Cease and desist orders. Do they work?

Or do you need to kick b...tt additionally?

[adfree]

Detecting your brand names or other of your property at other web sites, cease and desist orders often do the trick for clueless web developers and owners.

But how about the shameless ones, how far do you have to go to get them to comply?

[Liane]

I'd like to know also. I have just found a slew of thieves who have taken all or part of my text. One has even registered a special domain, used my text to lure the engines and then redirects to a huge competitor's (cloaked) home page ... and this from the second biggest company in the industry! Its a multi million dollar company!

I have reported them to both Google and Yahoo ... without any results whatsoever. Their respective spam reports are a joke!

I don't think we can actually stop people who are intent on cheating. I was wondering about this though:

Copyscape [copyscape.com]

Has this been around a while? Has anyone used it with any success or is it a waste of time and energy?

[iamlost]

I am not a lawyer and the following is NOT legal advice: please discuss your precise situation with competent legal counsel.

My experience is that courts like to see that available non-court options were exhausted prior to showing up in front of the judge. The following is my "C & D" template:

1. Research:
   
   • determine the owner(s) of the site, the webmaster(s) of the site, the host(s) of the site.
     
   • take screenshots of every infringing page.
     
   • print the original page side by side with the offending page: urls visible and highlighted, original and plagerised copy highlighted and notated.
     
   
   
2. Initial Action:
   
   • Email to site webmaster and to site owner requesting a cease and desist within a set time (I like ten days) and payment of a set amount (I like $100.00 per page) to cover my copyright up to but not past that time limit.
     
   • Followup immediately with a registered letter/courier saying exactly the same as, and referencing, the email.
     
   
   
3. Subsequent Action (if no or inadequate reaction):
   
   • Email to hosting site, including a copy of the webmaster/owner email, noting knowing copyright infringement and requiring that the host take action or be considered a party to the infringement. Again I like ten days (two business weeks) as a "reasonable" time to allow for action.
     
   • Email various search engines including all sent emails and requesting the removal of offending pages/site. Some have forms they like: find and fill and submit.
     
   
   
4. Expensive Initial Action:
   
   • In essence tell them my lawyer can wup their lawyer: have my legal rep redo all the steps I did but in legalese adding lots of additional costs. She always starts with a telephone conversation with her secretary taking notes; follows up with a letter, both faxed and mailed (registered).
     
   
   
5. Expensive Subsequent Action:
   
   • Formally register copyright with the (in my instance) Canadian Copyright Office ($65CAD per work) and request certified copy of registration ($35CAD per work).
     
   • Initiate a civil action in (in my instance) BC Supreme Court.
     
   • if the infringement includes actual goods (such as from an ecommerce or manufacturers site) especially if counterfeit goods are involved pass a copy of the file to the RCMP for possible criminal charges.
     

If actual loss of traffic, sales, or income can be demonstrated it is plain gravy.

On two occassions my lawyer got incredibly fast action by sending a copy of the file to the hosting sites countrys Embassy.

Several sites have hopped about from host to host but eventually they gave up and went away. Some have paid up, most simply vanished.

How much time, effort, and money you can justify to defend your work is subjective and I will leave it with you.

Liane:
The big guys think they intimidate you. I am not familiar with BVI but can say that I have (actually my very connected law type person has) shown some in Canada the error of their ways. Each time it went right up to the point of walking into court before they caved though.

COPYSCAPE is new and does little you can not do yourself. It runs your content through Google looking for matches. Adding their logo/link would IMO do nothing except give them lots of incoming links for lots of cheap PR.

Copyright is a morass but if the author doesn't take it seriously who will?

[adfree]

Now THAT's a contribution!
Thanks a lot!

[coolmacguy]

I have reported them to both Google and Yahoo ... without any results whatsoever.

You need to report it to their ISP.

[Leosghost]

Liane having looked at the link you provided to Copyscape ...
For image protection it appears to be one big hype ..I fed it one of my pages with 10 images ..hit go ..it came back with the site of a guy who links to me ( just the one! although that page is the target of a couple of hundred backlinks that are in place! ) the only thing it could find that he had of mine was the "all in anchor" ( he doesnt have any pics of mine on that page ..only his own ..he runs a motorcycle directory ..I have a bunch of motorcycle stuff and leatherwear sites ).

<<If thats too specific mods ..please edit>>

On clicking the link to the supposedly offending page of his ..
I get his page ..with an inserted iframe page from Copyscape ..full of their adsense ads for other peoples stuff ...!

Just looks like a new variant on "scraper" ..

Plus I'm certain that it must be against the adsense tos to insert your pages which run adsense into the middle of someone elses ...but if everyone who goes to the copyscape site "tries" it out to see what they are supposedly offering then they will make a whole heap of money before google get wise .

( I don't beleive for a moment that you realised or intended this ..however it might be an idea for the admins or mods to remove the link ..try their "service" ..you'll seewhat I mean "pagejacking at it's worst" )

The only way that you can maybe deal with being ripped off for your images is to include a code in your images ..place a notice to the effect that all images are copyright and that unauthorised use of them in any way will be taken to mean that the user accepts to pay you $1000.00 per photo per day of use and that you will use the courts to get paid ...this will put most "rip off" merchants off ...and may in fact gain you some money ( I have a friend in the same business as one of my sites who does this ..it has worked ..he doesn't include "coded stuff" in his pics ) just the wording .

Programs that will let you insert data ( coding ) into pictures are available as freeware ..and as you chose the password that separates the two data elements again then you can be sure that the people who are ripping off your images are not aware that each one is "marked" this way ...( basically this is the way digimarc work ) ..You can then code to find your own hidden code snippet on the net..

You can also run javascripts to prevent images from being "savable" etc or printable ..but as someone who has done this I can tell you that I am gradually removing all such protection via javascript as since IE tried to "tighten up their act" most people just don't get to see images protected this way which defeats the point of using them to enhance your site..customers just back out when they cant see the pics ...AND the bad guys or anyone with a little tech savvy can still copy them anyway ( unless you hack their machines ..which only stops those using IE with javascript enabled )..you can prevent hotlinking ..you can ban all "image bots" ( probably the most effective thing to do ..they cant steal what they don't know about )...

oh yeah ..and everthing that Iamlost said too ..I just add a zero into the damages :)

As a last resort ..you can have someone go "knock on their door" ...or their server :)...Whoops biker/hacker in me slipped out again there :)

[photon]

Programs that will let you insert data ( coding ) into pictures are available....

The process is known as steganography. That should help you search for those programs.

[Leosghost]

thanks photon ..did think to add a link to some free ones but as they are also available in "Pay" version figured they might get removed ...( not my progs BTW ..no aff )..

never can remember the word..always confuse with the "proxy" of similar name

[bcolflesh]

If you are working with JPEG, BMP, WAV or AU files, try steghide:

[sourceforge.net...]

[Liane]

Wow ... thanks everyone! Some really good advice there!

I really wondered about copyscape. After doing a few more searches ... seems you are absolutely right! Darn it. Here I thought I had possibly found something of value. :(

( I don't beleive for a moment that you realised or intended this ..however it might be an idea for the admins or mods to remove the link ..try their "service" ..you'll seewhat I mean "pagejacking at it's worst" )

Please do remove the link. I had no intention of helping a page jacker!

[hunderdown]

Just to toss out a different view on Copyscape--I know people who have used it to find sites that had copied their content, sites that they had no idea existed before. You don't like the fact that it tosses Adsense ads in your face? OK. So don't click on them.

For a part-time webmaster it can be a useful tool for spot-checking, just to see if there IS a problem with one's content being stolen.

[EileenC]

I googled my name today and found someone had posted one of my newspaper columns, to which I own the rights (not the newspapers it appears in) on their site. I emailed the webmaster and told them they either had to pay me for it or take it down. I did not get a reply from them, but it was down within 3 hours.

MWAAHAAHAAAHAAA - feel the power!

[adfree]

EileenC - encouraging!

[photocartoonist]

Great stuff! It is encouraging to see content creators being proactive. Copyrights are just that, rights. The laws are NOT a prevention. They are a remedy. We must do our diligence.

And, oh yes, establish a relationship with a good IP attorney. It's worth it.