SharpShark + Startups Chilenas: How we resolved a copyright violation case

Client

An independent media outlet for startups and technology, based in Chile. They make money from media partnerships, so organic traffic is very important to them.

What happened

The publications publish original content based on interviews [link]. A few days later a copy of the article was found on such a site and such. The violation was detected by backlinks.

What we did

We applied the SharpShark dispute resolution process: a warning was sent to both websites.

Aggravating circumstances

One website that copied the content is affiliated with government agencies and the other with a university.

Why this is happening

The people who handle the content in these institutions do not always have a specialized education or knowledge of copyright, especially in contemporary law.

The offenders responded, “We don’t make money off your content, because we’re a non-profit organization, so we can publish whatever we want.” This is a gross error because the required amount of citation is not met.

Result

The content was removed and the publication received an apology. The incident did not happen again.

Memo: How to use a third party’s content

1) Always ask permission to publish from any source.

2) Publish part of the text and cite the original source for the rest.

3) If you want to use the whole work, pay the author to use it.

4) Don’t assume that no one will notice reprinted content.