copyfraud
False claims of copyright, such as a claim of copyright ownership of public domain material.
uncountable
Copyfraud is falsely claiming copyright ownership of works in the public domain. […] Mazzone's article describes copyfraud within the context of US copyright law, but he points out that: ‘As a result of the Berne Convention, there are some basic similarities throughout much of the world.[’]
Where it comes from
A compound of copy + fraud. Coined in an August 2005 article, "Copyfraud" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=787244 by Jason Mazzone, an Associate Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry copyfraud (CC BY-SA 4.0).