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I also have had this happen to me, but even more blatant.
I find them the same way you did. I have a legal method of dealing with it, but it is costly. I find 2-3 per month.
I am looking forward to responces on this.
A stern email usually works... Sure cant afford to sue every copy-cat!
That's my next step. I'll contact the site and hopefully some good will come out of it. I'm still very new to the webmaster world and just find it hard to believe what underhanded tactics others will take to go after the competition. My site is purely non-commercial and my thoughts are that I'm taking away from a commercial site. On top of stealing my content they even took a few photos. Does anyone know if this is something google might like to have a look at? I did try and email that sites so-called webmaster and the "bleep" even had the nerve to use my old email account. At least that's not active anymore. ERR is all I can say.
Basically they leave the site up for several months, then change the content over to their own.
On the otherhand, it could be that someone trying to learn webpages used your content as filler material so they could figure out how to make webpages.
I would almost guess that since they were on a free hosting service.
If the infringer doesn't remove it, contact the host. There are many hosts that will remove the content (and often the entire site) as it goes against the TOS the hosting client agreed to when signing up, and they don't want to find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit because of something a client did.
You can also file a DMCA report with google [google.com...] if the results are appearing in Google.
I have had this happen to me many times, but the above has worked for me so far.
Jen
[edited by: Jenstar at 12:59 am (utc) on May 2, 2003]
I have 46 pages, and when my stats show an IP visiting all 46 within 2 minutes, I know my site has just been riped.
I find that the offender will publish the site "as is", which in turn appears to me as a new back-link in my stats. Then I go dig...
I found My Title, My Keywords (meta tags) and the Universities URL while doing the ATW backlinks check.
Last year was the first time it happened and they did remove it. Somehow or other, this year it 're-appeard' and, once again I notified them to remove post haste which they said they did again.
Problem is, the material is now 'out there', the Engines and bots have picked it up (caching it) and traffic now comes from all over the World.
Now, when a visitor hits that copied materials URL, they end up on my custom 404 page - where I have a message which says, in part:
"If you're coming here from: http*//www.BlahBlah.html then you've just passed thru 'stolen copyrighted material' (where stolen copyrighted material is a functional link to my material, and I go on to say...) In this case, by the graces of Professor blah blah at blah blah University".
Who knows, maybe some Alumnist will see it and notify the 'offender'. In the meantime many others will see it too.
So, as it stands, I'm sitting back waiting for some legal notification from them demanding I remove the above, at which time I'll reply with a bill for about $100.00 per month for each month the material has been on the Internet - retroactive to the date of the first infraction. Naturally, they'll still be responsible for removing the 'cached' material. The longer it takes, the more they owe.
Oh, I get roughly 20-45 hits a week from that URL too. (hehehe) Hmmmm, mebe I should 'tax' them on a per-hit basis.
Good Luck!
Pendanticist.
Jen
Here is a sample C&D letter that is pretty tough and direct if you find you need one. [webtechniques.com...]
There can be problems with a hostile approach though.
[webtechniques.com...]
I write my letter somewhat different.
I usually detail that I have more money and time then they do (which is true) and that I will make "making their life miserable" my #1 effort (which is true).
The people "stealing" my content, code, graphics... all know what I am telling them is true, and not a bluff.
I work within a close team of people that all have various connections to resources, so putting on some pressure via reports to ISP's and registrars helps push the offenders over board. If they are cheating me, they almost always are cheating others. A look at back-links and a few phone calls to those other parties helps also.
Most sites come down within minutes.
check this threads - explains clearly and even give you the letter to be sent:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Leo
One way to discourage the use of automatic scritps which steal your site is to use a bot trap. Its not that complicated:
1. Set up a script which records IPs and puts them in your banned IPs list
2. Adjust your robots.txt file to block robots from the above
3. Link to the above using a 1x1 pixel or other such which would be followed by a robot but not by a real person.
'Bad' Robots - e.g. site stealing scripts, will ignore your robots.txt and follow the 1x1 pixel link, and your script will automatically block them from accessing anything else on your site.
There are also more sophisticated tricks available which detect common bad script user-agents etc.
Of course your site can still be stolen manually but don't make it easy for them...
LOL. Allthough it's really funny, it sometimes scares me how dumb some people are. :/
From what I understand, If two sites are an exact mirror the oldest one will stand and not be penalized. Also you will not be penalized by incoming links.
There have never been any negative consequences. In fact quite the opposite. My PR has never been affected and my sales have never decreased (in fact like others here, I've actually picked up extra sales until they changed the links).
Eventually they all changed their sites and links until there wasn't any resemblance and the free sales disappeared.
I'm just waiting for the next idiot to show up in my logs.
A simple phone call to whatever number is advertised on the site or in the whois data asking for the person responable for their website's name and number informing them that my lawyer will be calling them to initiate legal action if the content is not removed within 24 hours works for me.
