Theft of text?

[endomorph1]

I have just been doing one of my usual searches on Google for random paragraphs of text from my website to see if anyone has copied anything, and for once I found something.

The paragraph is exactly the same except he has replaced his company name, and of course the other website is in the same niche as me?

This is the first time it has happen so not sure what to do. Do I email them and ask them to remove it? Do I contact Google/Yahoo/MSN and issue C & D notice.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Nick Jachelson]

I would try to email him first, if that fails take other measures.

[websac]

Yes first you do email and if not got any response then take a action

[stapel]

endomorph1 said:

The paragraph is exactly the same except he has replaced his company name....

endomorph1: The fact that he stripped out your identifiers and replaced this information with his could be viewed as a tacit acknowledgement that he knew he was taking something that belonged to somebody else.

Some (including me) have come to the conclusion that asking a plagiarizer please to behave is unlikely to be successful. You may have better luck (I always have) in contacting the plagiarizer's server host, finding the host's "Terms of Service" or "Terms of Use" or whatever, finding their "don't post copyright violations" stipulation, and then looking for contact information. Provide the host with a (calm and dispassionate) listing of the problem, including links to your original content and their client's copy.

The copy may come down right away, or (more likely) you may hear back from the host, telling you to follow their DMCA take-down procedure. If that happens, and if you're needing any assistance with that, please reply with specifics, as I have done this successfully oodles of times. ;-)

Thank you.

Eliz.

[Kenton]

If you found them on Google then have Google drop them first of all. See Google's DMCA page.

Secondly go to their host (only after Google has removed them) and run the same DMCA procedure with them. Hopefully they'll remove the site.

Don't waste your time going directly to them. All you get is "Oh sorry my web designer ... blah blah blah ... it will be fixed in x days ... blah" but little or nothing often gets done. Why should you then have to chase them up again ... and again ... and again.

I have found hundreds of pages that plagiarise my site and had them either removed from Google, shutdown by the host or better still both :)

A google DMCA complaint may take a couple of weeks to work, but it is rather satisfying to think that the reason they copied me was because they're trying to copy my success in Google but it's lead to their de-listing.

Good Luck
Kenton

[xtom]

What if they use adwords, msybe google wouldn't be so quick to take them down? I had some text blatently copied too, some of it was modified and the rest left word for word even the format is the same. The worse thing is they are competitors and it p****s me off they stole stuff I spent time on writing.

How do I go about issuing a complaint to google?

[Kenton]

Google shouldn't care about AdSense or AdWords clients. By leaving the listings up they are in breach of the DMCA and may be liable (ie they'd rather lose a client than be sued!)

Fill out this form:
[webmasterworld.com...]

and post or fax it to Google (details here [google.com...] )

Kenton

[stapel]

Kenton said:

Don't waste your time going directly to them. All you get is "Oh sorry... blah blah blah...."

Wow. They actually answer you, and then apologize?!?

You're doing much better than me, in that case. Back when I was still trying to contact the plagiarizers directly, they'd either not respond at all, or else reply with rudeness and self-justification.

One guy (who'd scraped my whole site and was selling access to my content) had the gall to say that it was okay for him to steal my stuff, because, for all he knew, maybe I'd stolen it from somebody else. He did everything but stick his tongue out at me.

Eliz.

[hunderdown]

One guy (who'd scraped my whole site and was selling access to my content)

I hope you nailed him to the nearest wall and extracted a kidney as compensation.

Seriously, I'd go for monetary damages in a case like that. Did you get his site taken down?

[JDigital]

I'm reminded of the guy who sold an "e-book" about piercings and tattoos, made entirely from content he'd taken from popular websites on the topic and paraphrased - sometimes misinterpreted, which proved how little he really knew. It was just a CD full of RTF files. When he was questioned via e-mail, he started getting philosophical, quoting some philosopher or other on how no human thought is truly original, so technically any idea is original.

[HRoth]

People generally apologize and take the material down when I contact them about plagiarizing. Yes, they make an excuse about why they have the material up, but that's just because they're embarrassed. I've had more trouble when I had to deal with the webhost, like ebay or Yahoo, both of whom dragged their feet interminably.

[stapel]

I said:

One guy (who'd scraped my whole site and was selling access to my content) had the gall to say that it was okay for him to steal my stuff, because, for all he knew, maybe I'd stolen it from somebody else.

hunderdown replied:

I hope you nailed him to the nearest wall and extracted a kidney as compensation. Seriously, I'd go for monetary damages in a case like that. Did you get his site taken down?

*laughing* I like your "kidney" remark; it certainly well-reflects the way I felt at the time!

The site did come down, but this was back in the days before the DMCA, so the host was no help at all (not even bothering to reply to my queries) and I had very little leverage. In fact, it was actually that bozo and his claims (that my stuff was good, so I'd probably stolen it, too) that induced me to get my first Copyright Registration thingy.

With me being "just" a haus-frau without a registered copyright yet, the guy, a hot-shot San Diego sociology professor, gave me no respect at all. But us haus-fraus can allocate a lot of time to projects, if we need to; you should never tick us off. *evil grin*

I took a day and, with the help of Google, found nine other sources from whom he'd stolen content (for "his" other "online courses"). Most of the other plagiarism victims were big universities, with legal departments and war chests and letterhead and stuff. Once they got mad at him, he closed down shop.

It ended up being a very satisfying experience.

Eliz.

[hunderdown]

I took a day and, with the help of Google, found nine other sources from whom he'd stolen content (for "his" other "online courses"). Most of the other plagiarism victims were big universities, with legal departments and war chests and letterhead and stuff. Once they got mad at him, he closed down shop.

I love it. That's a great tactic, even today with the DMCA--find the other places someone has copied from, and get them to pile on.

[Clinton Labombard]

Yeah, that's another tactic to keep in mind: being more wealthy, intimidating, and credible than the dolt who stole the work. Hey, if it works for plagiarists, then certainly it'd work for someone defending against a plagiarist.