Re: Copyright Infringement Happening at Conference Group - Help!

Brigid Skylark Delaney <wiredheart[_at_]hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have been fighting what seems to be a losing battle over copyright on
> the internet in a conference group, i.e., Cafe Utne, Meta Conference.
>
> No matter how I try to appeal to these people, they insist that it is
> fair to take articles, stories, etc., from another's web site without
> their permission and without compensating (a published writer for
> instance).

What you describe is copyright infringement. The first step to protecting yourself, from a practical point of view, is to register your copyright in your work. This is inexpensive, and if someone violates a registered copyright, the law provides for statutory damages (an amount that you are awarded without having to prove the infringers unfair profits, or your losses)

Without a registered copyright, you can sue for damages. If you have no damages, then you will recover nothing if you bring suit. This may be what your fellow writers are counting on (they may know that they are not doing the right thing, but they are causing no damage and reaping no profits, so they have no liability -- as long as the work they take is not registered). If you register the work, then you play with a different set of rules.

Thomas Workman
<tworkman[_at_]erols.com> Received on Thu Jul 09 1998 - 14:56:17 GMT