DMCA Letter Didn't Work

What Next?

[CannonFodder]

So I've contacted the ISP of a site that has taken our database and re-created about 7,000 pages of content. I can assume by looking at other sites this particular person has written that they probably don't make a bunch of money. The ISP has refuse to take down the site, probably due to a lack of understanding on how the DMCA protects a database owner.

I reside in Canada, but my provider, the ISP of the offending site and the site owner are all in the US. Travelling to the US for a court appearance is not really a financial option.

Does anyone here have any other ideas, or have a lawyer that might be interested in taking the case on for a reasonible price?

Thanks,

Dan

[Tearabite]

Is he using Adsense on his site?

if so, you may want to notify G ..

[CannonFodder]

No, that would be too easy. He sells text links, probably a link farm, based on some of his other sites.

After about 2 weeks of emails I may have finally got his ISP to do something.

Fingers crossed.

[alottolearn]

How did you find out who the ISP was?

I recently discovered some of our text and photos on a competitor's site and will need to take some action.

But, I'm learning that since our site has not been registered with the U.S Copyright Office, that all we're probably going to be able to do is to try to get them to remove the photos and text (and threaten to drag their name through the mud, of course!)

Some of the stolen text is what appears in their search engine result, so I may take some of the advice offered elsewhere in this forum and do some research with the search engines to see if I can have their listing removed.

Whatever you do, don't feel powerless ... there are creative things you will come up with to satisfy the frustration of dealing with a crook.

[CannonFodder]

I used Sam Spade to track down the isp by entering the offenders domain name. Sometimes you need to go through a couple of layers, but eventually you'll get to the ISP.

Just Google Sam Spade and have a read on their site.

You can also use the WhoIs feature at Internic and work that way.

If you need more help, message me and I'll see what I can do.

Dan

[jdMorgan]

> I'm learning that since our site has not been registered with the U.S Copyright Office, that all we're probably going to be able to do is to try to get them to remove the photos and text [...]

If you register a copyright, you are entitled to actual plus punitive damages.
If you don't register a copyright, your published work is still copyrighted, but you are only entitled to actual damages.

Read the copyright-law-related pages carefully. Under the DMCA, anything you publish on the Web is copyrighted by default -- it's just not a registered copyright.

Jim

[alottolearn]

Gee, it's all quite a mess in a way. I documented our situation by copying the site and photos, etc., but attorney's only want to take on such cases if the material has already been registered (at least cases on contingency.) I guess they want it to be uncomplicated and if the material was registered, that kind of makes it more solid.

So, it's up to us to make something happen somehow ... perhaps not in a legal sense, but at least to get the photos removed from their site. It's awful to spend so much time creating a business/website and find that someone has stolen your work ... it seems like you should be able to send them an invoice for use of the material!

Thank you both for the information ... I'm going to see if I can find the ISP on these folks anyway.

[Jafo]

I just had this problem today. I sell software on one of my sites, software I spent many many hours building. I get a request from someone for support, and find out someone else sold them the software. I got a copy of their receipt and it went to a site named similiar to mine.

I go there, and the entire site was copied word for word except for the "Buy now" links, and the adsense was removed.

First, I contacted the merchant service (regnow) and fax'd them the DMCA. I then faxed the ISP who was hosting the site.

Then I found the support page for the ISP and was able to talk live to the abuse department via ICQ and within 3 minutes the site was taken down.

I have had to do this before, my advice is to find anything on the site that is part of another network. For example, the regnow links, adsense, any advertisers, etc., and contact them with the DMCA.

You can also contact the registrar of the domain name. I have had success with Godaddy.com parking a domain that was infringing my work.