It is an acknowledged fact that the work profile of a writer of website content or an article is truly unenviable.
Writing an article is a time-consuming process that calls for a lot of language skills, imagination and creativity. In view of this, a writer of web content or an author of an article can be justifiably angry if the work is copied in certain websites without proper written agreement. In all such cases, the writer can sue the person who had copied the work for violation of Copyright laws.
Web Content Copyright and Copyright Law
Copyright may be best defined as the inalienable right of the website owner to authorize or disallow someone from reproducing the original design or content elsewhere. In legal parlance, the design or content can be deemed stolen even if a designer has copied unintentionally or without being aware of the copyright laws. All web content including articles, stories, poems, or any other written material are protected by copyright laws.
The copyright laws are far too stringent that even if a complete sentence is found copied in an unauthorized manner, it will be construed as copyright violation. There is some relief if the excerpt is too short and there is no overt or covert profiteering motive. In such cases, the content writer can claim immunity under a provision called ‘fair use’. But the final decision whether to accept or reject the plea rests with the judge.
Copyright Violation – a cognizable offence
The one question that obviously arises is - how the author would ever come to know the article or web content has been copied? This question is particularly valid in present times when so much material is being written on the web and by far too many writers.
Of course, it is a fact that authors are generally voracious readers and therefore the chances of their stumbling across their own work stolen by others is indeed very bright. Even assuming this does not happen and the author never personally detects plagiarism, the web technology today is far too advanced and there are programs like spiders that immediately detect stolen content.
The spider has the potential to mark the site and highlight copyright violations. Many companies and website owners use spider to prevent content from theft.
As if these checks are not enough, ardent readers and fans of a writer are watchful and oftentimes behave like human spiders to immediately inform the author about plagiarism.
It is interesting to know that most of the writers are not averse to sharing the content and are only too willing to grant permission for copying the content. As a matter of fact, the authors stand to benefit as the work will be quoted and referred to in several other websites. By sharing the content, the writer gains more popularity and hardly loses anything.
It needs to be understood that design and text are two distinctly different things. In most instances, the writer may own only the written text but not the design which would invariably belong to the designer. But both the content owner as well as the designer can claim relief under the copyright laws. There are innumerable ways whereby the owners of content and original designers can seek protection under the copyright laws.
Reference:
Read my article Web Content Copyright Issues for more information.
 |
