How to identify and remove Facebook ad copyright infringement

Last updated on: August 4, 2023

There are currently over 2.95 billion monthly active users on Facebook. The social media platform attracts huge amounts of traffic from all around the world. Unfortunately, this also means that scammers and bad actors converge on the website looking to take advantage of these users and the businesses that use Facebook to grow their brands. 

Facebook ad copyright infringement is a serious issue that is threatening the intellectual property(IP) of many businesses. To ensure that you can protect your brand from these infringers you need to know how to identify and take down copyright infringement on Facebook. 

In this blog, we explore how to identify and remove Facebook ad copyright infringement by highlighting several key topics, including: 

• What is Facebook ad copyright infringement?
• How to identify Facebook ad copyright infringement
• What legal options do you have to protect your copyright on Facebook?
• How to remove Facebook ad copyright infringement
• How to automate the detection and removal of Facebook ad copyright infringement

What is Facebook ad copyright infringement?

Facebook ad copyright infringement is when ads on Facebook contain content that infringes upon or violates your intellectual property rights. If you have registered your brand’s content as a copyright then no one is allowed to use or distribute this material without authorization, unless their use is deemed fair

Commonly, scammers will repost or re-upload content from legitimate brands in their own Facebook ads. These ads may give Facebook users the impression that they are seeing an advert from a real brand. The infringement may go further and include phishing tactics. For example, the ad may then contain a link to a fraudulent third-party website that sells counterfeit products that further violate intellectual property rights. 

How to identify Facebook ad copyright infringement

Here are a few tips to help you recognize copyright infringement in Facebook ads: 

• Recognizing similarities in design, imagery, trademarks, and logos 

To protect yourself from potential Facebook ad copyright infringement, keep detailed records of your original works. Monitor Facebook ads and regularly check for unauthorized usage of your copyrighted material. Analyze ads for similarities in design elements, imagery, logos, and trademarks. Use reverse image search tools to identify similar images or similar content in your own work.

Maintain thorough records of when you created your original content and when it was first used in your Facebook ads it’s also very important. These records can be valuable evidence in the event of a copyright dispute.

• Analyzing ad copy for plagiarism 

Pay close attention to the written content within ads. By analyzing ad copy you will be able to quickly see whether they have plagiarized your own copy. The laziest scammers may plagiarize your copy word by word. However, you should also look out for the more deceptive scammers that will just plagiarize certain phrases or copy your brand’s tone of voice to achieve the same effect. 

• Conducting regular searches using relevant keywords

Within Facebook, you can also conduct regular searches using keywords related to your brand to help discover any Facebook ad copyright infringement. Bad actors will often repost your content without authorization and you will be able to uncover these incidents by searching for words included within your original copy. 

What legal options do you have to protect your copyright on Facebook?

• Register your intellectual property

You can protect your intellectual property by registering it at the U.S. Copyright Office. This will give you a strong and reliable legal platform for you to formally defend your copyrights. If you then display the copyright symbol “©” alongside your work this will also work to potentially deter any infringers from violating your IP.  

• Send a cease and desist letter

You can also send a cease and desist letter to anyone who you believe is violating your copyrights. A cease and desist letter is a formal request for the recipient to stop their activity. Here you should assert your own rights and warn the recipient that if they continue their activity you will report them to the relevant authorities and begin legal action. 

• Sue the infringers

If your cease and desist letter fails to discourage the infringers, you may consider taking legal action. Depending on the nature of the issue, this may involve them in a civil lawsuit for copyright infringement. Before beginning any legal action you should seek advice from the relevant legal professionals. 

The advantage of protecting your copyrights with legal action is that you may be able to recover lost funds and punish the infringers. The mere threat of legal action may also act as a deterrent to any infringers looking to take advantage of your brand on Facebook.

• Document evidence of infringement 

Before you begin any legal action against infringers you must make sure that you have gathered evidence that will be useful to your case. Evidence will be the key to your success so you must implement robust measures of finding and storing any relevant evidence. 

To document evidence of copyright infringement on Facebook you should record screenshots of the infringing ads, any communications you’ve had with the bad actors as well as any evidence given to you by your customers. 

How to remove Facebook ad copyright infringement

1. Visit Facebook’s Transparency Centre, and their page on Third-party infringement

2. Head over to Facebook’s Intellectual Property Help Centre and select the heading, “Reporting Copyright Infringement on Facebook”

3. Begin the Copyright Report form 

4. Fill out your contact information

5. Detail the content you want to report, providing evidence to help Facebook understand your report

6. Sign a ‘Declaration Statement’

How to automate the detection and removal of Facebook ad copyright infringement

You can mitigate the impact of Facebook ad copyright infringement with Red Points’ Ad Protection software. Our automated solution is powered by machine learning, image recognition and artificial intelligence to ensure that legitimate brands can defend their IP reliably and efficiently.

Ad scams will impact your business in three key ways: 

• Revenue loss – Scammers steal traffic and lower your sales volumes. 
• Brand reputation – Infringers will create bad experiences that customers will then associate with your brand, which will damage your reputation. 
• Putting consumers at risk – Facebook users will become prey for scammers who will misuse your IP to steal money and sensitive information. 

We can reduce the impact of infringing ads with an optimized system of ad protection.  We scour the web 24/7 to reveal potential incidents of copyright infringement that have the potential to impact your brand. With your approval, we will then move to take action against fraudulent and infringing ads, using built-in workflows.

Once the infringers are removed you will be able to measure the impact of your coverage via our up-to-date reporting system. Here you will have access to insightful data that you can use to inform your decision-making around copyright infringers in the future. 

What’s next

Copyright protection is set to become more complex across the digital landscape as scammers become more deceptive and tech-literate. To combat the efforts of these bad actors legitimate businesses must become more proactive towards intellectual property protection. 

Red Points’ Ad Protection Software will allow you to protect yourself from fraudulent ads across a variety of social media platforms. You will efficiently be able to mitigate the impact of any Facebook ad copyright infringers. As a result, you will be able to safeguard your customers on Facebook and the value of your intellectual property online. 

To learn more about how Red Points can help identify and remove Facebook ad copyright infringement, talk to one of our experts here.