These bloggers have to pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of euros for such an adopted article. This is calculated on the basis of a so-called 'economic value' per word. According to the judge, this can easily be set at 36 cents, often even a little more.
A kind of doubling of the fine is also often allowed. The article of 1000 words that is copied costs 360 euros. If that is also allowed to be doubled, the unsuspecting blogger loses 720 euros. On top of that there may be some collection costs and half the average net monthly salary is the penalty for this small 'mistake'.
It is often said that these claims for damages are absurd and excessive. However, a copyright-free society is not a good idea. Precisely because writers have exclusivity, they still want to put effort into writing good articles. Authors often spend many hours researching an article. This varies from internet research to research outside the home. After that, the article still has to be written and corrected in a good and attractive way. Costs are incurred and these have to be earned back.
Copyright criminal
Most often this is done in the form of advertising revenue. However, when the article is copied by others, this will have an effect on that advertising revenue. This ranges from the loss of exclusivity (and therefore of licensing revenue) to the loss of positions in Google search results due to having so-called 'duplicate content'. Should this damage be borne by the person who did the research and wrote a good article or should it be borne by the person who shamelessly copied it?
Blogger: “Yes, but I don't have to pay because…”
Probably some bloggers are already digging their netherlands phone data heels in, because they think they have good reasons to take over content or not to pay the damages. However, the reasons that are often given usually do not fall within the legal possibilities and are also not fair to the rights holder. The short summary:
“Yes, but I didn’t know anything about copyright!”
Ignorance of the law is no reason to break the law. Besides, I always doubt this reason, since the copyists themselves have all kinds of copyright statements (including the copyright sign) on the site.
“Yes, but there was no copyright sign underneath!”
That doesn’t matter. Every work is automatically subject to copyright, whether or not it is stated. There are some exceptions to this, but if nothing is stated, it can be assumed that it may not be copied without the permission of the copyright holder.
“Yes, but I didn't get any response from you and so I thought there were no objections!.