Hi Friends, I found that www.geekharsh.com has copied all the contents from my blog. There are posts where he can even copied the author bio as well .Such a stupid blogger ;p. I have sent a DMCA cease and desist letter to him. Should i send a letter to his webhost (i.e 000webhost.com) or should i wait? Copy of the letter: Is this the correct way of dealing? Can any experienced bloggers give some suggestions?
I don't know much about legal stuff and I'm not really an experienced blogger but it seems like you are taking things in the right direction. I bookmarked an article that I read somewhere but apparently deleted so I don't know the URL but you can search Google and there are several blogs that will tell you to do that kind of stuff. They say to get pictures of the person's post and run a WHOIS search on him. Just wait a little while and see what happens and if he doesn't respond. I would imagine you could start taking legal actions. There is a form that I remember seeing a while ago and I will post it here if I can find it. Good Luck, Andrew
No, this is not the correct way of handling. A DMCA is not supposed to be sent to the infringer. It is supposed to be sent to an OSP, such as his host, who will then order him to remove it unless he sends a counter notice. The DMCA is a provision is the law that allows for immunity from law suit for Online Service Providers (OSP) ... not to infringers. By sending the OSP a notice you are telling them that if they want to be protected from a law suit they should remove the content. Usually they do. The DMCA is not used to notify an infringer that he is infringing. You can send him a notice and demand that he remove your content, but not specifically one under the DMCA, as that law does not really deal with him. Lastly, your notice does not even look like a proper DMCA notice, so I would make sure you are using a proper one before sending it to his host. You include things like a 72 hour demand, when the law has its own time limits.
Thanks for the reply. I followed this blog post: http://www.shoutmeloud.com/what-to-do-when-people-copies-your-blog-content.html . The webhost i.e 000webhost responded immediately and his site is no longer active
That post seems correct, but you either mispoke or combined steps when you indicated you sent a DMCA notice to the guy copying your blog. The Cease and Desist letter to the infringer is fine, but it is not a DMCA letter. As you can see from the blog you followed, the DMCA to the host is a separate and distinct step from a cease and desist to the the person who copied your info. As he notes, the DMCA is to people providing services to the infringer (i.e. an OSP). Good that you got results from the webhost. That is where a DMCA is usually sent. If he sends a counter notice they legally have to put the content back up. Hopefully he does not send one. In cases where a website uses user generated content, like youtube, a DMCA is often sent to the website, not as infringer, but as host of an infringing video someone else uploaded. In those cases, a website like youtube is the OSP, and so they can be sent the DMCA notice. You send a cease and desist directly to the infringer - they do not get a DMCA type takedown notice.