Copyright of Article

N

Newby

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Hi All,

I was wondering if anybody knew about copyright law in Ireland. I would like to describe it by way of a hypothetical situation.

Say a company wrote an article and posted it on their website which contains information, some of which is in the public domain, some of which isn't and further comments that are based on the experience of the company. There was no copyright logo on the document even though it is only available on their website.

Another company publishes the same article (even with the same one or two minor errors that was in the first companies document) and have posted it on their website and also have put their own copyright logo on the bottom.

Would the first company have any case against the second company. How would the first company go about ensuring that any further articles are copyrighted? Is it simply a matter of puttting (c) at the bottom of the article or does a submission of the document to a copyright office have to be done??

Obviously legal opinion should be sought but does anyone have any experience?

Thanks
 
www.copyscape.com will give you an idea of what to do.
In short the best way to approach this is via the website host-check on dnsstuff.com

If US based google for DMCA notice and send to Host.

Put a copyright notice as a footer on all pages
 
Yes, the first company would have a case.

Copyright is granted automatically. e.g. If you have a 3 year old kid scribbling on jotter, that scribble is automatically protected by copyright for the life of the child + 70 years.

There is no need for anything like "This is copyright" etc and no steps are necessary.
One of the only criteria is that the material is original - so that the first company cannot obtain copyright on the material in the Public Domain.


No legal opinion is needed regarding obtaining copyright - though you may wish to obtain legal opinion regarding enforcing your rights.
 
Thanks for your responses.

One other point i'd like to ask was regarding the originality of the information. If the information is partly public and partly private opinion is it under your copyright?

Do you need to reference the source of the publically available info?

Sorry but am a bit new to all this.
 
It's the article, i.e. the specific set of words you have used, that is under your copyright. Whether or not the information was public before, the article is yours.

If someone writes their own article using the same information then they haven't breached your copyright. However if they lift your article word for word and present it as their own work, they have.
 
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