Believe it or not, but some people will openly go out and steal huge chunks of your website, whether it be the layout, images, or your content. This Blog has been running for almost two weeks and I’ve already suffered from content being stolen to place on another persons hosted Blog. It’s not a nice feeling after you’ve worked hard on writing something for others to benefit from, only to have someone take it for their own.

I’ve known many people that have suffered at the hands of these kind of thieves, and the first question that pops into anyone’s head is “What do I do to stop this?”

Track down thieving websites

Copycat websites don’t often make themselves heard unless you’re either confronted with it, or someone happens to register it through Google. Naturally, first of all it’s a good idea to use the old student technique to ensure that your work cannot be caught for plagiarism. Take a line or two out of your content and run them through Google. This mostly guarantees results if someone has taken an entire Blog entry, but on its own it’s not very practical. Who wants to go through each of their Blog posts to search for thieves?

This is where Copyscape enters the fray! Copyscape is a custom Google search engine that crawls your website and finds links to your data on other websites. All in all it works extremely well, perhaps too well in certain areas. A lot of the time Copyscape will pick up the slightest quote or a piece of similar content. Still, if a complete copy is found it’ll appear near the top.

If you’ve found a website copying your content then it’s time to take action against them.

Contact the Owner

First things first, the owner of the website must be contacted, and politely, but sternly asked to remove the content right away. This is your content and the owner is most likely trying to monetise his/her website from your hard-earned work.

Check how regularly the owner updates the website, because this is a good indicator as to when the content should be removed. If the owner does not update very regularly allow a couple of days at the very most, but if the owner has already updated his/her Blog since you’ve emailed then it’s time to contact them again with a more demanding email. This time tell them to remove it immediately! Leave it another day, then if the content is still there move onto step two.

Contact their Host

If the owner will not remove the content then it’s time to move onto the host. Go to DomainTools.com and search their domain to find out who their host is, then access the hosts website and contact them explaining the situation. More often than not hosts are very friendly and willing to help, so contact them claiming the stolen content is urgent (because it is) and within a day they should respond and be more than happy to help you remove this content. Presuming they replied back to you keep contacting them regarding the removal of the content until they do, then be sure to thank them for their help.

On the chance that the host do not respond or you get a reply that you weren’t looking for it’s time to move onto step three.

File a DMCA Complaint

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a US-based act which aims to protect content providers (you) against thieves (them). It’s an act intended to scare the pants off of IP thieves and hosts across America, so it’s perfect for you if you’re dealing with an American-based thief/host.

I’m not a lawyer, so I cannot give legal advice or tell how worthwhile a DMCA complaint is. However, I can direct you to a website that’ll make everything a lot clearer to you should you wish to go down this route. The one thing I can say is that a DMCA notice should be sent by snail-mail and faxed, adding that extra sense of urgency.

If your host does not hail from the US, then things get a bit more tricky as each country elsewhere has their own method of dealing with things. A take down notice should suffice with hosts, but if this still fail to comply and the copying of content is important to your business then seek the help of a lawyer.

If the owner is monetising his website from an advertising network like AdSense then be sure to make this an issue with Google as well. Again, try the link above for advice because there is no way this tiny Blog can house that kind of legal content.

In most cases the host will have removed the content. If not, persistence is a great thing. For every post send a take down notice to the host and 99% of the time the host will remove the content. I’ve personally never had to deal with DMCA before as contacting either the owner or the host is more than enough.

I hope this post helps those who suffer from content thieves.