International Intellectual Property Legal Blog

When it comes to international copyright laws, most of the focus tends to be on music and movies. Every so often a software company may also make the news. But, what about photographers? According to ABC, photographers are losing income to news agencies, travel agencies and other businesses who use their images with neither credit nor payment.

As with other types of media, the internet is the vehicle through which the thievery takes place. Many photographers who share their works online through social media or their website often find those images downloaded and reuploaded elsewhere. Photographers who continually pursue legal action have since been called “copyright trolls.” Many businesses complain that even when the infringement was accidental, rather than receive an initial request to remove the photograph, negotiations began with legal threats and a demand for licensing fees.

In many cases, it is easy to copy online content, such as digital photographs and text. As such, you may wonder if it is possible to copyright your online content and prevent others from using it without your permission. In most cases, you may protect your digital content from unauthorized use. If someone copies and re-publishes your original content without your permissions, these actions often constitute a copyright violation. In most cases, your content falls under standard copyright protection, no matter where in the world you created and published it.

According to FindLaw, copyright law tends to treat digital content in the same manner as traditional offline content. That means the law usually considers it a copyright violation if someone copies or publishes your work without getting your permission. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act specifically states that copyright protection extends to online digital content. While you may want to place a copyright notice on your website or watermark your digital images, you do not have to do so to protect your content from unauthorized use. As soon as you create an original work and publish it online, copyright protection may begin. If you create a digital version of your original non-digital content, both forms have copyright protection.

While things like patents and trademarks can help you protect certain aspects of your business, trade secrets cannot be registered for protection. That means it's up to you, the business owner, to determine how to safeguard valuable information and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. The U.S. Small Business Administration explains the necessary steps to protect your business. 

Trade secrets can encompass a lot of different information, so the first step is to determine what would be most valuable if it fell into the hands of competitors. This includes recipes, specialized techniques, programs, customer lists, and pricing data, just to name a few examples. Anything that could potentially be of commercial value to your enterprise is a trade secret, and because the definition is so vague it can be difficult for a company to implement the proper protections. 

Most people are aware of counterfeit money and fake handbags, but there are numerous other counterfeit items that result in high cost to the global economy. If you have an idea of common types of products that are counterfeit, you may learn to have a more discerning eye the next time you shop. 

According to USA Today, counterfeit products have a global financial impact of around $250 billion a year. Luxury items are especially vulnerable to imitation, and the quality is such that the costs of many products are similar to the originals. The most common counterfeit products are wallets and handbags, with jewelry and watches coming in second. Other common fake items include:

• Electronics
• Accessories
• Clothing
• Foot apparel
• Computers
• Labels
• Optical media