Theft of Links

Somebody stole our entire site!!

[Alecto]

Our site is a directory consisting of links to pictures of different places in the world. We have worked for months and months searching for very particular types of sites to place in our directory, which must follow a specific format. Each country in our site has its own page, and some of our pages have over 50 links to picture pages on them.

Today, while I was searching for pictures of Albania, I came upon a directory of 'search engines and other things'. I noticed in their picture category they had links to the same sites to which we had links.

I went to their main page and found that the links to pictures they had in every country in their directory were the exact same links as the links in our directory, with not a mention of our site at all.

This means that someone from their directory had to have come to our site and meticulously taken each of our links and placed it on their page.

I'm so angry I can hardly speak!!!

Their directory is listed in Yahoo as well. We are not.

What is my next recourse? This site is based in France. I don't know who to contact first.

[Laisha]

>I'm not sure what Laisha's attorney was referring to when he mentioned a 90 day time limit, but you do not need to file in order to seek damages for infringement.

Clarification:

From the U.S. Copyright Office [loc.gov]'s website.

>If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.

I am told that one benefit of having a copyright is that infringers realize quickly that they are apt to be taken to court, where they will lose, so "suggestions" that they remove copyrighted material is in itself a deterrant.

[ebgreen]

I am having the sam problem with pictures, content, body text, directory listings, etc. I know who is doing it, but how do you find their IP Address and block them from your site?

[DaveN]

ebgreen

If you know the url just do a Dns lookup.

I use demon -www.demon.net/external/

DaveN

[ebgreen]

DaveN, Once I do this, how do I prevent them from entering my website?

[DaveN]

EB what server are you running?

[ebgreen]

I have regular hosted domains, but unfortunately the site in problem is a Yahoo Store.

[DaveN]

i think you maybe stuck then.

could you change the text and images to have you site name plastered all over them (c).

without seeing the 2 SITES
You could search of some anti-leech software

DaveN