Would you prosecute?

[KristineS]

We just had this happen to us, so I thought it might make a good post. Since it's more a legal issue than a website issue, I thought I'd mention it here.

We have several websites and blogs for our companies. Obviously we have disclaimers on all of them which say that all content, pictures, videos, etc. are the property of our companies and may not be used without our express permission.

Last week a company that works with a manufacturer with whom we also work, decided they wanted some product pictures that were on one of our sites, and proceeded to download the pictures without asking us. In fact, I never would have known it had been done, except for the fact that I happened to contact the person who had done it, and she told me as an afterthought.

Naturally I was livid. The pictures were our content and represented several days of work. We contacted the other company and were told they would not use the pictures, but I'm still wondering what we would have done if they had used them.

My question to all of you is this: Would you prosecute if someone was taking content from your site and using it for their own? Also, do you have a disclaimer on your site stating the site contents are copyrighted? Do you think most people know what the laws are in these situations?

[Dan Furman]

Very gray area.

I would watermark your images. That's really all you can do. Otherwise, the web will always be a little "wild west" in this regard. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Now I can understand defending something more personal, like a trademark, a logo, etc, but for something like you describe (a third-party product), I'm not so sure prosecution would be a good route. After all, I'll bet almost every company out there has some type of illegal software / downloaded image / unregistered shareware / etc somewhere.

[nealrm]

As Dan said don't sweat the small stuff. Taking them to court over a couple of product photos is not really in your best interest. Even if you were to win, the most like judgement would be they had to remove the photo.

[vangogh]

I wouldn't prosecute. I think we're an over litigious nation and many things don't really need the law to get involved. They're often easy enough to work out. In your case as long as the other site isn't going to use the images there's no harm done.

Most of the time content theft is done in another country in which case prosecution is going to be hard. It sucks to see someone stealing your hard work, but now I've learned to gain a little something back from it. For example I know every time I write a post another site is going to grab it and republish. So I make sure to add links in most every post to other posts on my site. Then when the content is copied I end up with a low quality link.

[KristineS]

We aren't going to prosecute. I guess I'm more mystified by the fact that people think that taking content without even asking is all right. Sometimes I think the only way to stop that sort of thing is to prosecute these cases. If there are no penalties than there is no incentive to stop. It would be nice to think content would not be hijacked because it simply was the wrong thing to do, but I don't know how realistic that is.

[Evan]

When I was doing website development, I actually found another person had the same identical site I had designed with their logo. Much of the content was the same too. I sent a certified letter demanding that they take down their website or I would proceed with legal action. The threat alone caused them to resolve it.

As they were not in my state, I would have had to travel to Georgia to sue. Probably not worth the expense, but it is the principle of the matter.

[Vivid Color Zack]

Evan took the route I would take. Threaten legal action if they don't take down your material. Cite intellectual property laws and sound really serious and they will take it down. Nobody who would steal other peoples work like that can afford the lawsuit.

Realistically what would you sue for? They obviously don't have any money... You would spend a lot of your own time and money to get them to achieve the same result as just the threat.

[cocoy]

I guess there are two different actions here.

1. Them taking your pictures.

2. Them posting your pictures on their site.

From your post, I don't think #2 happened. You caught it in time.

With #1... is there anything to sue about it if it's not re-published?

What if your computer's cache keeps it? Is there a difference?

Just my random thoughts.

[Patrysha]

What I don't get is why you wouldn't want to share these pictures (unless this is some kind of competitor, but it sounds like this is a distributor for the manufacturer?)

If they are manufacturer approved and they have taken time and effort to develop why wouldn't you be sharing them with those who carry the product so that the overall company has a nice consistent image?

Or maybe I'm just not getting something about the relationship between the parties involved. If it's a competitor it's a different matter entirely.

[Business Attorney]

I wouldn't sue in your case. Unless you have registered your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office, it is very unlikely that you would get any monetary damages.

Registering entitles you to statutory damages and attorneys fees, but few people actually register a copyright for their web-based materials.

Without registering, it is likely that your victory would be to require them to take down the infringing material. That is something you can normally do without resorting to legal action.

If the thief refuses to remove the copyrighted material when you ask, you or your attorney can send a DMCA take-down notice to the thief's host and that will usually do the trick.