In the Internet age, you can’t be certain who is using your name–a valuable asset. While we work hard to build a quality brand, name recognition and reputation, there are some businesspeople who would like to “borrow” what we’ve built to help themselves.
An example is the use of a brand name in keywording. When a website owner creates his site, he puts specific keywords in the title and other meta tags to get higher search engine rankings. Using established brand names, they believe, will give them legitimacy. Perhaps, too, they think that their site will pop up when in fact online shoppers are looking for the more established brand.
The Easy On Hold (r) Trademark has shown up in text on Craigs List ads, Ebay Ads, Website title tags and even in a url. Currently, a music on hold company in Oklahoma is using a site they call “easy on hold updates”. Clearly, they’re attempting to pull some attention from those searching for Easy On Hold.
Borrowing Content
Believe it or not, several websites have been built using large chunks of copy directly from the Easy On Hold website. This type of plagiarism is common, as many sites are built by “off-shore” companies that crank out sites using content from the quickest, easiest source.
If your website was built by someone who does not work within your firm, or by someone who does not share your high standards and values, look into checking for duplicate content at other sites (then determine who borrowed from whom). Easy On Hold uses Copyscape.
When we enter our URL in the Copyscape engine, the search for plagiarized content begins. As for today’s results, we see that a chunk of our home page copy is in use by a company called Dynamic Media. The illustration here shows actual screen shots from Dynamic Media (top) and Easy On Hold (bottom). 
Content from the Easy On Hold site is also being used by a company called Premier Communications. In fact, it turns out that much of their FAQ came from Easy On Hold’s content. Much of it word for word. Funny, isn’t it, to see that on their site they have put the phrase “copyright 2010 Premier Communications”. Do you think this is stealing? Is it legal? Is there anything that can be done?
Corp Magazine Article
Authors Anna K. and Kevin J. Heinl have posted an interesting article about infringement.
Companies have an affirmative duty to police the Internet for infringement of their intellectual property Companies may want to establish or bolster existing monitoring methods in order to prevent their copyright-protected content or counterfeit trademarked goods from appearing on YouTube, eBay and other websites.
One angle they talk about is going after the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that hosts the infringing site.
Stopping Infringement of Valuable Copyrights and Trademarks on the Internet Intellectual property owners are required to provide more than “generalized notice” that their works are being infringed. The rights holder must provide the ISP with a specific website address that was valued to be “information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.” An ISP is only responsible for taking down postings if an intellectual property owner notifies the ISP that a specific posting infringes its copyright or trademark.
Another site, operated by Watts Group, Inc., is using the exact same wording as Premier Communications and Easy On Hold in their FAQ.
It’s frustrating to go through the pain and expense of testing copy and tweaking and then find that someone else is benefiting illegally. Obviously, we have acquired the services of a legal firm specializing in intellectual property rights to pursue the problem.
