How can designers protect their work online?

I honestly cannot remember now how we came to discover that a UK based company had stolen four of our weathervane designs nearly ten years ago. We'd been in business for 3 years so did not have much experience - this made it all the more more stressful. I think now I would be better at putting it in perspective but at the time it was just so disheartening when I spend hours using my skill and training to come up with what I hope are beautiful and original designs, only to have them ripped off and sold cheap. Thinking about it now it's not even that much of a surprise, but being a new business it really did come as a shock. We contacted a very good IP solicitor who advised us to save ourselves some money and write our own 'cease and desist letter' to the offending company. Expecting this to be the end of the matter, we did just that.

What is a cease and desist letter?

A cease and desist is a legal term for a type of letter which demands that the recipient immediately stops some unlawful activity. You need to mention the infringement and state what action is required to resolve the dispute. There are multiple templates available online for free, so it is a way to resolve a design theft issue without getting into big legal bills.

BUT It turns out that big companies often do not like being put in their place by tiny little family craft businesses. They had clearly looked at our page on Companies House and assumed that as a small family business we would not have the means or inclination to challenge them, so they LIED and accused US of copying THEIR designs. I cannot put into words how horrible this felt. We immediately got back in touch with our very helpful solicitor, and in wanting to pursue the issue, of course the costs rolled in. Aggressive legal letters went back and forth for several months, and thankfully bacause we have two good friends who are extremely competent with IT and to cut a long story short, we were able to prove that we owned the designs. The lengths they went to to avoid admitting fault astonished me. Every time a letter came through from them I felt physically sick - it cause so much unnecessary stress all because of someone elses dishonesty and bullying.

It Went as far as us getting the court documents written up which is several thousand pounds of work and clearly something the company in question thought we would never do. And it was a huge risk, but we knew we were in the right. Upon recieving these, the company in question finally backed down! Though, as we were desperate to move on with out lives, we had to agree to not name them. It was however on the day of the Manchester beer festival that this news came through so we had more than a couple of celebratory drinks with a big group of friends, feeling the biggest relief we have ever felt.

Advice I'd give to a designer publishing their work online:

1. Sign and date any designs done on paper & photograph the page. Email yourself any designs done digitally. That way if you find yourself in the middle of an issue like we did, it can be quickly proven from what date you had ownership of your designs.
2. Send a cease and desist letter yourself to save costs - you never know, they may have made the infringement unintentionally, or perhaps just have a slightly better moral compass than the idiots we had to deal with.
3. If the worst does happen and you think you can prove you are in the right, try not to panic, find yourself an Intellectual Property specialist legal team. We used Virtuoso legal in Leeds and would definitely recommend them.

Was fighting the case worth it?

For the individual designs that were stolen, no, probably not. I'm an artist and I could have just drawn new ones. But for the principle of the matter absolutely YES! I'm glad they were British though; If it was an overseas company I have no idea if it would even be possible to challenge it. And this is the problem; the internet is so impossible to regulate that really it's inevitable that we would run into this problem like this eventually, and yet the internet is how I am able to earn a living as a designer in the first place. We feel very lucky that we were able to stand up for ourselves and win.