Ready to give up. Too much theft.

[ChanandlerBong]

I run a site that offers very unique content in PDFs, so unique that hundreds of members pay anywhere up to a hundred bucks for access to it. There are also free samples that non-members can request and I've gained many new members in this way, but it seems to be at the heart of the problem I'm now having.

I've just run a few phrases through google and the results were simply staggering. This is a site that has been running for a few years and I've written to a couple of sites in the past but haven't made any checks in the last twelve months or so. Pretty much every search I did turned up bits of material or even whole PDF files on a whole raft of sites.

I've contacted a couple of hosts and been told by all of them that I need to submit a full DMCA notice. Some of these sites have 30, 40, 50 things copied, sorry, stolen! Why is that my responsibility to document? Close the damn site down!

The internet really is the wild west. Steal and you'll get a slap on the wrist and be told to take it down. Nothing more will be done. There is simply NO disincentive to steal, becase 90% of the time, you'll get away with it and even if you don't, there's ZERO punishment.

So I'm sitting here with 150 PDF files or bits of PDF files copied onto what could be a thousand sites, everything from Peggy Sue's homework blog right up to mega-sized Chinese document storage sites that I have no chance against.

Ever feel like just throwing the towel in?

The scales are tipped against quality content providers. I'll just open another social network with a nice shiny forum and be done with it.

Those of you who provide unique content - what do you do to stay on top of this copyright infringment situation? Do you use a service like copyscape - or even google alerts, to let you know when something's been copied? Do you submit DMCA's and if so, how do you expedite the whole process?

[purplecape]

Did you copyright this material? If it's that unique and valuable, you should. Then you can not only shut down offenders but collect damages--note that you may not even need to go to court to do so. There have been posts here from people who invoiced offenders and collected...

[Rosalind]

Have you thought about approaching a traditional publisher? Since you have material people are interested in and actually paying for, it shouldn't be too hard to get a contract. There are a number of major educational publishers that specialise in online courses, so maybe that's who you want to approach.

Then you can concentrate on what you do best, and leave the legal battles to their lawyers.

[Tallon]

I've submitted a DMCA with great success (U.S. based host though). First, make it easy on yourself by giving the copy thief notice (through his/her contact form). Something simple like: hey fella, you have LOTS of my content copied on your site. Examples are pages A, B, C (and dozens more). I expect it all removed in 24 hours or I'll be filing a DMCA to your webhost (name the hosting company).

If that doesn't shake & rattle the guy, a call the next day from his webhost will.

My worst experience: I had a fellow work through my site and hand copy & paste, one by one, dozens and dozens of pages and he was just getting started (I had around 1,500 at the time). He was shut down completely within 24 hrs by the hosting company. He didn't respond to me within the time period I specified (I didn't give him 24 hrs since he was so busy doing his thing while I was typing my warning) and by the time he took a break from his c&p job, he emailed me back: so sorry, so sorry, I'm deleting...the hosting company flipped the switch.

Other things I've done is sent an email to the person with something like "copyrights" or "copytheft" @example.com and an explanation on why the content can't be copied (lots of times it's granny or aunt penny and they don't know any better), or it's user generated content that the webmaster has no way of knowing where their superstah contributor is getting the stuff (and probably don't care until it gets sniffed out by the copyright owner). They always delete quickly.

And other times--I just ignore it (mine isn't premium/pay content though). It depends on the situation, how much is copied and if the copy site is established or high-profile enough (to siphon off links and traffic).

The biggest host on the net for stolen content? From what I've found--Google's blogspot, hands down. I just checked and they now have an online form and a fax number you can file complaints to, but unless I'm wrong, that's a recent development. I'm sure it used to be accepted by mail only.

For stuff hosted outside North American, contact advertisers (if the webmaster won't budge and webhosts don't care). Advertisers get buggy when they're shown to be funding and profiting from illegal content.

[ChanandlerBong]

thanks for the suggestions. It might actually be worth contacting an online publisher longterm as I've proved I have a market.

one of my premium members was a culprit in all of this. And she replies, "I paid to register, so I thought I could put the materials where I wanted."

that's a common theme I meet on the internet, total unadulterated IGNORANCE of what is and what is not permissable. So many believe "on the internet" means "fair game". If you can copy it, it's yours. Quite literally - I had another tell me "you didn't disable the right click so that is basically saying take what you want". Seriously. It's impossible to remain civil talking with these jokers. They don't have a clue between them.

Google does make DMCA tough as they insist on faxing. One bad offender is on yahoo hosting and they've sent me a template to use and e-mail to them. Google, take note.

[Tallon]

It might actually be worth contacting an online publisher longterm as I've proved I have a market.

I think it is in most cases. And something I keep in mind is that a fellow or two copying your stuff--they may be just toe dippers. Once it's been established that you won't come after them, there might be a whole "ring" in the wings waiting to jump in. That was my fear in the dmca case I mentioned above. He bought a domain name that was along the theme of mine, then took all that time to set the site up and begin copy/pasting. I have rss on this site but only partial feeds. I had a sneaking suspicion he was moving my content to his domain so that it could be easy for everyone to scrape the full deal (he had full feeds on).

[geekay]

The DMCA is usually recommended as an efficient cure. But isn't that Act, when it really comes to it, a joke, just like the CAN-SPAM Act? First you file a DMCA with e.g. Google. But the infringer simply files a counter notification opposing your legitimate claim of copyright. If you want to pursue you need to send an expensive attorney to a Santa Clara CA court. If you don't do that, or if you do, but fail to sufficiently prove your case to the court, a perjury case could follow. If you don't show up in Santa Clara CA in that situation, or if you do but lose (because you already lost the earlier case) the court will sentence you to a penalty. Heavy damages will have to be paid to the other party. If you live abroad you might prefer to avoid visiting a country that could extradite you to the USA. I feel rather powerless. Am I missing something fundamental, or is the above scenario improbable?