How To Protect Your Business From Online Copycats
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Comments: Plagiarism is a huge problem for many businesses selling online. Despite the obvious implications such as losing profit to competitors, it can have disastrous effects on your online visibility and dilute your brand’s message.
Unfortunately for small businesses, protection laws can seem like a minefield. With so many legal routes and lots of confusing jargon, it’s difficult to know the best way to prevent it. In this article, I’ll show you the two most common types of legal protection, how they can help your ecommerce business, and share some tips and tricks for preventing copycats.
Key Takeaways🔍
- Legal protections stop your intellectual property (IP) from being plagiarized or misused. IP refers to anything unique your business has created, and includes anything from logos to product pictures.
- Some IP protections, such as copyrights, are automatically applied to your IP upon its creation, whereas others need to be manually applied for.
🚨This article provides a user-friendly breakdown of IP protection, and should not be taken as legal advice. If you are looking to take further action based on information in this piece, seek professional counsel beforehand.
Register Your Trademark
A trademark is the most important legal investment you should make for your business. It protects the IP that your brand is known for, or what differentiates it from other businesses – think logos, names, slogans, or jingles. It’s a good idea to register for one as soon as you know you’re serious about your business, since it prevents other businesses from stealing your ideas.
Once you’re confident in your trademark, you’ll need to apply for registration through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Secure Copyright Protection
While a trademark protects IP attached to your brand, a copyright protects original works you create. For an ecommerce business, this could include:
- Product images and descriptions
- Images
- Videos
- Blog copy
- Marketing material
Copyrights help you to distinguish your brand from others and stop your products being replicated. They last for your lifetime and another 70 years after, and are automatically applied once your product is out in the world. However, you’ll have to officially register for copyright protection to be able to take legal action against infringements.
Other Best Practices
While the legal route is the most effective way to protect the individuality of your business, there are plenty of other ways you can reduce the likelihood of online copying as well as the impact on your business if it does:
- Add watermarks – Place your logo, business name, or any other identifier of your business on all suitable digital content, such as infographics, product images, and ebooks. This will ensure that you’ll be recognized as the original source of the image, even if your content is used by third parties. Just be sure to place your watermark somewhere where it can’t be cropped out or easily removed!
- Register similar domains – Copycats often register website domains that closely match those of the business they’re trying to imitate. To stop this from happening, take care when choosing your domain name. If you think you could be at risk, reserve any domains similar to your brand name – this is also a good way to prevent fraudulent activity, such as typosquatting!
- Regularly assess your competition – You won’t be able to take action until you know about the copycats. Carrying out manual checks by searching for your trademarks and copyrights on online selling platforms can help you spot this sooner. For a more thorough check, you can also hire a trademark and copyright monitoring service.
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