Fighting Duplicate Content - Stolen Copy

[mjtaylor]

Grrrr ... someone stole an article of mine and reprinted it. I noticed it because a page of mine on SEO copywriting suddenly went into the supplementals ... so I searched the first sentence in quotations and found the article had been lifted and printed here:

www. sgdnetworks. com/web-articles/articles/784/1/Search-Engine-Optimization--SEO-Copywriting/Search-Engine-Optimization--SEO-Copywriting.html

Oddly, they link to the page they filched ... and their page also seems to be in the supplementals ... or not yet ranked ...

Now, in the past I have simply removed articles that got stolen or rewritten them, but I'm tired of this ... so would someone please remind me of how I go about fighting this "properly" ... and could you also tell me how you protect yourself from this generally, please?

Of course, I am assuming Google removed the PR on my site because it found the duplicate ... but surely it is clear from the indexing that the article was on my site long before they found it on the site where it was reprinted without permission.

Your feedback is welcome.
Thanks!!

MJ

[Tech Manager]

M.J. mail/email a copyright violation letter to the offending party and contact their ISP.

The website in question appears to be owned by SGD Networks Pvt Ltd. in India:
Street No:1,
Taranaka
Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh,500017
India
Tel. +91.4064512118

The good news is: "The copyright laws of India are one of the strictest in the world. The Copyright Act of 1957 makes copyright infringement a civil as well as a criminal offence. Civil Remedies include injunctions, damages, an account of profits, costs, and delivery up of infringing goods. Copyright infringement is a cognizable criminal offence, which is punishable (for both, the management of the companies and individuals) by imprisonment for up to 3 years and fine of up to Rs. 2 lakhs. Police also have powers to make spot arrests without any court warrant." (Source: BSA raids SM Technologies for copyright infringement; Rs. 2 Crore worth of suspected pirated software seized. (http : // w3. bsa. org/india/press/newsreleases/SM-Technologies-Raid.cfm))

The website appears to be located on a server in the USA. The whois data lists both arin.net and gnax.net in the network allocation. I would contact gnax outlining the copyright violation and asking for them to take immediate action against their (alleged) customer.

GNAX Inc.
1100 White St. SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
(404) 230-9150

From the gnax.net website: "Warranties of Customer. Customer hereby covenants, represents and warrants that:
Customer will not, and will not permit others to, use any Service(s) (i) for any unlawful or illegal purpose or in connection with or in furtherance of any unlawful or illegal activity, (ii) in violation of any applicable law or regulation, (iii) in a manner that will, or is likely to, infringe the copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights of others..." (Source http : // gnax . net/tos.php)

This should get you started.

Let me know if I can be of additional help.

[Tech Manager]

See also BSA - Piracy and the Law specific to India.

[Dubbya]

Mj,

Two weeks ago in, I used copyscape to check my content and found that a Canuck site as well as an Aussie site had been using my articles, links and content.

Google was notified of the DMCA infringement prior to contacting the offending parties (just in case they tried to claim ownership first.)

In both cases, I sent a well formatted email which promised both DMCA action and host notification. In both cases, the content was removed within 48 hours.

In the first case, the content was copied/pasted word for word and posted to a page on their site by a student who'd been contracted to develop the site. The owner had no idea and was quite embarrassed to say the least.

In the second case, they'd used it in a .pdf newsletter assuming it'd never be discovered. (I love copyscape!) The site owner, a fellow in his 70's, stated that my request was "petty" but nonetheless, complied with my request, again within 48 hours.

Long story short, once they realize that they've contravened their host's content policies and that their site may be removed as a result, they tend to comply without a lawsuit.

SeoLogic provides DMCA notification guides that may prove useful:
How do you send Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notifications to AOL, Google, Yahoo!, and the other major search engines? - Search Engine Marketing FAQ - SEO Logic®

Rest assured that any duplicate content penalties are short term and easily rectified by notifying the SE's of the DMCA infractions.

Good Luck.

[Webnauts]

I catched yesterday morning a guy who have stolen and published a large part of my article Why SEO is important for your web site - SEO Workers

He posted that it in his blog here www. make-income- with- adsense. com/ 2008 / 02/28/why-seo- is-so -so-so- important/

I performed a search with Google using the title of the article and found it, and I have send all that info to Google through the GWT spam report feature.

When I read you post here, I wanted to check again if something happened, even if I could not believe so fast, and?

The page is de-indexed!

This is not the official way Google requires such reports, but looks like it worked.

Be aware that I caught many stolen articles/tutorials of mine, and wrote the site owners about all those, and they took them down right away. Asking them how could they come to that idea, and the majority told me that they got them from Indian copyrighters. So be alert!!!

I am monitoring and protecting my content using the copysentry service of Copyscape - Website Plagiarism Search - Web Site Content Copyright Protection

I highly suggest their service.

Peace!

[Webnauts]

MJ, first I just checked their page where they published your article and I found that they added a link back to your web site.

Second that is definitely not the reason that your page went into the SI. You page PR toolbar shows N/A. They same with theirs too.

And I checked your site a bit further to make sure, and:

Supplemental Ratio for cyber-key.com: 82.42%
* Google has a total of 91 pages indexed from cyber-key.com
* 16 are in the main index
* 75 are in the supplemental index

But just curious: How could you tell that your page wasn't in the SI and went there now?

Peace.

[alhefner]

I am sorry that your article was stolen and it looks like you have all the options to get the duplicate removed. The article is a good one. I guess that is why the other bunch decided to paste it into their own site.

Just a thought about this though, how about providing an informative link that others could freely use? You provide the link text that has a short blurb describing the article that way it's your page they visit and the other site can still claim providing quality content.

[mjtaylor]

I just got an email this morning, and they are happy to take it down ... I have offered to give them an alternative article. I will let you know what happens. Thank you for all your wonderful feedback! Cheers, MJ

[Dubbya]

Awesome!

You're a much better person that I am (you did know that, didn't you?). I'd never have offered to provide a replacement article.

Good for you!

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by Dubbya

Awesome!

You're a much better person that I am (you did know that, didn't you?). I'd never have offered to provide a replacement article.

Good for you!

No, I didn't and don't think I am a better person on any counts ... and I offered to replace it because there might be value in it ... and it is certainly an easy way to make sure they take that one down ....

Mind you I haven't heard back yet ... but they will ...

MJ