When does PLR become "your own"?

Banned 13 years ago

The person who stole your modifications are infringing on your copyright is my guess. He only has rights to the plr he bought as it is. He does not have rights to someone else's modifications.

I'd issue him a DMCA notice to his host and get it taken down.

Instructions and sample DMCA here
http://domainingdiva.com/legal-issue...ipoff-artists/

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PLRExpress 13 years ago

Suzanne is right.

Whoever took your content had no right to do so. They purchased their license from the original seller and have no claim to your modifications whatsoever. Even if you had made very little or no modifications, they still don't have the right to take it from you.

You purchase a license for yourself only. I would follow Suzanne's advice.
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Simon71

13 years ago

Hi Steve,

I agree with the previous posts - if you have rewritten your PLR then it is yours although the percentage of original content is debatable. That sid, it ounds like someone has stolen your work so that is an issue.

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Steve B

13 years ago

Thanks for the comments so far.

Yes, I agree that no one has the right to use my (or anyone else's) modified PLR without permission.

I would still like comments, ideas, suggestions on the question about how to know when PLR content ceases to belong to anyone but you.

Thanks, Steve

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Rod Cortez

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve B

Thanks for the comments so far.

Yes, I agree that no one has the right to use my (or anyone else's) modified PLR without permission.

I would still like comments, ideas, suggestions on the question about how to know when PLR content ceases to belong to anyone but you.

Thanks, Steve

I am not an attorney. But I grabbed this from a legal themed website which quotes the US copyright office. It may shed some light. I've bolded the most relevant paragraph:

"A "derivative work," that is, a work that is based on (or derived from) one or more already existing works, is copyrightable if it includes what the copyright law calls an "original work of authorship."

Any work in which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship is a derivative work or new version.

To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a new work or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes.

Compilations and abridgments may also be copyrightable if they contain new work of authorship. When the collecting of the preexisting material that makes up the compilation is a purely mechanical task with no element of editorial selection, or when only a few minor deletions constitute an abridgment, copyright protection for the compilation or abridgment as a new version is not available.

Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.The copyright in a derivative work covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work. It does not extend to any preexisting material and does not imply a copyright in that material."

RoD

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PLRExpress 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve B

I would still like comments, ideas, suggestions on the question about how to know when PLR content ceases to belong to anyone but you.

Thanks, Steve

Your PLR content that you have purchased is yours. No one should be allowed to steal it from you. Therefore, it is "yours" because you now have intellectual rights to that product.

In order for it to be the case that the content belongs to anyone else but you, I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean how much do you have to rewrite it in order for it to become unique? That's simply how well you have rewritten it and to what extent.... It's still "yours" whether you change a word or whether you change all of it, so I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Could you explain?
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- Frank Donovan 13 years ago
  
  Hi Steve,
  
  I agree with the consensus regarding your modified version. You certainly have a case there, IMO.
  
  Unless otherwise specified, in my experience, the copyright for a PLR product remains with the originator; if only for practical reasons. How would an author transfer the same copyright to multiple buyers?
  
  The clue as to what is generally regarded as acceptable is in the TOS of most PLR works (especially when the release is limited) where it usually states something to the effect that the buyer does not have the right to resell the product as PLR (or with MRR) unless substantial changes are made.
  
  The term substantial probably indicates more than a simple title or cover change but as far as I'm aware there's no distinct legal definition of the term as it applies to a PLR work.
  
  In the vast majority of cases, I'm sure common sense is the touchstone - but the only completely safe way to know for certain is to get a specific agreement from the PLR originator.
  
  Frank
  
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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve B

Thanks for the comments so far.

Yes, I agree that no one has the right to use my (or anyone else's) modified PLR without permission.

I would still like comments, ideas, suggestions on the question about how to know when PLR content ceases to belong to anyone but you.

Thanks, Steve

When the content is written by you. If you rewrite 50% of it, you have copyright on 50% of it. If you rewrite 100% of it, you have copyright on 100% of it.

Don't know if that is law or not, but that's how I would play it. If it passes copyscape 100%, I don't consider it PLR any longer.

Thanks
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PLRExpress

13 years ago

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

When the content is written by you. If you rewrite 50% of it, you have copyright on 50% of it. If you rewrite 100% of it, you have copyright on 100% of it.

I think I see what the thread's about now. I'm a little slow today.

I think that it also depends on what the content is though. Let's say it's a PLR eBook and you still keep the same structure with chapters etc, but you rewrote the text, it would probably still be easy to see that it is based off the original.

I suppose the answer is it depends anyone notices

If I grabbed a bestselling novel and rewrote it in my own words, the story would still be the same and I would get a lawsuit. It would still pass Copyscape but just because I rewrote the words doesn't mean that I haven't ripped off the original. If you own a license to the original then that's fine, though.

It's quite a deep topic really and not one that's going to be concluded today on this thread. There's also intellectual property which is based on someone's ideas and conceptions. I can't see it being as simple as passing Copyscape in all instances but, as long as you have the rights to the original content, that's fine. I wouldn't say that even a rewritten piece of content becomes truly "yours" because of the reasons above. If the topic is generic, no one would probably know that you've copied another source.

Nothing is every truly original. You've always had influences from something else - especially on the internet.

Welcome to the new Wild West.

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by NathanDevlin

I think I see what the thread's about now. I'm a little slow today.

I think that it also depends on what the content is though. Let's say it's a PLR eBook and you still keep the same structure with chapters etc, but you rewrote the text, it would probably still be easy to see that it is based off the original.

I suppose the answer is it depends anyone notices

If I grabbed a bestselling novel and rewrote it in my own words, the story would still be the same and I would get a lawsuit. It would still pass Copyscape but just because I rewrote the words doesn't mean that I haven't ripped off the original. If you own a license to the original then that's fine, though.

That's true. I wouldn't rewrite a novel and expect to get away with it, but a $5 PLR pack that I have PLR rights to is a different matter.

Originally Posted by NathanDevlin

There's also intellectual property which is based on someone's ideas and conceptions. I can't see it being as simple as passing Copyscape in all instances but, as long as you have the rights to the original content, that's fine. I wouldn't say that even a rewritten piece of content becomes truly "yours" because of the reasons above. If the topic is generic, no one would probably know that you've copied another source.

Nothing is every truly original. You've always had influences from something else - especially on the internet.

Welcome to the new Wild West.

Ideas cannot be copyrighted. It might be patentable, but not copyrightable. No one owns a topic. Anyone can write and rewrite on any topic they choose. Look at how many of the same news stories appear at any one time. They are all unique in their writing, but all covering exactly the same topic and facts.

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PLRExpress

13 years ago

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Ideas cannot be copyrighted. It might be patentable, but not copyrightable. No one owns a topic. Anyone can write and rewrite on any topic they choose. Look at how many of the same news stories appear at any one time. They are all unique in their writing, but all covering exactly the same topic and facts.

I wasn't really saying that the ideas can be copyrighted but I had an incident last year where I was writing on a personal development blog. I used a technique about finding ways to relax and de-stress by changing your thoughts.

I came up with what I thought was an original process for achieving this. It was nothing more than a mental process. I was contacted by the publisher of a book that said that that it was copying from their book because they used the same technique. It was only a way to de-stress and it didn't seem particularly revolutionary - and yet they said that it was their "intellectual property". My legal adviser actually agreed with them so I had to pull it.

What I meant was that sometimes methods, protocols and concepts that aren't officially patented can still be called into question.

I suppose it's similar with that story with the guy that had accused DreamWorks of stealing the idea to Kung Fu Panda because he originally came up with an idea about a bear obsessed with martial arts. Some of the characters were quite similar and because the concepts was written down, it fell under copyright law - so my legal adviser tells me. I get confused by it all myself. :rolleyes:

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by NathanDevlin

I wasn't really saying that the ideas can be copyrighted but I had an incident last year where I was writing on a personal development blog. I used a technique about finding ways to relax and de-stress by changing your thoughts.

I came up with what I thought was an original process for achieving this. It was nothing more than a mental process. I was contacted by the publisher of a book that said that that it was copying from their book because they used the same technique. It was only a way to de-stress and it didn't seem particularly revolutionary - and yet they said that it was their "intellectual property". My legal adviser actually agreed with them so I had to pull it.

What I meant was that sometimes methods, protocols and concepts that aren't officially patented can still be called into question.

I suppose it's similar with that story with the guy that had accused DreamWorks of stealing the idea to Kung Fu Panda because he originally came up with an idea about a bear obsessed with martial arts. Some of the characters were quite similar and because the concepts was written down, it fell under copyright law - so my legal adviser tells me. I get confused by it all myself. :rolleyes:

Don't know. I probably would have told the guy who wrote the book to piss up a rope if you did not read that book beforehand. But then, that's just me. There are a lot of processes that are written about over and over by different authors.

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Mary Wilhite

13 years ago

"Oh don't worry, I bought the same PLR package." Huh?

Did you explain to him how you've re-written everything on your own and how
that package is no longer the PLR he also bought but your original work?

Like one advice here, go and issue a DMCA notice to his host.

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JennyBizz

13 years ago

Hi Steve,

I know there are no hard and fast rules on this, but I would think that if the content (text) of the PLR has been modified by at least 50%, then it would be yours. I would probably also change the cover and the title. This way people will know that your product is different from the existing PLR that was bought. The person who posted your modified version is in clear violation of copyright.