E-Commerce

E-commerce Law

E-commerce often involves selling products and services that are based on intellectual property (IP) and its licensing. Music, movies, photos, software, designs, training modules, various products etc. are being traded through e-commerce, in such scenario IP plays the main component of value in such transactions because the things that are traded on the internet must be protected using technological security systems and IP Laws, or else they can be stolen, pirated or passed off and the whole business can be destroyed.

In case of absence of intellectual property practices and laws, hard work is stolen and spread around the globe without paying the creator for their labor. Who, then, wants to create new works? Technical security is essential to deter the less proficient thief and Intellectual Property laws are required to deal with the more serious crimes.

Areas of concern are –

  • Safeguarding your own intellectual property
  • Violating someone else's intellectual property

A common mistake is disclosing intellectual property prior to filing for the protection of that property. Similarly, in many countries making trade secrets public automatically dissolves one of any protection. One can consult with legal adviser prior to disclosing anything pertaining to your intellectual property.

Violating Someone’s Intellectual Property

E-commerce websites generally contains product descriptions and images. Do the owner of the e-commerce website have the legal right to publish those descriptions and images? What about all those logos, videos, photos, clip art, icons, sound effects, and background music? One must make sure make one’s site to be more engaging one. But, once again, does one have the rights to be use them?

One must have come across about many small e-commerce entrepreneurs who disregard intellectual property issues using the dictum, “whatever is available on the Internet is free for use!” The fact that they seem to get away with such violations of the IP makes the rest of us ponder that are we spending our money right.