What can be done to sites or bloggers who steal content?
Is there nothing that a blogger can do to protect his or her content on the web? I have just found out that one particular site which claims to be a woman’s community site is plagiarising my content by copying paragraphs of my content, word for word, and sticking it into its site to look like the site’s original content! Even the title of the posts are taken word for word.
The irony of it all is that the author of the site even had the cheek to contact me for a link up to her site! I don’t think the author of that particular community site is going to give me the time of day in my request for the content to be taken off its site. So what can I do other than be fuming mad?
Plagiarism is a crime, whether one realises it or not. But people keep doing it anyway because there just isn’t a proper channel to bring the culprits to pay for their crime. How do bloggers then protect their work? I have no idea. If you have thoughts on this, please share with me.
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This post has 9 comments
November 13th, 2008
This has happened to me once too often. I’m so fed up that I don’t even care about it anymore. The worse case was when one blogger stole the personal post about my wedding anniversary that I had dedicated to my husband. In it I had looked back at my wedding ceremony etc and she took that and pretended it was her. It was so creepy! She closed down her blog after I and several other bloggers whose posts she copied highlighted it.
Anyway, in a more recent copy case some commenters left some useful suggestions. You can check it out here.
November 13th, 2008
Are you able to file a complaint to the forum provider or hoster?
November 13th, 2008
That’s terrible, but I think just post a complaint to the hosting provider. Of if the site uses Adsense… hehe, just complaint to Google.
November 13th, 2008
This is what you should do:-
1) Email the blogger / admin and give notice to remove within (x) number of days / hours. Use domaintools.com to trace further their contact.
2) If there is no response within your stipulated notice or if you are unable to trace the blogger / admin, contact the Hosting Company (you can trace the Hosting company using domaintools.com)
3) Issue a notice of demand to the Hosting Company to remove the offending paragraph / post which has infringed your copyright. You will have to identify your original works (URL) and the infringing works (URL).
4) You will in all probability be asked to fax a declaration and indemnity on behalf of the Hosting Company before the Hosting Company removes the offending content.
5) If the infringing works are hosted on Blogger, then you will have to comply with their procedures before the infringing works can be removed.
I had successfully removed a whole site which had copied all my works using steps 2, 3 and 4 above. It’s a bit of work involved but if you really care about your works, you would want to get this done.
November 13th, 2008
If you are posting in the internet, there is no way you can stop people from stealing your contents unless you do not post online.
It is not worth the hassle to confront those copy cats. Today you may clobber one copy cat and what if tomorrow more copy cats appear or s/he does it on another site ? You will forever waste your time going after them.
If they want to steal my contents,I will let them do at will. Just ignore them . I am afraid there is no much you can do about it.It can be a never ending episode after another.
However ,if you feel strongly for it ,you can send them an e-mail threatening to sue them for plagiarizing your work. Some may get scared while others may not give a damned about you.
Whether you intent to carry out your threats is another matter. It can consumed your time , energy and money and perhaps anger and lack of sleep.
Will it be worth it ?
November 14th, 2008
Mumsgather, it does help when you have a group of people helping to bring the culprit to light. And I agree with you, it’s sick that someone is pretending to be you! Your case sounds like a Mumsgather-wanna-be and it’s scary!
Lisa & Irene, from what I hear from the comments here, I’m sure I can complain to the hosting provider. Don’t know how to go through Google
PabloPabla, your step-by-step guide is excellent! I’ve already done step 2 and 3 as groundwork, yet to proceed with the rest. Thanks so much, it’s very helpful.
Laura, I agree it’s hard to keep up with anyone else who may repeat this. I got a feeling if I don’t take action while I am angry about this issue, I might just lose steam later on when the frustration dies down. I don’t mind that it takes time and energy because I care very much about unscrupulous people who take the easy way out by stealing from others.
November 16th, 2008
I wish you all the best and if you need further information, you can go to this site.
http://www.bloggingtips.com/2008/05/15/dont-get-stressed-about-blog-scrapers-stealing-your-content/
November 17th, 2008
Thanks for the support and the resource, Laura
November 18th, 2008
I am sorry to hear about your frustrations here and I understand them well. Rather than outline everything here, I’d encourage you to first take a look at my site and what I offer and then get in touch with me with information on your cases. I can usually resolve cases in under ten minutes.
Just let me know what I can do to help and I’ll gladly assist any way that I can.