They've stolen our content, help!

[lacantina]

(I hope this is the right forum to post this question in!)

We’re facing increased competition from sites copying our business model popping up every week…and that’s fine, happens all the time in all industries.

But now one of these newbies has stolen two entire pages of content from our site! They have literally copy and pasted the text of our “About Us” and “Terms & Conditions” pages and placed them on their site!

I have already sent an email to the owner of the domain name in question (found via a WHOIS search) and asked them to remove these pages immediately, but as of yet no response.

My questions therefore are:

1. It is illegal to steal content in this way right??
2. What’s the best way to go about resolving this issue? If the owner of the domain fails to respond or act on my email, what should I do?

Thanks for your help guys!

lacantina

[stymiee]

Invoke the DMCA on them to have those pages removed.

[Duncan Pollock]

There is absolutely no doubt about whether what they've done is allowed and lawful. It isn't!
The copyright act establishes beyond all question that you and you alone have the right to create and use the words on your pages. Anyone -- anyone -- who helps themselves to the words without your prior permission is guilty of copyright infringment and can be sued to the heavens for it.
Write them a letter that points this out and say that they can expect to hear from your lawyer unless they immediately remove the pages -- or, better still, spend a few dollars to have your lawyer write to them in this vein.

Duncan

[lacantina]

Thanks for your responses!

But the problem is what do I do if this person fails to reply to my emails (it's been 2 days now and no response)? And where would I find an address to send them a letter to?

I could write to their webhost, but how do I find out where a domain is hosted?

Thanks again!

[Duncan Pollock]

I imagine the WHOIS people should be able to help. I haven't checked their webpages, but I'm sure there's a Help line you could reach.
Perhaps if you told them of the copyright infraction, they'd freeze the domain until there was an appropriate response.
In addition, this is what lawyers are for, isn't it?
You can't afford to let the bad guys get away with things. If it ends up in court -- and I have difficulty in seeing this, if only because any lawyer they talk to will tell them they're at fault -- you can demand payment by them of your legal costs AND you'd get them.
Copyright is one of the cases in which the good guys DO win.

Duncan

[Jeff Colburn]

Hi,

Take a look at my article "Stop Thief!!! What You Can Do If Someone Steals Your Website's Contents" here http://www.creativecauldron.com/websitearticleThief.shtml

Have Fun,
Jeff

[lacantina]

Right,

It's been 4 working days now, and as of yet, no response to my email from the "thief".

So how do I find out who the webhost is? Would the DNS servers give this information?

Next step will then be to write a letter to the webhost...