Dealing with Stolen Content

Discussion in 'Legal Issues' started by Sleepy_Sentry, Mar 18, 2007.

  1. #1
    I have an article on one my sites I published 6 months ago that made the frontpage of Digg.com and got quite a bit of traffic. I Googled the first sentence of the article in quotes yesterday, and found around 9 sites that had stolen my article!

    I thought about just asking the owners of the sites to take down the articles, but then realized they'd just go and take more articles from unsuspecting, hard-working website owners. I plan on emailing the hosts of these companies and requesting that the sites hosting the stolen content be taken down.

    Unfortunately, I am not a lawyer. I plan on being very aggressive in my emails, but won't threaten to sue these guys because I don't have the money to. Is there anything else I can threaten the sites' hosts with to make them take down the sites?

    If I get a court order, can't I physically confiscate the servers of the sites stealing my content like the RIAA does? I would never probably go to that extreme though.

    This really makes me angry. These sites didn't just steal any article of mine, they took one of my best ones.
     
    Sleepy_Sentry, Mar 18, 2007 IP
  2. KunkVentures

    KunkVentures Peon

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    #2
    hate to break it to you, but its going to be very unlikely that you get them to stop or get any monetary compensation.
     
    KunkVentures, Mar 18, 2007 IP
  3. Cain001

    Cain001 Banned

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    #3
    Yea it is one of the down sides, but you can be certain that you have gained back links and some traffic from it as well
     
    Cain001, Mar 18, 2007 IP
  4. Cal813

    Cal813 Active Member

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    #4
    talk to the host and let them know it's YOUR content... sometimes hosts will suspend the hosting account.
     
    Cal813, Mar 18, 2007 IP
  5. CountryBoy

    CountryBoy Prominent Member

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    #5
    CountryBoy, Mar 19, 2007 IP
  6. Crusader

    Crusader Peon

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    #6
    The best option, provided they host in the US, is to send their host, Google and Adsense (if applicable) a DMCA complaint. You could try to contact the site owner directly, but often people stealing content don't care too much.
     
    Crusader, Mar 19, 2007 IP