What is a Copycat? Someone who goes to your web site, hits select all button, and COPY. Then they paste it in their own web site, changes business name, and pooof….someone just copied your complete business. Not much work involved in that, is there? All long hours, hard work, and frustration of getting everything just perfect has been stolen from you. I don't think there is anyone lower than a copycat.

Let's just take a step back and define what a copycat really is.

A copycat is not someone who takes an idea and creates their own business. A copycat is not someone who uses a similar sentence. A copycat is not someone who uses same forms. A copycat is not someone uses same ad copies, but changes url. All these are not considered copycat.

A copycat is someone who copies your designs A copycat is someone who takes a finished product and copies it word for word. A copycat is someone who has absolutely no creativity of their own. A copycat is someone with no morals.

Now let's take a look at our legal rights as business entrepreneurs who work hard and create a business we can be proud of.

Are we victims of copyright infringement? Can we sue these copycats? Do we have rights?

What these copycats do is nothing short of a total outrage. We, as business entrepreneurs do have rights, however, they are limited and restricted, so we need to be careful, or we will be throwing a lot of money to a lawyer without a cause.

In researching copyright laws, here is what I found:

Copyright exists from moment work is created. You will have to register for copyright, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work.

Copyright protection subsists from time work is created in fixed form. The copyright in work of authorship immediately becomes property of author who created work.

What does copyright protect? -- Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect way these things are expressed

‘Who Moved my Cheese?’ was written by Spencer Johnson (of ‘The One Minute Manager’ fame). It is a book about change and way we handle change. Its lessons are taught through telling of a simple parable. We follow fortunes of four characters (named Sniff and Scurry, Hem and Haw) as they move through maze which is their lives.

‘Cheese’ is a paradox in a publishing industry which produces hundreds of business books every year. Most of these books are thick, complex and offer countless checklists for success.

In contrast, ‘Cheese’ is thin (only 96 pages), offers no explicit solutions to anything and makes almost no reference to business at all.

To summarise lessons of this book would be to do it an injustice: you need to read it for yourself. But success of Johnson’s approach has a lot to teach us about how simplicity can make written communication more accessible. Consider these four characteristics: