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6  Protecting intellectual property (IP)

Intellectual property rights (IPR)

 protect designs, ideas and inventions and include content 

and services developed for e-commerce sites. Copyright law is designed to protect authors, 

producers, broadcasters and performers through ensuring that they see some returns from 

their works every time they are experienced. The European Directive of Copyright (2001 ÷ 

29/EC) came into force in many countries in 2003; it covers new technologies and approaches 

such as streaming a broadcast via the Internet.

IP can be misappropriated in two senses online.

First, an organisation’s IP may be misappropriated: it is relatively easy to copy web content 

and republish it on another site. Reputation management services can be used to assess how 

an organisation’s content, logos and 

trademarks

 are being used on other websites. Tools 

such as Copyscape (

www.copyscape.com

) can be used to identify infringement of content 

where it is ‘scraped’ off other sites using ‘screenscrapers’.

Secondly, an organisation may misappropriate content inadvertently. Some employ-

ees may infringe copyright if they are not aware of the law. Additionally, some methods of 

designing transactional websites have been patented. For example, Amazon has patented its 

‘ One-  click’  purchasing  option.