Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights On Social Media

Copyright 2011, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP

Originally published in Blakes Bulletin on Intellectual Property – Social Media Series, July 2011

With the continued growth of social media, it has become increasingly important for businesses to augment their plans to protect their intellectual property (IP) by developing a strategy for addressing violations of IP and other rights that take place on portals, such as FACEBOOK, TWITTER and EBAY, or blogs.

The potential areas of concern are wide ranging. The following are just some examples of the violations of IP rights that can occur in social media:

• copyright infringement, such as the unauthorized use of text, images, videos and audio;