I'm trying to figure out if there is a legal boundary being crossed. We have a disclaimer on our website to provide credit and/or a link if another entity plans to use our information. One of our competitors is rewriting nearly all of our stories on a daily basis. He takes our quotes and basically creates a story within 30 minutes or even less. And yes he does credit us and/or provides a link to the original story but his entire website is being fueled by our content, the stories are now competing with our own for ranking positions in Google news and search engines - and some of my guys are really getting on edge. I just don't know if there is anything that we can do legally to stop this or at least curb it down since he is providing a link to the original story.
I think Google was talking about this once. They use the timestamp of the article. You might be able to report them to.
Sure sounds like you are inviting people to use your content. Is there a reason you have this permissive language on your site?
Because we had hordes of outlets who were taking our material, especially interview quotes, and not sourcing us in any fashion. With that disclaimer, it's helped us go after those culprits and over time they all stopped once the legal letters started dropping. Those who never gave credit began to give credit. Is there a different wording I should use? I don't want to scare off everyone who plans to use our stuff, I just never imagined that someone would sit home all day and rewrite every single item that we post.
Mhhh... Something like: You may only use our content after you have obtained written permission from us. You also have to provide credit and/or link That way, they have to contact you first and only after you gave the OK, they may use your content. If they don't - DMCA
nothing you can do about it , going by what you say as they are rewriting it , not just copying and pasting , it's not copyright infringement and seeing as they are abiding by your terms , there is not much you can do about it