Been copied? This is how to fight back!

[gayle]

Great information and I second the copysentry service. I use it and the weekly reports are helpful to find the whois info for quick contact. When I last signed up at copysentry
they had a buy 3 months - get 1 month free offer.
If you don't see it there, email them directly.
Two other suggestions:
1) we put the copyscape banner on all our content pages.
2) I have produced a form letter to send to offenders.
I tweak it for each instance, but I warn them if the content is not taken down in 72 hours, I will contact google and post the copyright violation to several gambling forums.

The last offender was a sad story. They admitted the copied text and took it down, but mentioned that they had paid a third party for the content. An expensive lesson for them.

[MrKay]

Originally Posted by gayle

The last offender was a sad story. They admitted the copied text and took it down, but mentioned that they had paid a third party for the content. An expensive lesson for them.

They all seem to have that story or one similar in my experience !!!!

I am having lots of success with sending out letters threatening court action or speaking with affiliate managers and getting them to either shut down the accounts or getting the affiliate to remove the content..

Maybe we should compile a list of which affiliate managers are interested in assisting and which aren't, it could be helpful for future reference.

Income Access were fantastic in assisting with a recent issue, they had the offenders account shut down in just a few days.

[Henri]

I was wondering and hope you can answer me, i publish often new articles on my site, but have another gambling site that each and every time, takes my articles modify them very lightly and publish them as news on his site.

So here is the question, even if it is slightly modified from their end can i still go against them for them copying my articles?

[schoolly]

Hm, it's really great feature, i never used it before.

[MichaelCorfman]

Originally Posted by Henri

I was wondering and hope you can answer me, i publish often new articles on my site, but have another gambling site that each and every time, takes my articles modify them very lightly and publish them as news on his site.

So here is the question, even if it is slightly modified from their end can i still go against them for them copying my articles?

Taking your work and modifying it slightly does not alter the fact that your copyrighted material is being used without permission, thus violating your copyright. Sometimes even extensive modification, such as translation of an article from one language to another, is still considered a copyright violation.

Michael

[systemlays]

We were copied recently and the webmaster who did it kept on leaving comments on our site too - I probably wouldn't have discovered it had he not done so!

The post he copied wasn't great, but if Google were to punish us for duplicate content, I would be pretty angry - so obviously the steps above are helpful!

[learn2holdem]

Hello,

Someone just translated one of my page in Spanish, and put a link to me indicating "original".

Is is considered copy and is it a bad news (at least I have a link pr2 apparently)?

[learn2holdem]

ok I just read the post by Michael a few steps above mine, and translation is copyright violation.

BUT he linked to me, is it ok??

[CityGuard]

Originally Posted by learn2holdem

ok I just read the post by Michael a few steps above mine, and translation is copyright violation.

BUT he linked to me, is it ok??

Since you own the copyrighted work the person who is publishing the translation without your permission is violating your copyright. Indicating that you were the original source of the material does not change the fact that your permission is required.

In considering whether it is ok, there is a separate question about how you choose to handle the situation. If you view the link to you as acceptable compensation for your work, then you could give the webmaster permission to use the translation for as long as the link remains active. If you view that a link is not sufficient compensation for your work, then the options going forward would be either to seek removal of the content from this person's site, or try to reach an agreement where you feel you are being compensated fairly.

[learn2holdem]

Ok CityGuard,

I will leave it at that, but if they make it a habit, intervention will be required.

Thanks