Copyright

~ Copyright Issues – DRS Business Consultants ~

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Copyright issues abound in China. This is a country where the population regards intellectual property as something that is “ripe for the plucking”! Even in China, however, there is a measure of recourse for writers and artists who have been plagiarised. On the internet, the USA enabling legislation is the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and in Europe it is the EUCD (European Copyright Directive).

By placing the symbol above on the relevant page, together with the words “Copyright © [year] [Company or Author name]. All rights reserved… your work has protection. For an example, see the bottom of this page.

A very good method of securing your content is to use the services of digiprove.com to have your content certified.

In the event of you finding your work has been plagiarised, you can take the following steps:

1. Use search engines or a service such as Plagiarism Checker or Copyscape to locate instances of plagiarism.
2. Contact, by telephone or email, the owner of the website who published the plagiarised content and politely ask them to take it down. If they do so, you can ignore the following…
3. Follow up your telephone call with a “Cease and Desist” letter if need be. Don’t threaten legal action unless you intend to follow through with this!
4. Locate their hosting company, domain registrar and domain owner by conducting a whois search.
5. Lodge an ISP Take-down Notice with the company that hosts their website.
6. Lodge a DMCA Take-down Notice with major search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Most of these parties prefer you to lodge your notice in writing (instead of by email). Sending a fax should satisfy their requirements.

Disclaimer: This page is intended to give you basic copyright concepts. It does not constitute legal advice. For more authoritative opinion, please contact a lawyer. This information will give a starting point for you to explore further!

For further information, take a look at this comprehensive page about Copyright Infringement.