August 3rd, 2009 at 12:35pm
Under copyright act
Search Engines and Duplicate Content
Plagiarism, which is nothing but copied content, produces duplicate content between two websites. It is well known that search engines are adverse to duplicate or identical content and that page rankings can suffer because of plagiarism. Google has guidelines against plagiarism and warns website owners against creating multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content, as stated in its Webmaster Guidelines. Having even a substantially duplicate content, much more a totally duplicate website, will penalize a websites’ page rank.
In addition to having the page rank penalized, the website containing plagiarized work or duplicate content can even be affected so much so that it won’t even make it to the search results listing. This happens because web crawlers, in an effort to be more efficient, do not crawl duplicate and near-duplicate sites that they have determined in their previous crawl. Because of this, duplicate sites do not even get indexed by the web crawlers, and so are not listed in the results page. In Google, mirrored sites are delegated to the link at the bottom of the results page which says “Similar Results have been omitted…”
Higher Ranking for Plagiarists’ Websites
The problem, however, lies when search engines instead of penalizing plagiarists end up penalizing the website that actually wrote the original content. Website owners of original content oftentimes find that websites who have copied their content are given a better page rank by search engines.
Why Plagiarists Get a Higher Page Rank
This problem of being ranked lower than plagiarists’ site happens mainly since Google and other search engines algorithms are unable to distinguish between the original and the duplicate or copied content in their index. Although it is true that search engines in general are adverse to identical content, since there is currently no way for the search engines to know which content is original, website owners of the original content oftentimes find that their site actually gets a lower ranking than a plagiarists’ site. Hence website owners of original content are the one that sometimes get penalized for plagiarism.
Also, plagiarists, who are driven by profit use other SEO techniques that drive their page rank much higher. Hence, website owners with original content but without very good optimization techniques often find themselves ranked lower than content “borrowers”. This is of course a serious issue for website owners, especially business websites whose revenue gets affected by the lower page rank.
One way that search engines address the issue of duplicate content is by assigning priority for the content of the website that was indexed first. By rule of seniority, the first site that posts the content should be the site that contains the original content. This works most of the time but breaks down when plagiarists copy the content quite fast so that crawlers sometimes do index the copied site before the original one. When this happens the site with the copied content gets priority over that of the original content. To avoid this, some website owners use the Sitemaps system to submit their articles or other fresh content to Google. This ensures that the submitted content will be known to Google as the original and not the copy.
Fighting Plagiarism and its Effect on Your Page Rank
Plagiarism has been an issue long before the World Wide Web was created. The creation of the Internet has made it easier and more lucrative for plagiarists to copy content and pass it off as their own without any regard to copyright laws. As mentioned earlier it is a serious threat to business owners and at the very least is a source of irritation to bloggers whose posts or articles oftentimes get ripped off. Because of this, while most companies do their best to fight plagiarists many individuals find themselves losing heart. The fight against plagiarism seems to be a losing battle, especially to those who have no idea in countering plagiarism.
The first thing website owners can do is to find out in the first place if their site has been plagiarized. A good way to do this is by using Copyscape. Copyscape lets website owners enter their web pages’ URL and then proceeds to scan other websites and notify the user for very close matches in content. Using the standard Google search also works. Simply copy a short paragraph from your webpage and paste it in Google’s search box to come up with all the other websites that contain the same or similar information.
In case your content has been copied the next best step to take is to make a copy of the copied page(s) and then send an email to the website requesting them to remove the copied material or at least for a back link and proper crediting of the work, depending on your objective. In case the website owner or administrator doesn’t reply at all or in a favorable manner, the next step to take is to contact the web hosting company they are using. Inform them that the site that they are currently hosting is infringing copyright and that they have a responsibility legally to regulate such sites. This could lead them to pressure the site to remove the copied content. However, this tack doesn’t always work. When this happens it is time to take a more legal action and contact your lawyer. According to an advice given by Roy Sumatra, in case your web page rank is affected by the copied website do contact the search engines wherein your page rank is affected. Google is aggressive and serious in dealing with infringement issues and has guidelines for dealing with infringement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
For those who want to prevent the hassle of being penalized as the copier of your own original content, as mentioned earlier, it is best to submit your content to through the Sitemaps system. By using the system, the content is submitted directly to Google and indexed by them automatically so that the content will be known as the original one and be given priority in case of plagiarism.
By Copyright Law
August 1st, 2009 at 06:42pm
Under trademark law
Your web site is located by an IP (Internet Protocol) address. Instead of typing a series of numbers which are difficult to remember, you can register an easier to remember domain name which becomes associated with your IP address. Visitors typing an easy to remember domain name will be pointed to your IP address. Similar to a 1-800 vanity phone number, some domain names pertain to the subject of the web site, while others may simply be the name or an abbreviation of your firm.
My blog, which is instantly obvious that it is a blog concerning lawyer advertising. When you type that domain into the address bar of your browser, the domain servers on the Internet know that you’re looking for 67.15.4.94 and take you there.
You can have multiple domain pointing to the same web site. For instance, I also registered LawyerAdvertisingBlog (without hyphens) which is used for branding because people never type hyphens. Because some people may remember the name incorrectly, I also registered many other domains, all of which will bring the visitors.
Tips to help you pick a domain.
1) Choosing. Choosing a domain is a lot like choosing a name for your company or law firm. Ideally the name should be consistent with your branding. Determine whether you are branding the name of your company, product or service. Your domain should be good for branding – short, easy to remember, and has a ring to it or creates an image in the mind of the consumer.
2) Trademark. Before registering your domain, be sure to check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make sure that the name has not been trademarked. click on Search under Trademarks. Assuming that your choice has not been trademarked and you have now registered a non-generic domain, you may want to protect your name by filing a Trademark or Service mark application.
3) Ownership. When you register a web site name, make sure that you are the registrant of your web name. Some web site design firms will register your domain name with their name as the registrant. This will give them ownership of your name keeping you hostage.
4) Hyphens. There have been misunderstandings about whether to use hyphens in a web name. First of all, the domain name you give out to the public must not have hyphens. The web name without hyphens is the web name that everyone will type in the address bar of their Internet browser.
The reason that some people say that you should have a web name with hyphens is to force the search engines to see keywords in your web name so that your web site does better in search engine results. The bigger search engines can now see individual words without hyphens, however, smaller search engines may not and even the bigger ones may see a word differently than you want.
5) Extensions. Domain names are available with various extensions. If it’s really important to you, you can register domain names in several extensions, however, for most firms only the extension is important. If you feel that you need to use org, you should also register your name in the com extension.
The com extension is similar to 1-800 for telephone numbers. Most people automatically dial 1-800 even when they see 1-888. Likewise, Additionally, many people including myself simply type in the domain name without.
6) Top Level Domain vs. Sub-Level Domains. A sub level domain is a second level domain under a first level domain name. You must have your own domain name. Do not under any circumstances use a free hosting service, since free hosting services will only give you a sub level domain. No one will ever remember it and it’s sort of like handwriting your own letterhead.
7) Ethics for Law Firm Domain Names. A website name should be used as an address, not a trade name which is prohibited. Advertise your web site name as an address, a means for people to find your web site, not a trade name. Like a vanity telephone number, some web site domain names can violate legal ethics. Make sure that your web site name avoids use of certain words which could create a potentially incorrect expectation in the mind of the consumer or violate one of the other ethics rules.
Your domain name should not imply that you are better than another lawyer or that you can accomplish something that may not actually occur. Use of words such as ‘BEST’, ‘TOP’, ‘FOREMOST, ‘LEADING’, ‘WIN and similar words in a web site domain name could create a misleading expectation in the mind of the consumer and will violate ethics rules in most states.
Laura Hodes in her article for the ABA Journal entitled Vanity Phone Numbers Make Your Firm Less Forgettable, quoted Will Hornsby, an expert on lawyer advertising and staff counsel in the ABA Division for Legal Services, who said that while there is nothing unethical about vanity numbers, ‘1-800-I-WIN-CASES’ would be unethical because it is making an unsubstantiated claim, creating unjustified expectations that can be true but still be misleading. The same can be said about domain names.
Advertising Your Domain Name. Be sure to include your domain name on your business cards, letterhead, and all advertising. When advertising in off-line media, When advertising in off-line media, always advertise a domain name without hyphens.
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By Copyright Law
July 30th, 2009 at 06:41am
Under copyright law
The minute you upload something online you become a publisher. As an online publisher it is your responsibility to know a little bit about copyright law. This book is not a legal guide however here are some of the basic things that you need to know about blogging on the Internet.
First of all if you are going to copy someone else’s material you must ask permission first. This means contacting the author or the publisher and asking them for reprint rights. However sometimes the availability rights are printed right on the article along with information that you must credit to the author. This could include the date of original publication, where it was first published or the name of the publisher if it is from a book. Some articles may not be quoted or reprinted from unless you also provide a link to the URL of the author’s choice.
Crediting an article to its rightful source is called attribution. You must always attribute the work of others and you must do it every time you quote from the article. This is true of direct quotes and paraphrasing. You can’t condense someone else’s writing and then assume that the readers will know that it belongs to ideas that are quoted earlier on in the article. That is called plagiarism.
Another important copyright issue is “fair use.” This is a legally defined terms that allows U.S. citizens to copy and distribute the work of others as long as they adhere to certain legal terms. For instance, in the United States bloggers are allowed to quote sentences and short passages as long as the quote is credited to the author.
However giving credit is sometimes not enough and length may have a great deal to do with what you can replicate on the web. For instance you cannot copy and distribute your favorite piece of music through a web blog. Also laws vary from country to country. Don’t fall for the common myth that it is somehow all right to copy material by writers from other countries just because it is the Internet.
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By Copyright Law
July 17th, 2009 at 06:42pm
Under copyright protection
Short Copyright Facts
The owner of a copyright has the exclusive right:
to copy the work
to modify the work
to distribute the work
to perform the work publicly
to display the work publicly
Copyright is important when you obtain content for your site, and in the protection of your content. Copyrightable works are usually on the form of text, image, music, etc. Facts, titles, recipes, form designs, alphabetical lists and other items do not have the required “originality” to merit copyright protection.
One of the misconceptions about copyright protection is that you have to register your work to gain legal protection. If you do protect your original works, you are more likely to win attorneys’ fees and, sometimes, higher damages.
The term “Public Domain” does not mean that everything in public or on the Internet is free from copyright protection. It refers to items that either do not qualify for copyright protection, or for which the protection has expired. The default you should assume for other people’s works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise.
The correct form for a notice on your web site is:
“Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]”
You can use C in a circle © instead of “Copyright” but “(C)” has never been given legal force. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” used to be required in some nations but is now not legally needed most places.
Even if you don’t charge anyone for a product that contains copyrighted materials, you are still violating the law. An example of such an unlawful act would be when Napster enabled widescale download of copyrighted music.
One exception would be fair use. Copyright law does not block your freedom to express your own works. For example, you may be reviewing an article from a news paper’s web site that requires you to reproduce some of the work on your site is not the same as simply copying the work to your site so you don’t have to create your own work. Of course, that does not mean that you can start posting articles from other web sites and pretend you are reviewing them, but you are simply stealing content to cut corners.
One of the key to the fair use doctrine is that you can not diminish the value of the original work. Copying just 300 words from Gerald Ford’s 200,000 word memoir for a magazine article was ruled as not fair use, in spite of it being very newsworthy, because it was the most important 300 words – why he pardoned Nixon.
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By Copyright Law
July 13th, 2009 at 12:42pm
Under trademark law
Corporations may enjoy certain tax advantages. Due to the complexities involved, you should consult an experienced CPA or tax attorney for details. The corporation can adopt a pension or profit-sharing plan for the benefit of the employees. If certain requirements are met, contributions of cash or other property by a corporation to such a plan will be deductible by the corporation for federal income tax purposes.
The corporation pays income tax on the profits that were not distributed to the shareholders as salary or in some other form deductible by the corporation for federal income tax purposes. The shareholders are required to pay a tax on dividends.
A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, which identifies and distinguishes the source of particular goods. By and large, a mark for goods appears on the product or its packaging. A “tm” on a product indicates unregistered trademark rights, and an “®” indicates a registered trademark. It is unlawful to place an “®” on a mark that does not have national registration.
As your domain name can become a highly valuable business asset, you should think in terms of trademark registration. Don’t worry about registering your trademark in the very beginning if you are pressed for funds, but take action once you have more revenue available.
One of the most important facts to consider is to avoid using a name that has been trademarked by another business. If you build your brand, even if you have done it unknowingly, around a trademarked name, you could be sued and held liable. Before you register a domain name, go to www.usptodotgov and run a trademark search for the names you’re considering. If you don’t find a match that doesn’t guarantee that your desired trademark is not protected. The database you are searching is about 12 months behind. Doing your own research is worth it because it lowers your risk of violating trademark laws.
When trying to determine the ideal trademark for your business, keep in mind that the purpose of trademark law is to prevent consumer confusion about the source of goods or services. Ask yourself if a consumer would confuse your name with that of another product, service or company.
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By Copyright Law
July 11th, 2009 at 12:42am
Under trademark law
Adding on to the number of lawsuits involving search ads, 1-800-Contacts has recently filed a lawsuit in federal court against LensWorld for purchasing search links triggered by the term “1-800-contacts.” The company which has since brought up several other similar cases, says it’s trying to guard against confusion which might lead consumers into thinking there is an affiliation between 1-800-Contacts and these other companies.
1-800-Contacts, whose headquarters are resided in Draper, Utah, is among several other Utah lawsuits filed lately involving the use of trademarked terms in online advertising such as search ads. Last year, Utah passed a legislation that makes it illegal to use other companies’ trademarked terms to trigger ads, but this law has yet to take effect.
1-800-Contacts has lost a related case in 2005, when a federal appellate court ruled that the retailer’s competitors could legally serve pop-up ads to consumers who had typed “1800contacts” into their internet browsers.
In 2004, Google prevailed over insurance Giant Gecico after trial when a federal district court judge ruled that Geico hadn’t prove that consumers were confused when they were shown links to Geico’s competitors after typing “Gecio” into the search box.
Google also won a major case brought up by computer repair company, Rescuecom in 2006 when a federal district court dismissed the case before trial, ruling that competitors who triggered keyword ads with the term “Rescuecom” does not violate the trademark law. Currently a appeal has been made and this case is still pending.
Stakes are high as a final ruling against the defense in any keyword bidding lawsuit could potentially cause an impact on the entire search marketing field. Trademark infringement on search ads will not only affect the purchaser, but also those companies selling the ads such as Google and Yahoo!. “That would have a noticeable effect on the online advertising industry.” says Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law.
By Copyright Law