Someone has published my content without my permission - what can I do?

What can I do? Someone has published an article on their site without my permission. They've put a link to the original article at the foot. I only published it myself yesterday.

What really narks me is that the google ads by MY article on their site look better than mine...

Would google do something? Do they approve of ads on illegal content? Should I report them to google? WHy should they get revenue from an article they've stolen.

I couldn't find a thread about this anywhere so please add a reference to a thread that already answers these questions

 

I once had someone take a picture of mine. I post pics of my dogs on a blog, and have a decent readership (go figure) - one of my readers noticed that the picture was being used as part of an ad campaign for a site.

That's not cool. My pics are all creative commons attribution non-commercial.

Anyway, I emailed them pointing out that I owned the picture and they were using it without a license. They took it down very quickly.

I don't know how much luck you're going to have if they're a site scraper, though.

 

Thanks but there's not contact details on the offending website - how do I find where its based?

I thought I'd have a bigger response than this - is it a widespread practice that is condoned by many here?

 

At least he links to you back

 

report to his hosting provider.
you can get hostinfo (by nameservers) and contact info by checking the who is of the domain.
even if its private registration you will get an email that will get forwarded to owner.

 

Here is a step by step guide on how to file a DMCA complaint, what can you do through that? Get their site suspended, delisted from search engines and can get their adsense account terminated!

 

Thanks yogesh. The site is wordpress site and has adsense. Have you had any success using the DMCA complaint procedure? - thanks for the link too

 

Report him to google, via google's webmaster tools account.
and contact him and his host to put the site down, if he dont remove the content.

 

tinimini - I'm on it thanks - I found that google have a procedure - I have to write or fax them with the information and make some specified statements. Has anyone followed this procedure with google? PS Metros - I don't want a backlink from this site - I'm not desperate for backlinks but I am concerned that my article - the product of 8 years studying at university for which I paid thousands and struggled to complete should be ripped off by a nerd-clone

 

Normally a properly worded email is enough for the offending party to take down the content (have done that plenty of time) and if that doesn’t work then you can use the DMCA route which works pretty well (have done it in a few cases).

Ps. the blog post isn’t from me but something I had bookmarked because it has pretty good info.

 

If actually sending a DMCA Notice you need to provide a written statement to the offending party. But you wouldn't actually consider going to court over an article, unless it was one hell of an article. The best way to get the job done, and probably the most common is scare tactics. WHOIS their domain and find out who their host is, after that send their host a well written DMCA Notice demanding the immediate removal of offending content. I would suggest finding a good template from google (take a look at this one: Link). Usually the host will demand the offending admin to take down the content or risk suspension - after all the web host does not want to be drug into something like a court case.

Another idea for you - is to write a copyright statement on your site so people will know your work is copyrighted-even if it isn't. You'll find a lot of information on the internet that is claimed to be copyrighted, yet really isn't - this is because it's an effective scare tactic to scare plagiarizers. Placing a Copyscape icon on your site probably wouldn't be a bad idea either, like an extra guard dog.

Hope this helps!

 

I would contact the web host and, since a complaint to them is necessary, contact them using hostinfo as suggested. The hosting company will probably take action for you as long as you are polite and professional about the situation. Most legitimate web hosting companies do not want to have anything to do with copyright violations no matter how small they might be.

 

send e mail to google management.

 

Contact the abuse department you can find in whois and explain your situation.

 

hmph... well, It's a backlink. Aside from the fact that they did not ask you, its still a link. It only serves to help you unless I am missing something. You were still attributed as the original author. As for your Google ads. Fix them

Nigel

 

Thanks Yogesh for posting the DMCA complaint link. I learned something new. Hopefully I won't ever need to use it though. Good luck 1associate. Hope you get it ironed out.

 

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

 

Ridiculous not to say nasty, risky and nothing I'd want to get involved with. Stealing content is like digging your own grave. I'm ready with my letters to report any further copyright infringements and, if they depend on google for their bread and butter, good - they'll have to starve! See what a reasonable person I am?