Copyright Infringement

Would you notify another webmaster?

[coconutz]

I was recently searching for a particular phrase that I thought was unique to one of my web pages. Surprise! The unique phrase and quite a bit more of my content was found on another web page. After an email to the offending webmaster (with a copy forwarded to his host) advising him of the infringement and requesting that our copyrighted material be removed, he complied and offered an apology. Too easy.

My curiosity got to me, so I tried a few searches using sentence segments from this site and it seems that quite a bit of the content originated elsewhere.

Would you notify the other webmasters? Or are you satisfied that your own copyrighted material was removed with minimal effort?

Oh yeah, this is posted on their home page:

_{Copyright © 2002 "CTRL+V" Company
Reproduction is strictly prohibited and is protected by international law}

[Key_Master]

Yes, I would and have. You might even pick up a few appreciative links (for your effort) like I did.

[stevenha]

Well, I've notified another webmaster, when I recognized that some of his content had been duplicated. I just think its a nice thing to do. You get no particular reward, except perhaps a Thank-you. It might even lead to reciprocal link, if that webmaster checks out your site ( and likes it). I can't think of any downside, just as long you're pretty sure who is the original copyright holder.

[shelleycat]

I also would and have, and still would even if the person I'm notifying was a direct competitor of mine. The person breaking copyright is a liability in their own right and making sure they know they can't get away with it with anyone's material is always benificial. Otherwise what's to stop them sneaking some more of your stuff in the future? (sadly I've seen it happen)

[coconutz]

I'm almost positive about the content being copied. Thanks for the tip about the links.

[coconutz]

making sure they know they can't get away with it

I also thought about forwarding a copy of these messages to this guy's host as well.