Found my content on another site!

[doingthistoolong]

Here's the story... I have several parody/humor sites, one of them very successful, but they are more of a hobby than a business. I am pretty careful at watching the sites, inbound links, traffic, keywords, etc...

I happened to do a search on Google the other night and found another site had apparently quoted part of at least one page of my site. No big deal - I get many blog mentions with my content quoted - but this was no blog. It was a template driven website for a financial services oriented business. It had a section called "humor" which had several of my articles reprinted verbatim - except my fictional company name was replaced with their real company name (gee some way to sell your services).

I emailed the primary contact of the business - nicely pointing the situation out - and requesting the removal of the content. I also drew their attention to the fact that every page in my site contains a copyright and a link to a copyright/disclaimer page which prohibits exactly the type of thing they did.

This person emailed me back a day or two later and said they did not really understand the complaint, that their website is designed in another country and more or less implied that I my email was some sort of a scam.

I'm not too inclined to take this to my lawyer - my sites make money, but not enough to justify that! However does anyone have any ideas on ways to procede from here?

Thanks much,

[Rollo]

I'd try a phone call. Save that, send them a bill.

Personally, given the type of content, I'd let anyone use the material if they properly cite the website and provide a backlink... sounds like your content must be great.

[doingthistoolong]

Thanks for your input! If there was a backlink, or credit there would be no problem... But I think you're right about suggesting this to them...

[willjan]

Of course if their ISP is in the US, you have a fall back to the DMCA "take down" notice.

Willjan

[rfontaine]

Tow years ago someone stole 5 articles of ours and posted them on their website. We sent them a bill for $1000 per article and invited them to purchase more. They removed the articles very quickly.

[Rainie]

>>We sent them a bill for $1000 per article and invited them to purchase more.<<

That's a good one, rfontaine, never thought of that. :-) I've had entire sites copied, and my unique articles copied in the hundreds. I'm extremely frustrated at this point.

Sadly, I can't keep up with the content thieves. I am about ready to give up. As they say, be careful what you wish for... a popular site is one that will be copied -- probably more than once. I'm afraid to look anymore. Perhaps I'll start sending out the bills. ;-)

dooingthistoolong, I think you took the right approach, nice but firm. Usually, I get good results that way. You say the site was designed in another country? What country is it hosted in? You can still try in other countries, the problem is that many of them don't respect the intellectual property of others.

Still, I have had success in countries where I didn't think I would. Also, the wayback machine has been very helpful to me. Sometimes just pointing out your dated content will persuade them to take it down.

[tomda]

Find out the name of their host and registrar using a whois.
If the host is an international/reputable one, then you can send a second email confirming that they have indeed copied content from your website and that if they don't do the necessary within xx hours, you will contact their host resulting in temporary closure of the website. I had same problem few weeks ago and their host was Yahoo Inc.

I am therefore requesting you to remove, without delay, the copied content from your webpage.
In the contrary, I will be oblige to contact your current host (#*$!#*$!) as well as you registrar (xxxxxxx) which both have a very strict policy regarding copyright infringment resulting in temporarly closure of your website.

The idea of the invoice is a nice though ;)

[peewhy]

Some people thrive on aggressive threats and laugh at them.

I would simply offer a link exchange and see if that moves mountains.

[malachite]

We sent them a bill for $1000 per article and invited them to purchase more.

Good for you rfontaine. A colleague takes a similar approach when he discovers unauthorised use of his photos.

Rainie - never, never give up on copyright thieves. By way of encouragement to you, said colleague generates more than half his (not inconsiderable) annual income from following up, and billing for, unauthorised use.

[doingthistoolong]

Thanks for the ideas and support!

As an update, I received email back from the site's developer (in India). They were very fast and professional in their response, which was, we see the problem and we will remove the content as soon as we are given permission to do so by the client (basically a reasonable response).

No more communication from the site owner. Not exactly sure what is up here - seems to be an real and upstanding single person financial consultancy. I have sent another email to the owner, their developer and their host (which is US based) asking them again to take down the offending content (with examples given) or I will take further notice.

I don't do any link exchanges, so that is not an option, and frankly there is little value to me for an inbound link from their site. I would be happy to write content for them or modify content for them - for a fee, but given their lack of response, I am not sure I would even bother pursuing them as a client - and for the life of me, I don't know why they would want my content on their site!

I am hoping to get this resolved with the most recent email - ie. making it clear that I am not going away until this is resolved.

[tomda]

Good!

Don't do like I did. Do not send another unecessary email saying that the content has not been removed yet. CLEAR YOUR CACHE FIRST! :)