Online Theft: Copyright Consequences and Potential Legal Exposure of Online Content Theft

I wanted to write about a situation that actually happened to my business, as I think the situation holds some important lessons for businesses that sell print content online, as well as those who may be tempted to use material created by others, as whether without authorization or beyond. the scope of a license.

My company has been in the business of selling high-quality legal documents for about 9 years. Each and every document we have was originally created by me while practicing law. I spent hundreds of hours creating these documents to make them unique and of the highest quality. I put a lot of effort so that the documents were original works of authorship. I went through a long process of studying each document. I read and studied a lot. I would read through numerous agreements on the subject, create an outline, and then sit down independently of any other document and start writing as if I were creating an agreement, from scratch, without the benefit of a form to start with.

I did this for 250+ high-quality, comprehensive technology white papers for web developers, software programmers, and others in the IT industry.

I then went to work packaging the documents I created and have had a very successful business marketing these document packages. My marketing niche was selling complete packages of 80 to 250 documents for the price someone would pay for a quarter of an hour of attorney time.

I later expanded into incorporation, bylaws, corporate kits, real estate leasing, trusts and wills, confidentiality forms, and corporate resolutions and continue to work on new product lines. All my documents are originally created and represent hours and hours of study and work.

Of course, the next step was to market these packages in the most profitable way. This has changed over time as the internet environment has changed significantly in the 9 years that have passed since I started this business. One of the marketing methods that I continue to use is to maintain exposure in what is left of the search engine spiders. Those of you who use this marketing tool are familiar with the SEO process; optimize the contents of your pages, compare the prominence of keywords with other pages that rank well below that keyword, etc.

While optimizing for one of my more obscure deals for Google, I came across material that looked suspiciously like my packaged products. In fact, even the package name was the same. The only difference was that they had provided the opportunity to purchase individual documents as well as the entire package. Upon closer examination, I discovered that the documents in the package were my documents and were sold without modification; including some minor typos and unique wording that I use in my documents. The documents are being sold by a company that bills itself as the Internet leader in downloadable legal documents.

Clearly, this type of direct copying is the most blatant of copyright violations. Even the hidden information in the documents was intact, just as I created them in the first place. The only thing missing from these documents was my copyright notice which was listed in a footer on each of these documents. In all, there appear to be approximately 100 of my documents for sale on this website.

This company is in a lot of trouble and the consequences of it will probably end their business. As a retired attorney, he knew exactly what steps to take that can be instructive for others facing similar situations. I’ll get to that in a later article, but first let me describe a bit of what this company may be facing.

Clearly, I am the copyright owner of these originally created documents. As a side note, there is a common misconception that you need to register your copyright to maintain protection. Actually, all original works of authorship are protected from the moment of their creation. There is a clear benefit to registering your copyrighted material that I cover in other articles. But the bottom line is that registration is not a prerequisite for receiving copyright protection.

Furthermore, the other company has clearly violated my rights as the copyright owner. All of this would have to be proven in court, of course, but it’s a fairly easy case.

Regarding sanctions, this company would be liable to me for all profits attributable to these documents. You could also choose to receive statutory damages instead of having to present proof of actual damages. These statutory damages would apply even if they greatly exceed your actual sales proceeds from the sale of my documents. Even for an unintentional violation, the Copyright Act sets damages between $750 and $15,000 per item. If the violation was intentional, statutory damages can be as high as $150,000 per item.

I guess there were 100 documents involved to keep it simple. This means that the range of damages would be $75,000 to $1,500,000; even if the violation was unintentional. Direct copying is pretty strong evidence that the violation was intentional. For an intentional violation, statutory damages for this violation would be $15,000,000.

In addition to statutory damages, the Copyright Act also allows me to collect attorneys’ fees for pursuing the case.

As you can see, the penalties of the Copyright Act create a very strong incentive to avoid stealing someone else’s work online. These penalties could apply even if there is a valid license that allows the party to use the documents with certain limitations, but those limitations are exceeded. A good example would be articles that are submitted to article publishing sites. Many of the reprint licenses state that material may be freely reprinted as long as the author box is included. If the article is republished without the author box, the use would exceed the license that was granted to use the documents. This would be just as much copyright infringement as the situation I described above and could expose the infringer to similar damages.

So the lesson here is:

For the user of online material, when doing business online, comply with copyright laws. The potential penalties are great and could completely destroy the business you have created. Please note that the material is protected even if you get it for free online and even if it does not have a copyright notice.

For the online content creator, be on the lookout. Actively look for people who violate your copyrights. Find your unique content. When you find someone who is infringing your copyright, don’t let it go. That is your hard work and that is stealing.

Look for my next article that covers the steps to take when you discover someone has violated your copyright.