Handle Content Thieves
If you have designed a web site and have had content created for that site, you will likely eventually be the victim of theft. Unfortunately, if you have even some content on the Internet available, chances are excellent that someone will steal your content. They may even alter the content or steal entire pages (including your design and images) from your site. Sadly, this sort of behavior is very common online.
Make no mistake: if someone uses your content without your permission, it is theft. It is just the same as if someone took your wallet or car. Copyright laws are very clear: your work (including images, designs, and words) is your own from the moment you have created it. You do not have to do anything else to make the work your own. If you have paid someone else to take pictures for you or have paid someone to ghostwrite your site, if you have entered into a work for hire agreement or another agreement that sees copyright transferred to you, the work is your own once you pay for it.
Obviously, the law is quite clear about copyright and the law protects you, the copyright owners. However, content thieves rarely care. They want content and snag yours, often because they do not want to go to the trouble to create their own. Luckily, there are several things you can do:
1) Keep tabs of your content online. You may already be a victim of theft and not realize it. Regularly Google unique phrases of your content or use a site such as Copyscape to track down copyright infringement.
2) Track down the thieves. Websites and blog posts may be anonymous, so use sites such as Whois to track down who owns a site that has your material.
3) Start and dialogue and documentation. Once you have contact information, send an email to the thief, with evidence, and ask them to remove, correct, or modify the content. If your content is stolen from a company website, you may ask the thief to add a box about your business and a link back to your site. Or, you may ask for removal of the stolen material. Decide what you want and ask the thief what you want and by when. Be sure to provide a deadline. At the same time, start keeping a paper trail of evidence. Save the emails and letters you send to the thief as well as screen captures showing original cache files of your content and screen captures of MySQL database records with post dates. Print out hard copies of screen captures and other evidence.
4) Widen the net. Many thieves will ignore you or refuse your requests. At that point, you may want to contact the thief’s website administrator or host server with your complaint.
5) Send a cease and desist letter. If you still have no response, send a registered letter to the website administrator, host server, and thief. This formal letter outlines your complaint, asks for a specific outcome (such as removal of the stolen content), gives a date by which the action must be completed and implies that you will take further action if matters are not resolved.
6) Most cases are resolved by some initial contact, but if this is not the case, you may need to take more action. If the thief’s website has advertising or a client list (in the case of a business), it’s time to start contacting these people. You should not do this first – you should provide a thief with reasonable time to take action. However, if you must, contact advertisers and clients, explaining your dilemma and outlining your concern that the thief is behaving in this manner. Include your evidence and cease and desist letter so that advertisers and clients can decide for themselves.
RNJinfotech, takes copyright infringement very seriously. We work so hard to create original designs for our clients and we are deeply saddened by theft.