Someone copied my all directory listings

What are my options or solutions?

[goneinthesun]

after spending hundreds of hours in creating a human edited directory.

someone just copy along and copy everything.

what are there to do about it?

[Webwork]

What you can do might depend on a) the country where you live or operate your business; b) the country where the person who copied your work lives or does business. Each country has its own version of protection and its own enforcement procedures.

If you both are in the USA you might want to read what the [url= [Copyright.gov]U.S....] copyright office[/url] has to say about protecting your rights.

There are many issues involved, including your ability to copyright "a list", so the best advice would be to contact a lawyer who practices in a location near to where your adversary lives.

You might also want to do a bit of reading about filing a DMCA notice with the major search engines. (Digital Millenium Copyright Act - I think . . I should know off the top of my head but my head it cold from the recent temperature drop in New Jersey.)

[Marcia]

>>cold from the recent temperature drop in New Jersey.

That is a funny one. :)

If I remember correctly - and could be mistaken - data itself can't be copyrighted but the presentation of the data can be.

[goneinthesun]

most of them are outside US. The problem is that they have nothing to lose. and getting a lawyer involve wouldn't be worth it. yea you should hundreds of hours only to have someone take it in 10 mins.

[Webwork]

Presumably they are doing it to profit in some way. Follow the money: File your complaint with whomever is helping them to monetarize their thieving - Adsense, YahooSM, affiliate program, etc. - since the source of the money is also profiting from the wrongful act.

Knock out the profit and chances are you will also knock out the website from the SERPs and rightfully put an end to their profits and a (small) hurt on the thief too.

[kire1971]

I've had the same problem, many times. Here's what to do...

1. Contact the site owner and email or mail them a "Cease and Desist" letter. Worth a try, but likely their domain contact info is incorrect and they'll ignore your email.

2. Contact their hosting company and send the host a "Cease and Desist" letter. While the host is required to shut the website down, the site owners might be inclined to put it back up with a different host.

3. Send the major search engines a DMCA complaint. Each search engine has a department to handle these complaints. Carefully read each search engines instructions, and file your complaint. The search engines will investigate and remove the infinging site from the search listings. While the site may remain up and running, they won't be listed at any of the search engines so you won't need to worry about duplicate content from the infringing site.

[TXGodzilla]

but likely their domain contact info is incorrect and they'll ignore your email.

You have another option if the contact info is not correct. If the phone number doesn't work, the email bounces and the postal 'certified' letter is returned, report the domain to the registrar to have it suspended pending contact info verification.

Yeah, this is an ugly approach but if they want to hide their info, they can use the private registration features. Depending on the registrar, this can be an extremely useful tactic.