Copyright crime - additional remedies

Copyright is essentially a private right so decisions about how to enforce the right, that is what to do when your copyright work is used without your permission, are generally for you to take. Nevertheless, deliberate infringement of copyright on a commercial scale may be a criminal offence. This activity is usually known as copyright piracy and is often also linked to wilful infringement of trade marks known as counterfeiting where criminal offences also exist. Piracy and counterfeiting are often also referred to as intellectual property or IP crime.

So, if the infringement of your copyright work is intentional, is on a large scale and copies of your work are being made for sale, being imported, distributed, sold or put on the internet, then it may be worth informing the Police or your local Trading Standards Department. They can decide whether action by them, including possible prosecution, is justified.

However, they are unlikely to be able to take any action at all unless you are able to co-operate fully, including by providing good intelligence about the crime, helping to identify infringing goods, assisting with the preparation of evidence, being prepared to appear in court and so on.

Further information on deliberate copyright infringement on a commercial scale can be found on the What is IP crime? for more information.