So in the last post we talked about protecting your intellectual property if you find it being used on the net without your permission. We spoke about contacting the owner through the site, about being nice about it and asking rather than telling. We also mentioned that you can contact the ISP hosting the site and request they take it down or suspend it.
London web design is a very competitive niche, and a very innovative one. It’s inevitable that at some point, someone is going to want what I make, but not pay for it, so I have to be aware of what I can do when it happens.
So, if the ISP won’t play ball, or does and the site owner simply moves ISP, contact the new ISP and start again. If you really want to protect your property, you’re going to have to keep going until you wear them out. Sooner or later, the work involved in using your design illegally will outweigh the benefits of not paying for it in the first place.
The temptation to name and shame might be overwhelming, especially if you seem to be getting nowhere. Refrain if you can. Even if you can prove the material is stolen and you have all rights to it, libel comes into play. It’s possible, though unlikely that the site owner might resort to legal action. This is the last thing you want, the hassle and the expense even if you win will be distracting. You have a living to earn while all this is going on, you’re not going to be able to do that while fighting a court case.
If you’re still not getting anywhere, it’s time to sit down and think about things for a while. The next step is going to involve lawyers, and expense, and you really have to consider if it’s worth it or not. The time and money involved will probably far outweigh the loss of the material and you might not think it worthwhile. Although, if you’re stubborn like me, you’ll keep going until you win.
Contact a reputable solicitor and outline your case, taking care to provide all the evidence and documentation to back up your claim as possible. If the solicitor takes the brief they will issue a letter to the site owner demanding they take the site down. In the vast majority of cases this is enough to have the site removed permanently. In the odd case, the lawyer might then have to issue another letter to the ISP demanding the same. Again, if things go this far, they most often stop here. No ISP wants to be embroiled in a legal challenge for the sake of a single website.
For 99.9% of occurrences, the ISP will either have taken down the site in the first instance or the site owner responds to the lawyers letter. It’s a shame that we have to go this far to protect our copyright, but that’s the cost of being good at what we do.
