I have some content on my forum or better yet I am slowly building content on my forum by having articles and tutorials. I have noticed that a few sites have been ripping my tutorials and posting it in their own sites and claiming it is theirs. has anyone dealt with this before someone else stealing your content.
yes it happens a lot, all you can do is either image map your text or search around for your content and send copyright notices and threaten action.
It's happened to me a few times. Send an e-mail to the owner of the offending site and if they don't take it down, send an e-mail to their web host.
You must frame your complaint in a proper format: the Digital Millenium Copyright Act dictates that format and requirements of the written letter that you must send. You can't protect yourself with some half-assed complaint letter Google this phrase, and 2 sample documents I drafted pop up no 1 and 2 in google: Sample DMCA Notification of Infringement Letter
contact the admin from the othr sites that are stealing your content and if they dont remove it try sending an email to their hosting provider!
Whois them and find out about their hosting and tell the hosting company about them ripping your site. With proper action from your side, hopefully action from their end will be taken ! Definitely a very best of luck!
You have an automatic copyright upon creation - no filing required. You don't need a registered copyright to file a DMCA. thundercow is right, the notice needs to be properly formatted for the host to act upon it. You can also send one to the major search engines and they will remove the content from their index. If they are running adsense, you can also send a notice to them.
Registering isn't required to copyright work. However, by registering copyrighted work it will be public record. Your C&D has more strength. If you planning to file a lawsuit then you will need to register the work, regardless if the infringement has already occured. You can then seek statutory damages up to $30k per violation. If infringement was deliberate you can get up to $150k. You can also collect for attorney fees if you registered the work prior to the infringement or within 3 months of publication. Without registering copyright work you can't claim these benefits. Plus, it will be more difficult for you to prove damages.
Thanks for the info, I first sent yes a half as letter. I then googled the DMCA and have resent the letter with all the proper information listed the correct format, thanks. I did email the owner and asked him to take it down, he responded twice but since it was a german site I couldn't make out his English writing. He send me an email about 3 days ago saying something good or something like that but he didn't take my content down so I decided to go directly to the web host.