Copyright Infringement - What if Someone Infringes Your Copyright?

What should you do if you are a victim of copyright infringement? What can you do if your novel, blog post, photograph, or song is used by another without permission?
Let’s say someone copies or publishes your article or photograph, or something substantially similar to it, without your permission. Is that copyright infringement? According to Title 17 of the United States Code, also known as the Copyright Act, the answer is yes.
Infringement occurs when a person copies, distributes, performs, or displays all or part of a copyrighted work - or in television, conducts a secondary transmission of a cable program without the consent of the cable system owner.
Once you register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office, you can sue that person in federal court. If you can prove infringement - either by getting the infringer to admit his guilt, or by showing that he had access to your copyrighted work and that his material is the same or substantially similar to yours - then you can recover monetary damages and lost profits. If someone willingly infringes your copyrighted work, they may also face criminal penalties - up to five years in prison for a first offense, 10 years for a second.
There are two ways to prove the substantial similarity of an infringing work. One is to show “fragmented literal similarity” - meaning, that the infringing work contains specific copied elements of your original work. Exact words, melodies or lyrics, for example. The second type of similarity - called “comprehensive non-literal similarity” - is more of a qualitative “look and feel” issue. It is infringement if the structure of one work is substantially similar to another.
Read the full article here: michelsonip.co...
Brought to you by The Michelson 20MM Foundation & IPO Education Foundation, made possible by the generous support of Alya and Gary Michelson, M.D.
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Based on the book: "The Intangible Advantage: Understanding Intellectual Property in the New Economy" - download it for free here: michelsonip.co....
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with Gary K. Michelson, Kerry L. Bundy, Richard Epstein, Paul Janicke, Paul R. Michel, Robert G. Krupka, Randall G. Kahnke
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