copy paste
In February 2023, a socialbites.ca correspondent of the Technology department in the vastness of Telegram discovered a seemingly not extraordinary channel with more than 50,000 subscribers. While scrolling through the feed, she noticed a familiar syllable, recognizable pictures, and informative reasons.
After “Google search” the text from the post of the unfortunate Telegram channel, it turned out that this is a word-for-word copy from the socialbites.ca website. After a few hours of work we managed to get to the first “stolen” material – this material is from February 2022.
It turns out that the authors of the channel, from the very beginning of its creation, took ready-made material from other sources, without making any changes to the original text, but without specifying the source. In some cases, images and photographs whose rights belong exclusively to certain publications have been used.
There was a link to a person marked “Communication and advertising” in the channel’s header. After a short conversation with a request to cite the source, the authors of the channel stopped receiving material from socialbites.ca and turned their attention to other sources (they were also encountering publications from other media before).
So, the authors of this Telegram channel use materials from Lenta.Ru, Tekhkult, IT-World, Overclockers and many other portals. The experience of communicating with the correspondent of “socialbites.ca” did not teach dishonest authors anything – they still do not cite the source, citing the material they wrote. In the modern world, the authors of Telegram channels often attribute themselves to journalists rather than bloggers, but in the journalistic environment such behavior is considered unethical and unprofessional.
“Media copyright infringement
As the lawyer Ilya Lvov explained in an interview with socialbites.ca, the exclusive right to the created materials (i.e. the right to use and dispose of works, news, articles, as well as to allow or prohibit other people from using the works) by employees of the relevant media, the media creator belongs to the company.
“Copyright, that is, the rights of the author is a slightly different concept. The exclusive right initially belongs to the journalist who is the author-creator of the work, but as per the contract concluded with the publication, the exclusive right passes from the owner of the work to the company so that it can be used in its own source. common sense, ”Lvov noted.
According to him, in most cases, the unauthorized use of media materials is illegal because it usually requires the permission of the copyright holder, except where the copyright holder allows the work to be used without permission and a contract. For example, such a permit is required in the case of socialbites.ca.
“If such situations are detected, various measures can be taken, depending on the criticality of the situation, from blocking the relevant resource to obtaining compensation from the violator if possible,” Lvov said.
Content copyright infringement
Articles and news published by network users, such as bloggers, are copyrighted because they feature their own work. Copyright in the Russian Federation is protected by law and regulated by the Civil Code, Article 1255 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. This was expressed by the founder of the law firm GAP Irina Gukova in an interview with socialbites.ca.
“Liability for copyright infringement is stipulated in Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It will be taken into account if it is proven that copyright has been infringed, for example the text has been copied. In this case, you can contact the author with a pre-trial order and request the removal of the content. If this is related to Telegram channel, you can contact the management of the messenger to remove the information that violates your copyright. If your rights are not reinstated as part of the pre-trial settlement, you can go to court and seek reinstatement,” says Gukova.
Daria Petrova, PhD, a specialist in contract law and litigation, in an interview with socialbites.ca stated that the literal reproduction of other people’s articles and publications is a violation of the intellectual rights of the authors of the materials. It provides for civil, administrative and criminal liability.
“The peculiarity of administrative and criminal liability is that it is a liability to the state – justice can be restored in this way, but compensation for damage to the author due to violation will be possible only within the framework of civil liability,” Petrova noted.
In his opinion, legal liability is aimed at protecting the violated rights of the author of the article. As part of the civil action, the violator in favor of the author can recover the damage caused or compensation up to 5 million rubles. The only condition is that the amount of compensation must be proved and the court will already determine the amount of compensation.
As Petrova admits, the hardest part about protecting your copyright is proving it.
“To bring the violator to any liability, you must prove the authorship of the content. Since the copyright is born for the owner of the work at the time the work is created and is not subject to any registry, it can be very difficult to prove the ownership of the work in practice. Also, changing some words, phrases, paragraphs in the article may lead the court not to characterize someone else’s material as violating the rights of the author, but instead to consider it as a new independent work, ”says the expert.
How to deal with content theft?
Vitaly Revizonsky, head of the Business.Ru patent bureau, says that before going to court it is necessary to fix the fact of theft of materials.
“For this, there is a procedure for the inspection of the place fixed by the notary public and where the inspection protocol is certified by him. After correcting the fact, it is necessary to prepare a pre-trial request, the requirements of which must be answered within 30 days, and send it to the address of the violator. This procedure is mandatory, as it determines the passage of the pre-trial settlement procedure before making a claim, ”the expert said.
Ruslan Budnik, Deputy Director of the International Center for Research and Education “UNESCO Director of Copyright, Related, Cultural and Information Rights” NRU HSE recommends involving an experienced expert in cases of copyright infringement in the event of such issues. will assess the situation in terms of damage costs and the extent of potential gains, and on this basis will present the best strategy for protecting rights. Additionally, as Budnik points out, unauthorized use of content is not always a crime.
There is no “content” in the legislation. It is a crime to use only copyrighted content, or more precisely, copyright objects – works of literature, science or art – without the permission of the author or other copyright holder, for example, a publisher, ”he said.
For him, the object of copyright is the objectively expressed result of creative work. If controversial material, for example an article, meets these criteria, its use is possible only with the permission of the author or copyright holder.
Budnik believes that “If a protected work is used ‘word for word’ without the permission of the copyright holder, that fact is definitely a copyright infringement.”
Is it possible to earn money by working?
As socialbites.ca is known, the authors of the above-mentioned Telegram channel run it for the purpose of making money – there is at least one case of selling verified advertising.
So, anyone who wants to use other people’s material, publish it, develop their own channel and monetize it in the future, can they actually make money just by copying the content?
No, as the experts interviewed by socialbites.ca explained. If you want to run a news channel on Telegram, you should use rewriting skills and make sure to indicate the source of the news.