Be Careful of Copyright Infringements
Learn what the difference is between editorial and commercial content
I like to test things out. Especially when it comes to content marketing.
Usually, you have to tweak your content whether it’s articles or posts, or emails to find the sweet spot of what attracts your user’s interests.
Such was the case on a test run I created with a previous website I ran while working simultaneously as a travel blogger and travel agent.
I made one simple blog post on the topic of *Olympic Travel Packages*. The post had a CTA at the bottom to sign up. I received dozens of sign-ups.
Several months after the initial launch, I received an email from an official attorney for the Olympic games. She said I was infringing on their copyrighted word of “Olympic/Olympics” as well as “Paris 2024”. I could not use those specific words as she deemed that I was a travel agent and therefore used the words for commercial gain.
I went back and forth with her to understand the infringement. I mentioned how there were travel bloggers out there already using these specific words in their blog posts. How was mine different?
She said because they were applying the words for editorial use only. I replied I thought I was doing the same since I’m a travel blogger. She said no, you have a specific page on your website with information relating to the Big-O games encouraging people to sign up for more information for “travel packages”.
She asked that I remove the specific words. I could substitute the Big-O word with “Games” or “Summer Games” but could not reference the location of those games using “Paris2024” in one sentence.
So I removed the words as requested, and changed my one specific webpage to “Sports Travel”. I also edited out the words in the one landing page/post I created as well as the sign-up form. She was good with that.
The sign-ups dwindled once the traffic traction began to taper off with the change.
And although I got legitimate people wanting more information on the upcoming Big-O games in 2024, I reminded them that I would be going through an ATR (Authorized Reseller) for these specific high-end sports games travel packages. Most people didn’t understand that.
The takeaway from this experience is not to assume just because it’s out there on the web already, that’s its fair use. I mentioned how I found the two images of those five colorful rings on Adobe Stock. Why wasn’t Adobe being asked to take them down? Not that she answered that. She was curt.
She only wanted to make sure I didn’t use certain words and images for commercial gain. That’s all.
When in doubt, check with a lawyer. I did. I was reminded of how vigilant the Big-O Legal Team was to catch any infringements no matter how small since for them it was big bucks. But for little shops like mine, it was peanuts.
NB: This post on Medium was not made for commercial gain.