I run an authority blog and someone took the content on my web site and put into a pdf page on his web site and then is selling an ebook that is probably largely copied as well. His book is now #2 on Amazon for a certain keyword and my book, which covers different material on the same keyword, is several places below him. How can I go after this person? Is a copyright lawyer my only choice? I've always heard from everyone that the material on your web site is automatically copyrighted, so I never actually submitted anything to the copyright office. The material that he stole off of my site is old material that, in general, I have had over a year on my site. How can I prove that? I outrank him for all the keywords. Any advice is much appreciated...
Keywords are irrelevant. If he copied your content and put it on his site he violated your copyright, and you can sue him for damages. If he wrote basically the same content, you'd have to prove that he write it using your site - which is almost impossible if he actually just happened to write substantially the same thing you did. (There are only so many ways to skin a cat.) Do you need an attorney? If you lost money, yes. Suing for a copyright violation when no money was lost due to the violation is expensive vanity.