Someone Stole My Content Without Permission, Now What? How to battle copyright infringement thieves

Hi, I'm Brittany Ratelle, an attorney for online business owners, and today we're going to be talking about what to do if someone steals your content and maybe posts it on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or any other social media platform. And what can I do about this? What are my options? What should be my battle plan for moving forward and making sure that you can protect your hard-earned content, product, messaging, art, or otherwise amazing work that you've put time and energy into creating? Now, to start off, a little disclaimer, because what kind of where would I be without a disclaimer? While I'm a licensed attorney, I'm not your attorney. This is not official legal advice. If you have any questions, make sure you talk to an attorney licensed to practice in your relevant jurisdiction. Let's get into it. Now, the first thing I want to do to preface this discussion is that I'm sorry that this has happened to you because it is a huge bummer. I understand as a content creator myself, it can feel like a huge sucker punch to be out there putting time and effort into creating, drafting, recording, editing, and then to have someone come along and co-op and steal some of that work. It didn't feel good in grade school. It certainly doesn't feel good now as a business owner who's trying to help deliver good value into the world, create original works and art and content, and then for someone to have not only plagiarized but downright infringed upon that content. So I'm sorry that this is happening to you. I want to say that the first step, however, of my proven process for helping hundreds of business owners through this exact same scenario is we're going to pause. Okay, step 1, take a deep breath in. Let it out. Unfortunately, in our digital age, getting copied is a rite of passage. It's likely not a matter of if, but when this is going to happen to you and your content. The odds are stacked against you. That's the nature of the digital economy. And that's not to say that we need to be totally blasé about it and that there's nothing we can do. We're gonna talk about our options, but I do wanna make sure that we're putting this in proper context. The bottom line is that if you weren't making cool stuff, people wouldn't be copying of you. And I'm not saying you have to be downright flattered. Although it was Oscar Wilde who did say, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." However, the second part of that quote is really important. "If any imitation is going to happen, let the mediocre imitate you." If someone has imitated you, I'm not saying you need to be flattered, but we also don't need to give more energy and drama to this than it needs to. The last thing we want is for someone to not only take our content from us, but take our peace of mind, to take our relationships of trust, and worst of all, to keep us from moving forward and putting good things out into the world. World and helping people. If you let that happen, you have really let the thieves win. Let's remember, there's a whole spectrum of options of what we can do when you've been copied or ripped off, and we want to make sure that we're not giving people power over us. Let us stay in that driver's seat. So we're going to take a pause and we're going to weigh our options. That brings us to step 2: decide what you want to do. This is a really important point because I find a lot of people get a very emotional reaction when they get ripped off, when they get copycatted, when they see a competitor stealing their posts or captions, or even people downright using your photography, your videography, questionnaires, things from your course. I could go on and on. I've seen it all, and I'm sure I will keep on seeing it all. I want you to take the exercise and even write down and get it out of your head a little bit of what do you want to happen? Do you want the content to be taken down? That's one option. Do you want credit? Do you just want someone to tag you or put a watermark up? Do you want a business relationship? Do you want to work together? Like, shoot, this is someone that you would have loved for this to happen legitimately. They just didn't ask. You were surprised by it. And so we want to be careful how we proceed. We don't want to burn any bridges here. We don't want to come in with a really emotional reaction instead of responding calmly from our best and highest self. Do we want money? Do you think you lost sales over it? Do you just want money to get them to take you seriously? Do you want money because they should have known better and people usually don't change until they have to pay a fine, right? Do you want a licensing fee? Again, do you want that ongoing relationship because you're an artist and someone took your surface pattern design and you would have been happy to work with this company and for them to use your design, but they didn't do that, so you want your 10%, right? Of those things, those options you want should determine what your next steps will be. And you really want to hone in on what you want because that will allow you to be able to think clearly of what are your options. Notice that none of these options suggest go online and vent to the world and turn that flamethrower on. Okay, I know that can feel cathartic and it can feel like, oh, you have messed with the wrong person, you're immediately going to go live and do a tell-all. There may be a time and a place for that. For you to go public, for you to use your audience or your community, even to just raise awareness about this is happening. However, I want that to be done from a place of abundance, from your best and highest self, and not from anger, not from revenge, because I think that's allowing more negativity into your life, into your energy, into your business than likely you want. We don't want someone who steals your content to steal your peace as well. So We got step 1, pause. Step 2, decide what you want to do. Step 3, we're going to document. We are going to do lots of screenshotting. Your desktop is probably going to be easier because it's going to get higher resolution pictures. But if you found one thing that they took, there could be more where that came from. Dig into the person's social media, into their website. There are tools you can use, the Adobe Acrobat full version if you have that paid version, and you can actually copy an entire website. And so that's a way that you can just have that and keep it in your files if you need to for whatever those purposes So you want to document, screenshot, see if there's anything else that they've also been taking from you. See the extent of the damage in terms of how much has been copied, how long has it been going on. Those are all really important facts that can help you determine what your next plan of attack should be. On to step number 4, we're going to reach out. It's time to talk to the copycat, to the ripoff, and note that there are at least 2 categories of people that could be hurting you and taking your content. One is people who are innocently ignorant is what I call them. They just didn't know any better. They thought it was okay to take this. They thought it was okay to screenshot it because it's International Women's Day and you have a cool graphic that you designed about it, and they thought that was great because like sharing is caring, right? They just didn't know. There are people who are innocently ignorant of the way media works, the way copyright infringement and trademark infringement works, and this could be a learning opportunity. So we want to watch how we're coming in hot because then there's also our threatening thieves, and these are people who they certainly know better and they should do better and they're not. And this is when you walk into Target Target and you see your artwork on a pillow. True story from a client that I worked with. It would be great to have their stuff in Target. They didn't have a deal with Target. It's also a good reminder here that especially with big companies, your Amazons and your Anthropologies and your Targets and your HomeGoods, At Home, the way those companies work is these people have buyers and they buy from wholesalers in their departments. It's very rare that they're designing their own goods, even things that are like in-house brands. It's just a good reminder that there could be several steps away in that process in terms of whose actual decision was it to take your stuff and to copycat it. And to give grace that the people you might be reaching out to and having beef with had no idea that was happening. And this is part of the long supply chain that can happen, especially with consumer retail. Just something to keep in mind, okay? It doesn't excuse their behavior, but it's good to have a reminder about how does this actually happen. So we're going to reach out to our copycat infringer. Ideally, you can cite your own terms, right? If you have a copyright statement on your website, if you are using a watermark, if you have a copyright claim statement, these are all really resources and tools that can help us make sure we're setting up really clear boundaries around what you've created and now what is being used and stolen by someone else. These things aren't required to protect your brands. You have some rights just by creating things, okay? When they come out of your head and when they come into something, whether it's on paper or it's digital, you get some rights as a creator. But to enforce those rights, you have way more options if you have registered your copyright. And I go into detail in some other videos that I have about intellectual property tools. And if you want more information about how you can register your own copyright, stay tuned because I have a new tutorial coming out that's going to walk you step by step through that process. So reach out to this person. I recommend that you do it privately at first. Again, give them an opportunity to make things right. Don't come in too hot. We're here to collect information and also to be clear about what our expectations are of how we're going to resolve this. Again, sometimes people are clueless, not malicious. Step 5, our next step. If you reach out and they stonewall you, if there's silence or they're like, no, that's completely ridiculous. We're not taking anything down. We're not giving you any money. Step 5 is I want you to do a DMCA takedown. DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it is a piece of internet law that protects you as a creator and also protects websites. And what it says is that websites have a responsibility to be good stewards of the information on their website. And if they have reason to believe, i.e., someone emailed them or filled out an online form that says, you are hosting and distributing information on your website that does not belong to the person, that belongs to me, I'd like you to take it down. Now the ball The ball is in their court for them to take it down, otherwise they could be liable. For larger websites, there's going to be a set procedure. Usually you'll find it in their footer, or if you don't see it in their footer, go look in their terms and they will likely either have a link or an email address of who they want to reach out to and request a DMCA. Again, for big sites that handle thousands of DMCA takedowns every day, they have a set form and they're going to want you to fill out the form and then upload any substantiation, any evidence that you have. And that's where all those screenshots and those certificates that we talked about in step 3 going to be so helpful. So fill that out. Note that if you do a DMCA takedown and you don't hear anything, it's crickets, and it's been 1, 2 weeks, you could also try reaching out to their actual legal department. With some platforms, when we've done DMCA takedowns and I feel like it's falling on deaf ears, we're not getting through their queue fast enough, and it's timely and it's a big deal to my client, I go ahead and I move forward and actually reach out to their legal department. You can usually find that information again in the website terms. That's a little is find out what their email is and copy and paste what you put in that web form for the DMCA, put it in an email, attention urgent legal, DMCA takedown, and explain why you have really good reason to believe why they're being party to copyright infringement, and you will get service a lot faster and get people to take you more seriously. That brings us to step 6. If all of that hasn't worked, hasn't really helped get you what you wanted, or if you want something else, you don't want it just taken down, but you'd also like some money or that business relationship Step 6 is to send a cease and desist, or as intellectual properties call it, a cheese and desist, because that's nacho IP. I know, it's terrible. And these cease and desists can err on the side of being funny and actually helping you get a little PR. There were some really great cease and desists actually that have been shared publicly. There was a really great one from a couple years ago where Netflix found out about a Stranger Things theme bar that was open and they copied a lot of stuff and used a lot of the material and they sent a cease and desist and they referenced, don't let us sick the Demogorgon on you. And it was really tongue-in-cheek. I'm sure their lawyers had a fun time writing that and drafting that, but it also was like, hey, you can do a run for like the next couple of weeks and then you need to shut it down. So there is a way that you can maintain your boundaries, maintain your standards, make sure that people are very clear what information and products and offerings and content belongs to you and what's not. You don't want your audience confused of, oh, I thought this was work because it looked like yours, but then I bought it and the quality was really crappy, or I bought it on Amazon and the product was total crap. Depending on what the issue is, just imagine that this cease and desist is posted publicly. So write it in a way that you, that you are okay with that. And that can err on the side from being funny to just firm and civil and neutral to scary, sicking the dogs on you, hiring your best junkyard attorney to make it sound really scary and intense. I don't usually recommend that coming out of the gate. I'd like to save save that for later. But that is an option you can have. If you need help drafting a cease and desist, I sell a template kit on my website, my online shop Creative Contracts. And so go take a look over there if you want to know what exactly is a cease and desist supposed to look like and what should I be asking for. Note that ones from law firms tend to be taken more seriously. Sorry, occupational hazard. So if you send a cease and desist and again doesn't seem like it's getting taken seriously, no one's responding to you, your next step may be to work with an attorney to draft one, and then that way it might get a little bit more traction. People tend to see a real law firm on the other side, actually send it to legal and start deciding, okay, what are we going to do about this? They got us, or something we need to take seriously. Step number 7, if they have done nothing, if all of the other steps have fallen really on deaf ears and you've given them opportunities to make it right, to do what you wanted, to work together, you tried reaching out and getting them to stop or working with you or signing the licensing contract. I sell one of those in my shop too, if you actually want to make money and be like, hey, this looked like this was maybe just an error in your sourcing or supply my chain, and let's make this right. Let's sign a licensing contract, and you can pay me back for all those products that looks like you were selling with my cool stuff on it. If none of that has worked, then your options are now to take official legal action. From least expensive to most expensive, small claims would be the least expensive, and this includes a brand new option called the Copyright Claims Board. And this is a brand new online-only small claims court for copyright infringement. It's very exciting. It only came out in this last year through the CASE Act. If you have a case where it's really clear that someone took something of yours that you know has the money to make it right and to fix it, please reach out to me on Instagram. I'm @BrittanyRatelle, or through email. You can find all my links in the show notes. But I would love to help you through this because I'm really excited about this court's ability to even the playing field because normally infringement lawsuits are very expensive, which makes it really cost prohibitive for smaller creators to get the coverage that they need to from people. So there's small claims, then there's things like mediation and arbitration, which are going to be cheaper, faster. Those can be virtual or in person. And then And the last step is litigation. And this is filing a lawsuit, which they rarely ever go actually to trial, but it could potentially. And no matter how many episodes of Law and Order you've seen, you are probably not emotionally prepared for the time and the expense that real litigation is. Intellectual property litigation can be very expensive. We're talking tens of thousands of dollars spent in an instant just to get the ball going, let alone if you actually have to take a case to trial. And here's a really important note. You are actually not allowed to start an infringement proceeding in the US without a copyright registration in hand. Unless if you're participating in that Copyright Claims Board, it's okay if you've just submitted your work to be registered at the Copyright Office. If you haven't gotten the registration certificate back yet, but it's pending, that's okay. But with any other steps, if you plan on filing a lawsuit and getting things like statutory damages or attorney's fees, you cannot do that until you've actually filed your registration certificate. This is another reason why it's really important that as a content creator, as an online business owner, if you are creating amazing work, make sure you are protecting that work with a copyright registration. If you haven't done that for your work, make sure you're using the resources in the show notes here to move forward. Get that stuff protected so that you have all the tools available in your toolkit to go after someone when they are being shady or sus, as my kids would say, and they're copycatting your content and your work. All of that to say, please be careful out there making sure that you are not this person on the other side. Karma is real. Don't steal. Don't be the person that's doing this to someone else. If you want more information on how to protect your work and make sure that you're putting up good boundaries around your offerings that you might be creating, make sure that you are watching our other videos. Make sure that you're liking and subscribing here so that you can get all the best information and free tools— free— to help you and your growing online business. I'm attorney Brittany Ratelle. Thanks so much for joining me today so I can be here to help you be more confident and own your business in every sense of the word.