Advanced Access considers Copyright Infringement to be a very serious offense.  Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have taken a pledge to make every effort to ensure that our clients’ websites comply with copyright regulations.   In the spirit of Copyright compliance, please be sure all of the content on your website has either been (1) written by you; (2) paid to a third party to be created for you; or (3) you have been given permission by the author to display the content on your website.

Are you confused by what is copyrighted?   Please read the following article by guest columnist, Bill Koelzer.

How Many Other Agents Are Copying From Your Web Site?
Plenty?  Here’s A Good Place to Learn What to Do to Stop Them.
By Bill Koelzer

If you have a great, truly great web site, or even if you have just a couple superb pieces of original art, or ultra-clever lines of text----you can bet that some agent somewhere has stolen some of your most cleverly constructed lines of copy, or your most elegant piece of artwork.

Tools exist to help you find out who does have what.  In addition, below are sites with valuable information that you should read before going after pirates. 

Tools to Help You
Locate Pirates:

CopyScape helps you find sites that contain material identical to that on your own site.  It is a good place to begin hunting for pirates.

The Wayback Machine can show you copies of how web sites looked as far back as several years ago.  The Wayback Machine is an excellent way to prove that YOUR copyrighted material existed long before the pirate posted it on his/her web site.

For example, here is the web site of my wife, Debbie Ferrari:

Today:  www.DebbieFerrari.com
Nov. 30, 2001: web.archive.org/web/2011130051014/debbieferrari.com
May 23, 2002: web.archive.org/web/20020523154305/www.debbieferrari.com
Feb. 13, 1999: web.archive.org/web/19981212024301/www.debbieferrari.com

The Similar Page Checker allows you to compare the content of your site with that of any other site.  This tool is useful in proving that someone has duplicated your material, especially when they literally copy entire pages, or, your entire site.  If their site comes up ranking more than a few percentage points similar to yours, you should carefully inspect their site.  Note, on some template sites, naturally there will be duplication.  However, as you use the Similar Page Checker you also learn to identify false positives.

If you compare Drew and Linda Hartanov’s Orange County site with that of Fran and Rowena, near Pasadena, using The Similar Page Checker, you get the following result:

www.hartanovteam.com is 7.9472329472329% percentage similar to www.lacanadarealestate.com.

Since both are Advanced Access sites, you would expect that more of the content would be the same.  However, both of these sites are packed with brilliantly conceived original content created from scratch by their owners for their own regions.  As a result, the percentage of similar content is amazingly low.

Google can help you search, too.  Take some of your more uniquely worded lines of text, put them in quotes, and ask Google to hunt for them.  (You get broader results without using the quotes.) 

The results will include pages that have used that same text; some will be pirates.  However, some results using that same text could be from your site’s description that you gave to other agents to post on their sites when you swapped reciprocal links with them.  Google will find such text.  Obviously, don’t use that text.

Terrific Sites That Can Answer
All Your Copyright Questions

How to Register your Copyright    (And You Should Do it Now)
www.copyright.gov/register/index.html

What IS copyright
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci

Who Can Claim Copyright?
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc

What Works are Protected by Copyright?
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wwp 

What Works are NOT Protected?
www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wnp

Digital Millennium Copyright Act  (DMCA)
www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

A Good general intellectual property site is at:

www.intelproplaw.com with an extensive number of articles on the subject:

www.intelproplaw.com/Articles/cgi/smartarchive.cgi. 

A good number of articles by Judith Silver covers numerous aspects of IP: www.intelproplaw.com/Articles/cgi/smartarchive.cgi?vc=General+Intellectual+Property. 

IntelPropLaw.com even has a newsletter……that you can subscribe to.

Google's statement regarding the DMCA:

"It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office Web Site, lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/) and other applicable intellectual property laws, which may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity. If we remove or disable access to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of each affected site so that they may make a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of that Act. It is our policy to document all notices of alleged infringement on which we act. A copy of the notice will be sent to a third party who will make it available to the public"

Google’s take on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:
www.google.com/dmca.html

U.S. Government: Everything about Copyright from the U.S. Government:
www.copyright.gov

File an Infringement Notice with Google

www.google.com/dmca.html#notification

The Google Counter Notification:

www.google.com/dmca.html#counter

Yes, Virginia.  You CAN

Win in Court Sometimes

Here's an actual case that was kindly posted for us in the Advanced Access Forums on Aug. 4 by Phoenix Realtor, Dan Hill.  You will see here how Joseph C. Shields, individually and trading as THE JOE CARTOON COMPANY, won his case against a pirate by using the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA" or "Act"). See: www.keytlaw.com/Cases/shields.htm 

The following links provide additional insight into copyright infringement:

Copyright Infringement Legislation Underway
www.copyright.gov/legislation

Copyright law from freeadvice.com:
FreeAdvice.com

The “Law for All” site at www.Nolo.com  says:  Meta tags have been the subject of trademark lawsuits because companies have used them to divert or confuse consumers. For example, Company A inserts the trademark name of a rival business, Company B, into its meta tag. A customer using a search engine to find Company B is diverted to Company A instead.  To learn more, visit: Trademarks used in Meta Tags

Design Theft:  What You can Do:
www.sitepoint.com/article/theft-webmasters-recourse

Is This The Lojack
For Web Sites!

What is Digital Watermarking?
www.digimarc.com/watermarking/default.asp

Digimarc says that its “digital watermarking technologies allow users to embed in audio, images, video and printed documents a digital code that is imperceptible during normal use but readable by computers and software.

“The science of creating these imperceptible codes is known as digital watermarking. Digimarc is a leading owner of intellectual property relating to digital watermarks and a pioneer in the commercial application of this technology. Our technologies are supported by a broad patent portfolio covering a wide range of methods and applications.” 

Finally, Listen to Alice Held talk about Internet Pirates during a half-hour radio recording done by the CyberSpace Society:  Alice’s incredible site is one of the most famous beautiful agent sites in the U.S.  Apparently thieves just cannot resist robbing from her.  She even has agents located just down the street stealing stuff from her!

Going after Pirates could become almost a full time job for some agents.  It is a good job to give to a virtual eProductivity assistant.   

Most theft is done from agents whose truly excellent sites, packed with brilliantly creative elements put them miles ahead of other agents.  I’m getting convinced that most pirates are just too uncreative and dense to think up something original or who just tell themselves that after all, “Everything on the Internet is free, isn’t it?”  Duh.  No!