protecting info and images from use by competitors

[ZeBozette]

We had a competitor use one of our images in a print ad. Is there a good way to deter other businesses from using our images and the information we've developed in their literature or on their website? Do we need to copyright the images and PDFs? Maybe add a statement saying all images and information is proprietary? Add a watermark? We're happy to have customers download or print anything on our site... just don't need the competition benefitting from our work.
Thanks

 

[spamjim]

Retain a lawyer to guide you on this. You seem to be totally unaware of the copyright you already hold. You can seek damages from the competitor that used your image in their advertising.

 

[spamjim]

...it is not your fault for not stamping a watermark or copyright notice. You have a copyright even if the image is not marked in this way.

 

[ZeBozette]

You're right, I'm not familiar with copyright law. I thought maybe there was a common or best practice that could be recommended to protect website content. Glad to know the lack of a watermark or copyright notice doesn't mean we exposed ourselves to be plagiarized.
Thanks for the reply!
Boze

 

[spamjim]

You expose yourself to be 'plagiarized' whenever you make your content available on the web. As your competitor has stolen your image, you now have legal right (and obligation for your own future protection) to go after them.

That is what copyright is for: to pursue legal action against those that steal your content. A copyright is not a physical shield of copy protection. It only gives you right to sue for unauthorized use.

If you don't want to bother with legally pursuing those that steal your content, don't post any content online ...or you can mar your content with watermarks to make your images undesirable by your competitor.

 

[ZeBozette]

[COLOR=blue white] Glad to know the lack of a watermark or copyright notice doesn't mean we exposed ourselves to be plagiarized. [/color blue white]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is I'm glad that we do have the option of taking legal action if someone uses our photos or documents without permission. I thought we were out of luck since we didn't have a copyright notice or some sort of policy statement on our site. Thought someone could use our content since we hadn't clearly stated otherwise.

Thank you again for your replies.