Infringement

Infringement refers to the use of material protected by the applicable copyright, trademark, or patent without the consent of the owner of the item. One of the primary tenants in infringement is that of confusion, meaning consumers or viewers of the infringed material believe the item is an original one provided by the creator as opposed to a reasonable facsimile provided by another individual or organization.

Infringement of a copyright, trademark, or patent may occur even if the person committing the infringement was not intending to commit the act. Infringement occurs commonly when it comes to the selling of clothing and accessories, such as knock-off items designed to look and function like the original. Such products are typically less expensive to the end buyer than the original, so there is a viable black market for such products.

However, those items rob the holder of the patent for the item or trademark for the logo on the item of the benefits of those patents and trademarks, in this case through the loss of sales.

The most common example of infringement today is that of copyright infringement when it comes to music and movies. Torrent sites make it relatively easy to obtain copies of music and movies through an unauthorized source on the Internet, a source that can be difficult to stop or prosecute depending on the laws of the country where the computers that host the materials is located.