TSG Pivots to Public Sector with Copyright and Trademark Services

TSG has identified a growing market, problem and way to serve the public sector. After Covid individuals and businesses conducting work, using, posting, and generally participating online has increased. This will continue to rise with the growth of AI. TSG believes it’s uniquely positioned to serve these companies and individuals. This is due to our extensive background in IT and Cyber Security. TSG is happy to announce the launch of our copyright/trademark unit and services.

The Problem:
The internet can be pervasive in many aspects of life. Many people do not understand the potential pitfalls of putting their information online. Since its inception Google, has removed, as of February 6th, 2024, nearly 8 billion URLs from over 5 million domains for almost half a million copyright owners (1). Google is hitting record highs for copyright requests (2). Most people do not understand their rights regarding copyright, or even where to start. When I started working on this, it was for a friend. She had gathered a sizable following through social media. She’d been posting content for years. She finally did a search on herself the results shocked and horrified her. She had no idea what to do or where to start and was quickly overwhelmed. She came to me for help. I had to learn how to do this through trial and error. There was limited information on readily accessible sites. Many sites differed in their processes. Figuring out the next steps wasn’t always straight forward. What I learned was that there are many companies that help people find illegitimate uses of their content, usually AI. Sometimes it’s quite impressive, but only solves part of the problem. What I discovered was that, while many of these tools are amazing, they’re just tools. Tools are only as useful as their operator. Most of the services require user input. If you want to do this effectively you need someone who knows how to search correctly. Using these tools together can have the greatest impact for anyone attempting to reclaim and/or remove their content. This is important for people who make their living online, as well as victims of stolen images or identities used by nefarious actors for a plethora of reasons.

Why:
Most people use the internet. Many of them use it casually to post pictures and videos or exchange information. What most people don’t know is that, if they create the image or work, they own the copyright to that work. This means every photo you take and upload to the internet is protected by copyright and cannot be used without your consent. In a professional sense, people can sell this type of content and reach a larger audience. With the proliferation of individuals creating their own revenue streams through social media, streaming, and video sharing platforms, it has become more important than ever that people have the means to protect their businesses. For those who are just casually using the internet, it’s important they are protected and have peace of mind that their images, videos, likeness, etc. will not be used or shared nefariously. With the increased use of AI, web crawlers/scrapers, and ease of payment through apps, some people take your work and share it or sell it without your knowledge. The process of finding these bad actors, removing your content and preventing others from accessing it can seem daunting. We’re here to help.

How We Help:
We find, remove and/or minimize damage from unauthorized online uses of copyrighted and trademarked materials. We do this using AI technology, ranging from crawlers to facial recognition and personally verify the results. Once a review is completed and see what materials you would like to have removed and what you would like to keep online. After this we give you the tools to remove the content on your own or we can represent you as your designated agent to have the content removed. This way we can ensure that your content is targeted optimally and that we are having the desired impact on major search indexes. We then begin the takedown process by contacting websites, webmasters, and search engines to file takedowns and begin the removal procedure. If that is unsuccessful, we go over your options to escalate the matter and help you find the right legal representation, should you choose to go that route. If your content cannot be removed, we will work to ensure it is deindexed from search engines, making it significantly harder to find.

TSG Moves Headquarters

TSG relocates its headquarters from Woodbridge, Virginia to Hoover, Alabama in May 2015. We are excited to be a part of the community and eager to grow the business. We are looking forward to serving the people of Alabama. Our principal office is located in Center Point, AL.