Community Centre, this copy has been displayed on our own website and as an email inviting Wedding Suppliers to promote their businesses. Imagine our surprise when we discovered at least 4 paragraphs of text had been copied almost word for word by a competitor to promote their own wedding event on internet wedding directory sites and also in emails sent directly to suppliers.   Scratching our heads in amazement as to why anyone would want do this and concerned that wedding suppliers would think we had stolen the copy as our event is after the competitors event, we decided to needed to fully educate ourselves on Copy Right issues, we would like to pass this information on to you our fellow professionals.

To quote Wikpedia: ‘Copyright’ refers to a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.  This sentance is a good example of quoting original copy from a website, as some words can remain highlighted when copied - for this article this is fine as I have already stated where I sourced the info from. 

Once copy has been created and written it is protected by the ‘Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988. You do not have to register your copy as when complete it is automatically assigned copyright.

With this information sourced our thoughts then quickly turned to how copy was protected on websites.

Our Website Designer Martin from Blue Shine immediately assured us that he had protected all of our website copy by adding ‘3step ltd © Copyright 2009, All Rights Reserved’ as a footnote. However we have also discovered that even if Martin hadn’t done this, we would still be protected by this Act. Be fair it isn’t often in life you are covered by a legal act when you actually don’t do something!.

All electronic media is afforded the same copyright restrictions as all copyright works. E-mail messages, web pages and anything available on the internet has copyright attached just as any other work. Because it is available free of charge does not imply that it’s free to copy.www.lr.mdx.ac.uk.  Fair dealing (The U.K. and Canadian legal term for uses of content that are considered valid defenses to copyright infringement, such as for criticism and review, reporting of news or educational purposes – www.webopedia.com) would probably apply for own use e.g downloading your own copy for private study, but forwarding the material to someone else, either electronically or by print would be an infringement. Some web sites actually give permission to copy for educational purposes in their copyright statements, but unless this is actually stated, permission should always be sought. This rule also applies to social media sites; Twitter/facebook/linkedin..

Realising that our position was strong in protecting our copy and that we were completely within our rights to shout and stamp our feet, you will be pleased to hear we communicated in a professional manner by contacting the Director of the said company advising them of the situation and asking them to remove our copy by the end of the working day, we are happy to report that they complied with this request straight away.

Based on the fact that even a bad experience is a worthwhile experience 3step would like to pass onto you our Top Tips on protecting your work and what to do if it is copied

1. Mark your website material with “All Rights Reserved” or use the copyright symbol – you can use this symbol even if you don’t choose to copyright.
2. visit www.copyrightauthority.com to learn how to create the copyright logo from your keyboard
3. Make sure that you don’t impinge on anyone else’s copy – we appreciate that everyone researches fellow competitors and that there are only so many ways you can be creative with the word ‘Wedding’ but do try to be creative with the connecting words.  Visit www.copyscape.com is a company that offer a free plagiarism checker. 
4. If you do wish to quote copy that you did not produce yourself then you need the permission of the copywriter or if the text is in the public domain you must add the name of the author. Copyright remains 75 years after the death of the author.
5. If you discover that you have had your text copied then you have to give the said party the opportunity to remove the copy. Send a polite but firm email advising them of their company’s infringement of your work requesting that the situation be rectified straight away by the removal of the copy by the end of the day.
6. Should you be unlucky enough to have a negative response to your request or no response at all then you will need to go to the next stage and make the complaint official by involving a solicitor, we recommend you view the fact sheet P-05 on copyright infringement produced by www.copyrightservice.co.uk

To finish this editorial I couldn’t do any better than to quote:

Charles Caleb Colton Lacon, volume I, no. 183 (1780 - 1832)

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

That sums it up   -  thanks Charlie boy!