Content Stealing and Copyright Protection

The whole history of humanity is based on borrowing someone else’s ideas and developing them further, leading to progress. However, people might cut the corners and… just borrow someone else’s ideas and present them as their own. It’s just easier this way to gain recognition, money, fame, respect, and other stuff. That’s what they rightfully call stealing.

Stealing is no good and preventing it might be hard at times but by no means is impossible. In this article, we will talk about the origins of the copyright law, find out the exact borderline between stealing and re-using for one’s own purposes. We will also discuss the ways to protect oneself from losing the intellectual property, and explore some cases of content stealing. Ready for some new insights?

History of Copyrighting

The recent release of Threads, a so-called copycat of Twitter, on the 6th of July poses an interesting question of where lies the vague borderline between stealing and getting inspired. They say there is nothing new under the sun and the internet has everything written already. Of course, that’s not exactly true, but it’s a useful rule of a thumb nonetheless.

Think about real life examples, like some pieces of music. With just 7 notes (plus their 5 altered versions) you are bound to end up violating someone’s copyrights. Yet, somehow the musicians are able to get away with using the same notes and chords over and over again.

By the way, have you ever wondered who makes these copyright laws and how long do they last? The very first documented copyright law is the Statute of Anne, a.k.a. Copyright Act 1710, was established in England. From that moment, an author of a book was also entitled with its copyright. Still, an unpublished work didn’t enjoy automatic copyright protection.

The international copyright protection emerged in 1886, right after the Bern Convention in Switzerland. It has been in force up to this day and succeeded in expanding copyright protection to unpublished works. Basically, once a creation is written, drawn, composed, or just made, it is copyright-protected, unless specified otherwise.

Regarding the term of copyright protection, it varies from country to country, despite the Bern Convention. As a rule of a thumb, it is a lifetime of an author + 70 years on top. Anonymous, pseudonymous, and works for hire are protected for 95 years from the first publication or 120 years from the creation, whichever expires first. Basically, you are legally permitted to use the creatives of an author, who passed away in 1953 or earlier.

Copied Right vs. Copyright

Copyright protects expression, and not ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, or discoveries. That’s how the musicians get away from using the same notes repeatedly — they express themselves differently, by recombining the notes, following a different rhythm, altering the keys etc.

That’s the foundation for borrowing someone else’s ideas properly — your expression of an idea must be unique. Alternatively, you need permission from the original author to use their work the way you want. The third option is to go to free repositories, like Freepik, Unsplash, or AI generators, to grab yourself a couple of creatives. Finally, some good old spy tools are at your service.

However, in case of borrowing the creatives from other affiliate folks, you need to tweak the creatives and convey somewhat a unique idea — sometimes you can get away with a different color. For instance, red might evoke recklessness and a sense of rush, while blue background is better suited for rational thinking and patience.

What If You Are on the Other Side of the Barricade

You might not have noticed that stealing is bad, while being in a winning team. Now, assume the situation where you worked your fingers to the bone trying to come up with a creative landing, only for other marketers to present it as their own. Sounds like a great deal of injustice, right?

Well… it’s not exactly injustice, because… at the end of the day, your creativity is humbled and its products are copied. So you can take pleasure in knowing you are a great content creator. Next, try to take it easy, since the internet facilitates free exchange of ideas, content, or work, including the copyrighted ones. After all, you are more than likely to have stolen someone else’s idea before, even without knowing it.

On a more serious note, there are a few preemptive measures you can take to lower the risk of your content being stolen. Consider this:

1. Put in a copyright sign (©) or state the copyright protection explicitly 
2. Add (subtle) watermarks to your work; it is better to use real name 
3. State explicitly your authorship of the texts, e.g., by John Doe
4. Monitor content usage via search engines — more on that later
5. Have a copy certified by a notary, which can be expensive and time-consuming

Besides just monitoring the search engines, you can get proactive and do a reverse image search. Just drag and drop your image into Google’s search bar, after clicking “Search My Image” and you can see all the relevant details.

You can also check a piece of text for originality. Just use a plagiarism checker to see if your text is not just a copy of someone else’s work. Alternatively, use good old Google Search by inputting “a specific phrase in quotation marks”. These marks indicate that Google should look for the whole phrase instead of the separate words. Also, make use of Google Alerts, which functions the same way but allows custom search parameters.

Copycats are quite lazy in covering their tracks, which is why they rarely update hyperlinks or materials. Google Analytics (God bless Google for their tools) can be quite helpful to reveal copycats. If you notice a sudden surge of traffic coming from an unknown website, then it is worth checking for plagiarism. This method is far from being foul-proof, but in tandem with other methods can turn your suspicions into exact evidence.

Now, if you discover your content being stolen — notify the stealer about your revelation. Most of the time, they might not even be aware of their wrongdoing. More often than not, this is enough for the content to be deleted, so that both parties come to a peaceful resolution.

If you’re ignored, try to contact the hosting provider of the other party. The provider is a mediator when it comes to the content flow, which is why they might be subject to legal prosecution. When threatened with a court, the violators tend to back down, since it’s just not in their interest to retaliate: the evidence is non-existent and the fee is way too high.

If nothing helps, and you’re fighting for more than just a pesky picture, then your last resort is the courthouse. Make sure to attach to your lawsuit a proof of content stealing and some evidence to prove your ownership.

Large Cases and Attack of the Titans

On the bright side, a permanent stealer is bound to follow the leader’s steps and remain counter-innovative. However, this works only when the players are more or less of a same size. When a big company steals from a start-up — that’s a different story.

1. Big companies can poach the employees of a small firm — besides winning over the skills and talents of an employee, big companies also take away small ideas. Of course, if the employee is easy to betray the firm, then the question arises whether you need someone like this. Still, countering higher salary, better working conditions, or even a straight-up bribe is hard for small firms. Non-disclosure agreement is your best friend in this case. Also, keep your mouth shut and share corporate secrets only with the people you can trust in full.
2. Big companies can copypaste a product of a small firm — with the economy of scale on their side, big companies can set the prices lower than small enterprises. Moreover, the stealers cut their costs on research & development, leaving smaller siblings razed. Once again, keep your mouth shut, patent the ideas, or design the product the way, so that it cannot be separated from your brand.
3. Big companies can squeeze small firms out of the market — it is relatively easy for a large company to acquire a start-up with all its ideas and innovations. This is detrimental for development: large enterprises stop innovating and smaller ones lose the incentive to compete. What’s the advice? Well, you have read it twice already, here is the third time — silence is golden.

Regarding pushing out of the market, a good example of the so-called predatory pricing would be Amazon fighting against Quidzi. Long story short, the Quidzi startup was able to improve the logistics of diapers — something Amazon, the eCommerce giant, didn’t like. Jeff Bezos’ company leveraged its size and almost limitless resources to sell the diapers at a loss. In this trade war, Amazon emerged victorious, simply because Quidzi didn’t have a capital to keep the prices below the level of profitability. It all ended with Amazon acquiring Quidzi and all its assets and ideas — nothing personal, just business.

Conclusion

Nowadays, the information is in abundance which poses new challenges. With the advent of the internet, it has become harder to conceal one’s ideas from being stolen and used by somebody else. On the bright side, there is a lot of informational noise, which you can use to your advantage and stay under the radar. But the major market players would not be on the top of the game if they didn’t know how to adapt to ever-changing reality.

Stealing is bad, but there is always a way out. Make sure to keep your mouth shut with all the genius ideas behind it. Keep the drafts of your idea developing, so that you have more evidence to backbone your claim, if it all comes down to a courthouse. Remember, more often than not people might simply be not aware they are stealing, so it might be enough just to contact the unwilling offender.

If you have to go to the courthouse, then do it with grace, evidence, and no emotions. Like any business, marketing might know no rules or ethics at times. This does not imply you should act ruthlessly, but be prepared to be offended and retaliate accordingly. If a big company happens to attempt to steal your intellectual property, they might succeed, but make sure they don’t get away easy.