by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: October 13, 2009

What to do if you find someone broke copyright law using your online article is a maze of confusion and a potential minefield to a great many people. The issue is of course a very serious one, with potentially very severe consequences for the plagiarist and moderate to heavy financial loss or loss of face for the victim. This means that it is especially vital that the issue be tackled in the correct fashion.

The very first step if you find someone broke copyright law using your online article has to be to ensure that you can later prove any allegations which you wish to make. It will be essential that you can prove that you wrote the article in the first instance, when you wrote it and most importantly of all, when you published it. Very often this will easily be provable due to a publication date appearing somewhere on the site where you published the article but it is important to check and be sure of this fact before any further action is taken.

When verification has thus been established, you have to decide how far you wish to take the matter. Do you simply wish the offending piece to be removed from where it is published or posted, are you seeking compensation from the plagiarist or are you even seeking that the plagiarist be formally prosecuted in a legal sense? The extent to which you may have lost money or had your reputation thus far damaged by the breach of copyright law on your online article may go a long way towards helping you make this determination.

Where a simple removal of the plagiaristic piece is all that is required, petition should be made in the first instance to the hosting platform for where the piece appears. This could be a Web hosting service such as this one, Helium, or it could be perhaps a blogging platform such as Blogger, where the individual has included the work in their blog. It is also a good idea to inform the hosting site upon which your work first appeared.

Where formal compensation or litigation is being considered, it will be necessary to consult a lawyer who specialises in copyright law. Such a lawyer can be found either via a Google search or a simple glance through the Yellow Pages. The lawyer will then advise what action should or can be taken.

If you find that someone broke copyright law using your online article, it is likely that you will be initially extremely angry. It is important, however, not to take rash action while in the grip of this initial rage and live to later regret it. Time should be taken for logical thought to at least in some part re-establish itself and the course of subsequent action only then determined as above.

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