Copyright Violations

Copyright violations are all over the internet. Sometimes it is just a matter of people not understanding what the law is. Other times, however, it is that they understand they can often get away with ignoring it.

I remember the first time I discovered one of my articles on another website with someone else's name as the author. It even linked through to this person's website. I was a bit shocked. Now I have come to accept that this will be a normal part of the business. The internet is still the "wild west," and there has been little policing of it so far.

If you write articles and submit them to directories, they will be stolen or misused. What should you do about it?

Copyright Violations - The Law

Ask a lawyer for help if it is a serious matter. This is my disclaimer by the way, and the following is my own understanding of this complex area of law - I offer no assurances that it is entirely correct.

First, you have the intellectual property right to anything original that you write. Unlike with trademarks and patents, your right doesn't originate with a registration of any sort (that requirement was dropped years ago). You can register your copyright, but you don't have to - you have your rights regardless. You may even put the copyright symbol on your articles if you want (© 2011 by Steve Gillman).

As part of your basic intellectual property right to your own articles, you have the right to set the conditions under which they may be used. You agree to let them be used when you put them in article directories, but all directories I've seen have the following conditions use (but check):

1. The user may not change the article.

2. The link in the author's resource box must be "active," meaning it can be clicked and will take the reader to your website (or wherever it goes).

This means that if a user changes a sentence in the article he has violated the terms of the agreement under which he is allowed to use it. If she doesn't make the link active, she has no right to use your article. These, then, are copyright violations, as surely as if they steal the article and put their own name on it.

What to Do About Copyright Violations

You won't find legal advice here, but practical advice on avoiding the problem, finding the violations, and resolving the problems without legal help. There are two basic types of violations that are common.

Continues here... More About Your Copyright

Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters on the home page.

Writing Tips
Sell E-Books
Writing for Money
Writing an Article
Get Paid to Blog
How to Write Articles
Article Writing Software
How to Write Articles

I Am not a Thief!

I once wrote a nasty letter to an author who had his name and website information on my article. I saw the article at a directory, and assumed that he had submitted it as his own. He said he didn't do it, so I got nastier. Then I discovered that the article directory was mixing up authors, resource boxes and articles. Some software problem, I guess.

Even worse, I found my own name and resource box on other peoples articles! I felt awful, and I told them to take my name off those articles immediately. They were slow, didn't want to resolve the issue, and never apologized. Since they seem to have fixed their system now, I won't mention the name of the site, but you also won't find it on my lists of good directories.

The lesson? Mistakes are made, so be polite in your initial contact with "violators." An honest publisher might take articles from a directory like the one in this story, without knowing they have the wrong author name. Authors may not even know that their names are on other people's articles!