The scale of copyright infringements and piracy of online materials is pretty staggering. In 2010 online piracy was estimated to amount to $59* billion of lost revenue. This has a big impact in the entertainment industry but also the computer software and online publishing industries  including elearning. If you are creating content that includes ebooks, books, online courses to promote your as part of your professional services business you may be affected.

Once you have found copyright infringements of your materials there is a process to follow that includes issuing a DMCA ‘Take down’ request to Google. DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DMCA is a United States federal law that was signed into lawin October 1998 that seeks to balance the rights of owners and users of copyrighted digital material. The law  implements two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties: the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. Before you can submit to Google you will need to collate all your copyrighted materials and then also collate a list of URLs infringing your copyright. The process is fairly straightforward but time consuming. As a content creator with copyrighted content  on Amazon, Udemy, the App Store and Google Play Store I have perhaps not made copyright infringement a high enough priority. However, I released another online course recently and this prompted me to look at the matter again. In a forum someone recommended a new tool to me. This tool is called Blasty. The main benefit of Blasty is that you can get your copyrighted materials removed from offending websites much more quickly. Please note this is not a sponsored post. I am happy to feature Blasty on our blog because the tool has saved  me time and will save you time too plus it is free to use in its current Beta phase.

Here is the Blasty explanation video. The product is curently in its Beta phase.

This is a screenshot of me logged into Blasty. In the screen shot below you can see Google search results for some of my copyrighted materials. Most of the results appear legitimate except for the last result which is a site offering an illegal download of my latest course for free. After taking the screenshot I clicked on ‘Blast’ and this started the quick process of contacting Google who then instruct to remove the content infringing my copyright. It is a very quick process.

After I have initiated any ‘Blasts’ against pirate website my Blasty dashboard is clear as you can see from the screenshot below. However, one feature that I really appreciate is that Blasty proactively searches for other potential copyright infringements. Look to the top right hand corner of the screenshot below and you can see that Blasty has identified a further 31 websites with potential copyright infringements. I need to review those and blast if necessary.

If you did not want to use Blasty there is another website here that offers both Done-For-You and Do-It-Yourself  DMCA Take Down services. My recommendation is that you give Blasty a try. I hope you find this information useful.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

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Best wishes,

Mike Pitt

Founder & CEO

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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This is blog post number 336.

* Source for $59 billion figure – www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/

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If you haven’t established a trade mark for your company name, logo and strapline you are taking a huge risk because a competitor could literally take your name and force you to start all over again. Think this sounds a little dramatic? Well, consider this list of 10 things you should know about trademark registration in UK, below and think again.

Trademark Registration in UK for Business – 10 Things you should know

1. If you run a business without a registered trade mark your competitors could register the trade mark and force you to rebrand or they could trade under a similar name and leverage your good will or damage the reputation you have established.

2. The fact that you have your name registered at Companies House (UK Companies) or that you own your URL is no protection at all.

3. The fact that you have been trading longer than the new competitor holds no legal sway either – if they have the trade mark it will be you who has to rebrand.

4. A trade mark should not be confused with copyright which the Intellectual Property Office defines as ‘ Copyright is an automatic right which applies when the work is fixed, that is written or recorded in some way.’

5. With a trade mark you can deter people from using your trade mark without your permission.

6. Take legal action against anyone using your trade mark without permission and enable the authorities to bring criminal charges against counterfeiters.

7. You could establish a trade mark for your business for as little as two hundred pounds but the actual cost will depend on how many classes (categories) you wish to be registered in.

There is detailed pricing information on the IPO website here:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-formsfees.htm

8. For most applications the process of establishing a trade mark in the UK takes a period of up to 3 months.

9. In addition to a UK trade mark there is also a EU Community (TM) and an International Trade Mark. You can apply for both via the Intellectual Property Office once you have a UK trade mark established. More info on these options here:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/applymadrid.pdf

10. A trade mark can become very valuable as your business grows and if you were to ever sell your business the value will be increased if you own the trade mark.

Hopefully this post will have moved establishing a trade mark off the ‘nice to have’ list and onto your ‘to do’ list. We believe it is an essential step to take when you are planning for business growth.

We hope you find this information useful.We are a leading Marketing Agency in London.

Kind regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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