Still Posting Content Without Permission - Look Out! The Copyright Troll is on Your Trail

I find it a bit amazing that with the guidelines here on Active Rain and the numerous articles about copyright violation, there are still some who will post content without permission. Well, if you are still doing it, here is something that might make you want to think twice.

According to an article on Wired, we now have "Copyright Trolls" similar to patent trolls. What's a copyright troll? you might ask. Simply stated, it is someone who purchases copyrights to newspaper, magazine and other articles and then trolls the internet for unauthorized use of those articles. And with the power of Google and the other search engines, these trolls have a good chance of catching those that reuse without permission.

One company in Las Vegas has been doing this since March and has claimed to have filed over 80 suits and has settled an undisclosed number for between $1500 and $3000. They also state that they will be filing hundreds more suits this year. And this is only from the unauthorized use of the content of their first client.

They are specifically targetting blogs and websites that are posting unauthorized content. The most recent Copyright Act allows for penalties of up to $150,000 per violation. Now wonder poor bloggers are settling for much less.