Dealing With Scrapers

Can we summarize basic techniques?

[loudspeaker]

I've been researching scraping and how to protect from it. Recently, I realized that one of my sites had been mercilessly taken to pieces by dozens, perhaps even hundreds of scrapers and I had no idea.

MY ACTIONS SO FAR:

So far, I've been fishing them out of Google (all sitting comfortably above me in SERPs!) and adding their IP's to the list of sites to be blocked by the web server. But that's reactive not proactive and the damage has already been done. They already stole my content and surpassed me in ratings.

POSSIBLE DEFENSE?

Is there anything else I can do to protect myself? What are my legal options? I don't mind getting lawyers involved if it means saving my SERP rankings. Can I complain to their web hosting company? And how can I report them to Google - why isn't there a special "scaping report" form? Seems like it's a huge problem that's completely ignored by Google.

P.S. I previously asked a somewhat related question in this forum and was told that me ranking below scrapers is probably a consequence of some sort of a penalty, rather than the cause of it. Ok, but regardless, I'd still like to get rid of scrapers, so "HOW TO PROTECT O/S" is a separate question.

[followgreg]

I've tried cease and desist, they just ignore the letter. Hosting companies would not put them down as most of the time they do not fall under a DMCA complaint.

the problem is that scrappers are becoming more sophisticated all the time. It becomes really challenging for Google to spot them.

I believe that they are currently responsible for some domains to loose Google trust. Some type of (un)intentional Google bowling I'd say.