Just found 2 complete copies of our website!

[kapow]

Just found 2 complete copies of our website!

I have heard about people hijacking or copying website content but hadn't bothered to check. I just picked a couple of sections from our site and checked on Google - There are THREE sites copying our content, two are complete copies! I sent them an email detailing the copied pages and references to archive.org that prove our originality. I explained - they should remove my content or I will report them to their host and the search engines.

[Jenstar]

First thing you should do is send a proper C&D (cease and desist), rather than just an email. It includes the date I expect the stolen content to be removed by. It also includes all the legalese about how copyright infringement is punishable and he/she could be held liable for financial damages. You can find blank C&D templates on the web.

I send this to every email address for the infringer I can find (including whois info, anything on the website, and also by hunting around on the web as well.)

If the infringer doesn't respond, try contacting the host next. Many hosts won't tolerate any cases of copyright infringement on their servers, as they don't want to be held liable either. This goes against nearly every terms of service of hosting providers.

You can also send a DMCA to Google - [google.com...] Be sure to follow the instructions they give you, they are very specific to make sure it is all proper. This will remove the listings from the Google serps. Google will also send a copy of it to www.chillingeffects.org

[jbinbpt]

I wouldn't wait to send copies to the ISP. I would send copies to all parties involved at the same time.
The ISP needs to hear it from you before the offender can remove the content or try to spin the story around to his own advantage.

[kapow]

Can someone remind me the site that tells you which ISP a domain is using? I've seen this before, you type the domain name and it displays the company that site is hosted with.

[trillianjedi]

This has also happened to me twice.

I've found the best way is actually to approach it, in the first instance, relatively softly softly. So an email to say "Look dude, I put a lot of work into creating this and it's not very nice to see someone has copied the entire thing and is pretending that it's theirs. If you want a website - then go and build one, please don't rip mine off".

That actually worked in the end on both occasions, although the idea was, if no joy, I would then get heavy and threatening.

Someone on here kindly did me a cease and desist letter in German. These things really should get bookmarked.....

TJ

[edit_g]

Most of these will tell you:

[google.com...]

But bear in mind that people who copy material from other websites seldom use valid registration information.

[kapow]

I don't mean the Whois info. There is a site that detects and displays the host name (for that site) when you enter the domain name.

[photon]

I don't remember for sure, but is Netcraft what you were looking for?

[Marketing Guy]

Find the nameserver info on Whois and do a search on google for the details - a lot of hosts have their nameserver info on indexable pages.

Ive had the same problem, and in fact this week I had to contact a host to remove content from a site that stole it from mine (they sent an email to the owner and gave him 24hours to remove it, and when he didnt, they took down the page).

Scott

[Slade]

I use this ARIN link: [arin.net...]

You have to get the IP from ping first, but it will tell you who owns the IP block.

[kapow]

Thats it, thankyou :)

1.) Get their IP with: [samspade.org...] (or similar service).

2.) Then from the IP get their host with: [arin.net...]

3.) Report them to their host with a link to your site originality at [archive.org...]

I prefer to ask them nicely to remove my content before I report them. When I started out I did some stupid stuff too.