Copyright theft of Adwords Text

Request for advice on how to deal with it

[21_blue]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question, but does anyone have any recommendations on what we could/should do about the following problem:

We have crafted some Adwords texts that are now performing quite well. However, some websites have taken those texts and are using cloaking techniques to attract visitors to the site. That is, when you search on terms in our field, you get our Adwords text in the search results for that website.

We've seen people steal text from our website before, but not done anything about it, partly because we always rank well above those pages in the search engines. However, in this case, the websites that are stealing the Adwords text (that we refined over a period of time) are ranking above ours for keywords that are important to us.

So, does anyone have any suggestions on what we could or should do about this problem?

[mark1111]

You could send them a cease-and-desist letter. If that doesn't work, you might be able to get their web host to take down the page. Failing that, you'd have to take them to court, which could be expensive and lengthy and might not get you much, unless you feel the traffic you're losing is worth it. And do you have any way to quantify that? Have sales gone down just since they did this?

[bnhall]

Is Adwords text copywritable? Given the limit amount of text, I wonder:

Online Widget Sales
We sell different types of widgets
red widgets, green widgets and more
www.widget-seller.com

Should someone be allowed to copywrite this?

[mark1111]

Everything is copyrightable--copyright inheres in the act of creation.

Think of a poem -- a haiku.
Few words, much meaning.
Still copyrightable.

You get the idea. Of course, there are exceptions--what are called "scenes a faire". Essentially, if there's no other way to describe something, an apparent violation may not be infringement. But in a case like this, direct copying doesn't seem to fit that category.