Stealing Content

How do you handle it?

[Key_Master]

I've just ran across a site that is using full text articles, pictures, and videos stolen from my site. I'm not alone, apparently the site owner has ripped off a number of sites.

The moron actually left links to the sites he was ripping off. Keep in mine, credit for the material he stole was not given to the authors or sites he took the content from.

I've tracked the thief's IP down and banned the ISP. I'm considering banning the referrals from the site although I'm kinda hesitant about doing so. Might end up banning googlebot or something. I'll also contact the ISP.

Could I be penalized for the stolen but duplicate content (hint, GOOGLEGUY)?

On top of everything else, my content is being dished out on a Windows server. Never thought I'd see the day that would happen ;)

[Marcia]

Do the others know he has their content? And have you demanded that he remove your copyrighted materials? He sounds like a real winner.

[Key_Master]

>>>Do the others know he has their content?

Not yet but they will and he will recieve a former notification (if I decide not to crash his server first). Right now I'm checking logs, doing whois lookups etc. Trying to prevent this from getting worse than it already is.

[Key_Master]

I might have struck gold (in a weird legal way). The registrant is the CEO of a manufacturing firm that sells a product that relates to the content on my site and is also a former advertising client of mine. Easy matter to handle now.

[idiotgirl]

Get a rope.

[Key_Master]

Case resolved. I win and loser is on knees begging for forgiveness. ;)

My content was used to build up the site so that it would be accepted for inclusion in the yahoo directory. It got included. Funny how my site has yet to be approved. Yahoo sucks!

[chiyo]

Sounds like HE was the winner...

[Key_Master]

Nahhh, I got Yahoo (and a million other people) on the case. You might not believe it, but I can be a real pain in the @ss.