Staying Savvy Series: How to Begin Fighting Back

This is Number Three in a series of posts, which will present some simple tools for protecting yourself from the possibility of your ideas and work being exploited by a less-than-ethical corporation. Please be sure to check out posts Number One and Number Two as well.

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Chapter Three: How to Respond if Something Goes Wrong

Sadly, it happens: a company could make commercial use of some of your work, without your permission. This sucks, and you’d of course be roaring mad about it if it happened.

But, take a deep breath, and consider what your best response should be.

First, do you have any history with this company? In other words, have you given them permission to use your work for some project in the past? And if you did, were you clear with them in writing about how your work was to be used?

If this is the case, then your first action should be to contact the person you’ve been working with in writing, explain the situation, refer to your original terms, and request that they cease misusing your work immediately. And when you’re writing that email. . .

Leave emotion out of it. You have every right to be angry in this situation, but it’s important that your communication sound very calm. You don’t have to be overly polite, but you do need to be courteous. Your words have more power that way. Also . . .

Keep it brief and factual. This is not the moment for an eight-page letter, and it’s not the moment for an impassioned speech about how much you’ve been wronged. Make it clear what work is being misused, why that use is inappropriate, and what you want done about it, when.

If you’ve never had any dealings with the company before, do a bit of research on them and find out who you’re dealing with. Find out who you can send your initial written communication to. (And I would recommend sending it to the person who’s most closely connected with the misuse. For example: if a company puts your photo on their blog without permission, then contact the author of that blog post.)

Also, consider this:

Is it a large company or a small one that’s acting badly?
You’d use this same first step communication for both large and small companies, but your considerations of each will be different. Such as:

Smaller Company, Benefit of the Doubt. One of the odd side-effects of the internet age is that anyone can start up a small company online. This is great, but it also means there could be a lot of people launching small businesses, who maybe haven’t done their homework. There are, sadly, people in the world who think that Flickr is a giant free stock-photography site. There are people who think you’d be flattered if they published your design without asking.

This is why, when you contact a small company about an inappropriate use of your work, you need to stay non-emotional. Your first job is to explain why what they did wasn’t right. In most cases, I believe, the company will quickly apologize and rectify the problem. They can’t afford the bad publicity you could generate.

Larger Company, Potential Legal Action. More often than not, of course, a larger company will have a clear understanding of copyright law — and less to fear of your potential bad publicity. So while you’re making that first contact, you should be planning your next step — seeking legal help.

Our hope is that one well-expressed email or letter to any company will take care of the problem. But if the company refuses to rectify the situation, then you’re also headed down a legal road. (And here’s where I say: I am not an attorney. You should take my words as guidelines only, and seek the advice of a lawyer you trust if you need further help.)

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In the next segment, I’ll talk about some safe ways to spread the word to your community — we want to warn each other of the companies who misuse our work, right? Well, it’s something that should be done with care.