According to the United States Chamber of Commerce “rogue web sites that steal America’s innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs.” NY Times Letter, November 18, 2011. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter much to those who believe they ought to be entitled to take, use, copy and distribute things that they legally do not own. We live in the age of entitlement.

All you have to do is look around at the various “Occupy this” or “Occupy that” groups that pitch tents and live rent free for months right in the heart of a once thriving business district. For crying out loud these “Occupy” people don’t even pay for permits like government makes the rest of us law abiding citizens do. There is an alarming double standard growing in the United States and frankly it is rather disgusting if you ask me.  Whether you want to believe it or not, billions of dollars every year are lost as the result of theft of intellectual property.

The digital age is upon us and there is no turning back. People all over the world are becoming increasingly connected via the global telecommunications network that we call the Internet. Perhaps the best, and certainly the most cited, definition of the Internet can be found in the now famous district court decision in American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno, 929 F.Supp. 824, 830-31 (E.D. Pa. 1996), which defines the Internet as follows: “The Internet is not a physical or tangible entity, but rather a giant network which interconnects innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks. It is thus a network of networks.”

This network of networks connects people from far away places as if they are in the next room. The Internet has revolutionized communications and the way we live, making virtual friends online that we are likely to never even meet; namely, those from far away locations that we share similar interests with and connect with via LinkedIn, befriend on Facebook or those we play fantasy sports in the same ESPN league. But for all the good and enjoyable that comes from the Internet there are ever present downsides. Loss of privacy, being constantly tethered to a machine or device and, of course, the crimes that become so much easier to perpetrate.

It seems that two or three times a week I am sending a DMCA take down notice to a website hosting company to complain about the blatant and willful copyright infringement certain customers of theirs are engaging in.  They will literally cut and paste entire articles without as much as changing a single word.  Copyright infringement is rampant on the Internet and if you are creating original content you must do something to inform yourself about what others are doing and take appropriate and immediate steps to get copyright infringers to stop.

By now you would expect that virtually everyone knows that you cannot cut and paste the work of others onto your website without their permission, but I am not sure that is the case.  Whenever I talk to people about copyright law and the copyright infringement we deal with they ask “so they just copied your work without any link back to you?”  In some cases I can answer that question “yes,” but in other cases the answer is “no.”  It is amazing to me that people can actually think they can copy the work of others if only they provide a citations or link back.

The theft of intellectual property rights enabled by the Internet is growing to alarming rates. The primary concerns are digital piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods, and even medicines. For example, see Counterfeiting Costs US Businesses $200 Billion Annually and US Trade Representative Issues Annual Report on Global IP Rights. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves and try and pretend that the lack of respect for intellectual property rights is limited to those who seek to share movies, music or make a buck selling knock-off products. Everyone who produces original content on the Internet is at risk of having that content stolen; simply cut and pasted onto some other website or blog. Even if it is not passed off as original content and you do get “credit” the copyist is using your work for their own benefit. They are stealing eyeballs, diverting traffic and likely costing you money. At the very least, they are free riding, which is a hard pill to swallow.

On July 23, 2008, the United States Patent & Trademark Office published an interesting notice in the Federal Register reminding patent attorneys and patent agents that there appears to be widespread and open violations of the Export Administration Regulations within the industry. Shortly after the aforementioned Federal Register Notice was published I wrote, rather naively in hindsight, that this announcement “should signal an end to the $2.2 billion per year patent outsourcing to India.”  See USPTO Ends Patent Outsourcing to India.

Obviously, that hasn’t happened. It seems more and more patent outsourcing is occurring, despite the fact that it is against the law, which seems to bother no one; that is no one other than those in the industry that are losing their jobs to the shoddy work provided by outsourcing companies in India. But what of the ethical concerns? What about the conflict of interest nightmares that India presents? What about the lack of respect for intellectual property rights? Everything seems to be fine and dandy, and likely will remain so right up until things are neither fine nor dandy, but by then it will be too late.

Perfect 10, Inc., the former publisher of Perfect 10 Magazine, is back at it with Google over whether Google’s display of certain images of scantily clad women infringes the copyrights owned by Perfect 10. Perfect 10 created and sold pictures of nude models through a now defunct print magazine, and now creates and sells pictures through a password-protected subscription website. Simultaneous actions are pending in both United States and Canada, each with recent rulings over the last two weeks, with a ruling in Canada on July 18, 2010, and a ruling on Google’s motion for summary judgment in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on July 26, 2010.

On July 18, 2010, Perfect 10 announced that the Canadian Federal Court denied Google’s attempt to dismiss Perfect 10’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Google in Canada. “We are heartened by this ruling,” said Dr. Norm Zada, President of Perfect 10 and a former professor at Stanford and Columbia Universities. “The court rejected Google’s argument that Perfect 10 could not sue Google in Canada because Perfect 10 was in litigation against Google in the United States,” said Zada. “Perfect 10’s case against Google in the United States has been going on for almost six years,” Zada added.

Last week Dow Jones & Company filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that Briefing.com is misappropriating headlines and articles content. According to the complaint filed, Dow Jones Newswires is a family of electronically-delivered proprietary news services that provide paid subscribers with a constantly-updating feed of breaking news and financial and business information. The complaint goes on to explain that Briefing.com, without permission from Dow Jones and without compensating it, systematically copies verbatim or nearly verbatim substantial portions of Dow Jones’ copyrighted articles from the Newswire service and distributes them in competition with Dow Jones to Briefing.com subscribers and to other vendors. The complaint alleges that in some cases the republication and distribution occurs within a minute or two after the article is published by Dow Jones. In just one two-week period, Briefing.com copied a substantial portion of at least 100 articles and republished more than 70 headlines within three minutes of the initial publication on Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones alleges that this conduct violates Dow Jones’ copyrights and also amounts to “hot news” misappropriation.

Every once in a while we do an Internet search to find out what is out there quoting to IPWatchdog.com or me personally.  We also try and make sure that others are not infringing upon our works by republishing our content without permission.  It is flattering in one sense to have people want to steal your stuff and copy it without permission, but that is, of course, copyright infringement.  I authorize some republication, but not much any more.  Search engines, particularly Google, punish websites for identical content being on multiple websites.  That has been and to some extent still is a tell-tale sign to Google that you are trying to manipulate their search rankings via other than preferred means.  So the republication, particularly when not authorized, is something that I do not tolerate.  I have even started sending out DMCA takedown notices as appropriate.  See Sample DMCA Take Down Letter.

It just came to my attention earlier today that someone had copied an entire article from IPWatchdog.com and posted it to their own website last week.  How is it possible that anyone doesn’t realize that you just cannot do that?  More likely, it is known that you cannot do that but people do it figuring they won’t get caught.  One of the most frequent questions I would get from my former law students was “how do you ever learn that someone is infringing”" or “how would you ever know what someone it thinking?”  For those areas of law where motive matters, luckily those who are malicious also tend to be rather stupid.  While they don’t necessarily need to tell you they fired you because you are African American, female or disabled, so many people revel in their own bigotry (and stupidity) and just cannot help themselves.  That is a special kind of hate, when you cut your nose off to spite your own face.  In the intellectual property context it frequently isn’t as easy to spot infringement unless you are vigilant, search and survey what is out there at any given time.

The recording industry has scored gold in its court battle with Usenet, which advertises itself as a massive online file sharing community. See: Arista Records v. Usenet, 07 Civ. 8822 (S.D.N.Y. June 30, 2009) The case, filed back in 2007, pitted the record companies against Usenet, with the recording industry alleging widespread infringement of copyrighted recordings through downloading over the Usenet network and Judge Harold Baer agreed, finding Usenet guilty of direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.