Infringement

Infringement is using, copying or distributing material that is protected by intellectual property rights without the owner's permission. It can involve copyright, a patent or a trademark, and the owner can take legal action against the person responsible.

What the owner can do

An owner who finds their work being used without permission can go to court to force the infringer to stop and to hand over or destroy the illegal copies. They can also claim compensation for the money they have lost. For example, a small games studio finds its paid app being sold cheaply on an unofficial website, so it sues for the sales it lost. A company that prints a rival's registered logo on its own hoodies is committing trademark infringement, and the rival can have the hoodies taken off sale and claim damages.

You do not have to mean to infringe: putting a photo you found online onto T-shirts you sell is still infringement, because you never had permission.

Penalties

Serious copyright or trademark infringement can be a criminal offence as well as a civil one, so it can lead to fines and even imprisonment. This is most likely when the copying is deliberate and done to make money, such as running a business that sells pirated copies.

Permission makes the difference

Using material with a licence — permission given on conditions — is perfectly legal. If your licence covers one installation, installing the software on your laptop is fine, but putting it on five machines goes beyond the licence and is infringement. Limited copying allowed by law, such as quoting a short extract to review a work, is also not infringement.