Registered Designs Act 3. Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both. To imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or to a fine or to both A person commits an offence if - a in the course of a business, the person offers, puts on the market, imports, exports or uses the product, or stocks it for one or more of those purposes, b the person does so without the consent of the registered proprietor of the design, and c the person does so knowing, or having reason to believe, that - i a design has been intentionally copied without the consent of the registered proprietor so as to make the product exactly to the design or with features that differ only in immaterial details from the design, and ii the design is a registered design.
To imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or to a fine or to both 4. Video Recordings Act The act repealed and revived provision of the Act. F29 5 A person guilty of an offence under subsection 1 or 3 above shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or both.
Fraud Act 5. Contents Print this page. Is this page useful? Maybe Yes this page is useful No this page is not useful. Thank you for your feedback. Report a problem with this page. Infringement of trade marks and copyrights can be criminal offences, as well as being actionable in civil law.
A range of criminal provisions are set out in the relevant Acts, and other offences such as those under the Fraud Act may also be applied. These criminal offences are most often associated with organised crime groups who are dealing for profit in fake branded goods or pirated products.
Counterfeiting can be defined as the manufacture, importation, distribution and sale of products which falsely carry the trade mark of a genuine brand without permission and for gain or loss to another. Piracy, which includes copying, distribution, importation etc of infringing works, does not always require direct profits from sales - wider and indirect benefits may be enough along with inflicting financial loss onto the rights holder.
For example possession of an infringing copy of a work protected by copyright in the course of your business may be a criminal offence under section 1 c of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act Not all cases that fall within the criminal law provisions will be dealt with as criminal offences and in many cases business to business type disputes are tackled by the civil law.
Further information is available on what is the law and the guide to offences. IP rights are infringed when a product, creation or invention protected by IP laws are exploited, copied or otherwise used without having the proper authorisation, permission or allowance from the person who owns those rights or their representative. All of these acts will constitute a civil infringement but some copyright and trade mark infringements may also be a criminal offence such as the sale of counterfeits including clothing.
Trading standards are primarily responsible for enforcing the criminal IP laws, with support from the police, and with investigative assistance from the IP rights owners. Private criminal investigations and prosecutions may also be launched by the right owners in some cases.
Criminal IP offences may be taking place in your workplace in a variety of ways. These include:. IP rights infringement and in particular IP crime threaten legitimate businesses, their staff, and undermines consumer confidence. Your business may face a number of risks if you do not take appropriate steps to tackle IP crime within your working environment. Under civil law you may be subject to court action and have to pay damages. Criminal action may lead to unlimited fines, or a custodial sentence which could be up to a maximum of 10 years.
You may also be vulnerable to threats from computer viruses and malware. You need to think about not only the way your business is conducted, but also be aware that the behaviour of your staff — and their actions at work may also incur liability for the organisation as a whole.
Activities which results in IP rights being infringed can raise both civil and criminal law liabilities. In some cases these activities may relate to something done directly by the business.
In other instances it may relate to an independent action of a member of staff at work. There are many security risks to a business from IP crime.
These include the infiltration of viruses and malware which can aid identity theft, threaten system security and slow down IT networks. Good businesses attract respect and the trust of future partners. Adverse publicity relating to any civil or criminal court action could affect how other businesses view you and how they choose to deal with you.
IP crime can impact on the productivity of your business. Resource implications, such as staff neglecting work tasks to carry out illegal activities, and IT system failure due to malware problems, can have a detrimental affect. IP rights are unfamiliar to many and can be complicated. One item can be protected by a number of different IP rights, which can be infringed in different ways. To assist in identifying instances where IP rights infringement can occur, a range of activities and examples have been identified.
Advice is available on steps to help you deal with an IP rights infringement in your business. A business can infringe the IP rights of others by not having the correct licence to support the activities that take place within the business. Staff infringing IP rights at work can impact productivity, put your systems at risk from malware and put you and your business at risk of legal liability for their actions.
Letting traders onto your premises to sell items to your staff could leave your business facing legal liability. It can also compromise your site security plans. There are many more potential problem areas, therefore it is vital that you and your business understand how these problems might arise, so you can take steps to avoid them.
The needs of businesses will vary. What is right for a factory unit or a small office may not suit larger more complex organisations. The common thread is that doing nothing is not a sensible option given the risks it can pose for you and your business. Whether your business is small or large there is a range of actions you can take to make sure that IP rights infringement is not occurring within your business environment.
Preventative steps will help to safeguard you and your business, but once infringing activities have been identified, a fast and effective response is essential. You therefore need to be prepared, even if you are not currently aware of any such problems in your business.
Clear processes and procedures will help you to embed respect for IP with managers and staff, creating the right company ethos and ensuring that you identify potential problem areas and manage them properly. Staff and managers need to understand what IP is, how IP rights can be infringed and the risks this can pose - both for them and for the business. Staff in corporate functions, such as Human Resources HR , Information Technology IT , finance and procurement have a particularly important role to play in spreading information and good practice.
Guidance is available on the procedures and processes you and your business can adopt to prevent infringement occurring. Information includes: HR policies, license management and processes for site visits.
Advice on what to do if you identify any criminal IP offences relating to IP rights infringement taking place in your business is also covered. Practical tools have been developed to help you educate staff and management about the importance of IP and how to comply with the relevant law. These include sample slide packs to help raise awareness and improve understanding. The infringement of an IP right is a civil matter in the case of patents, trade marks, designs and copyright.
The penalties for illegal downloading vary by country, but the gravest penalties for illegal downloading are usually fines. It is possible to serve time in a prison for downloading a film, music, or other item illegally, but most areas recognize that this punishment does not fit the crime.
In most cases, a very high monetary fine will be imposed, but no jail time will be demanded. Even so, when Internet piracy can possibly result in jail time, it is very important to obey the law even if the chances of being prosecuted are minimal.
Fines, where they exist, are often extremely inflated and can reach more than a hundred thousand times the purchase price of the individual song or film. In some areas, a person can be sent to prison for illegal downloading.
See the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In most cases, when a private group initiates civil charges against an offender, they offer them the opportunity to pay a settlement and conclude the case outside of court.
However, if the judges get involved, they may charge defendants with a felony or other criminal offenses. Moreover, courts will assess the punishments and fines for illegal downloading acts. They break them down as follows:.
Illegal downloading laws and sentences will depend on why you downloaded copyrighted files and how often you did so. If you did it for personal reasons i. However, violators are still breaking illegal downloading laws.
In this case, the copyright holder may file civil, rather than criminal, charges. The federal government rarely prosecutes individuals who consume pirated content on a personal level. If they do, is piracy a felony in this case? The the courts may slap offenders with a misdemeanor, but not a felony.
Those who distribute or share the content, on the other hand, are committing felonies. For example, if you download songs illegally or make pirated copies of videos to send them to a friend or family member, the legal system will consider that a distribution. Instead, they target those who sell copyrighted content or make it available en-masse. Yet even if you stream movies or download songs illegally to share them with friends, you are guilty of a felony.
Above all else, when a private group, such as the RIAA, files civil charges against you, a court may add criminal violations and felony convictions to it. However, those who make money from copyright infringement face harsher penalties than those who distribute it without the intention of making a profit.
Because of this, the severity of a violation depends on how many records were used. For example, someone downloads ten songs and shares them with three of their friends via email. Courts will treat violators who previously broke illegal downloading laws more unfavorably than first-time offenders, even more so if they make a profit. More specifically, the new rule punishes thieves with misdemeanors.
The Michigan law also levies felony charges for repeat offenders and sentences them to up to five years in prison or jail.
In Massachusetts , illegal downloading laws depend on how many files you install. Others, meanwhile, may have stricter or lighter punishments that apply to specific acts, as is the case in Michigan. Is piracy a felony under state laws? That has a lot to do with where you live, especially if the state government is also filing charges against you. Because of this, felons must consult with an attorney who thoroughly understands local and federal piracy laws.
Your defense depends on whether you are currently facing charges or if you are a currently housed inmate. Finding evidence in a piracy case is even more challenging. More specifically, prosecutors must show that you downloaded the content and provide evidence that tracks the action back to your IP address or account.
To add to that, they must do so without illegally obtaining information about you.
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