So you are like me and the other millions of people who write original content for your Web site. And yes, you find your original work taken in whole or pieces and placed on other Web sites. Jenstar posted a new thread at Search Engine Watch Forums basically telling us What to do when someone steals your original content. By the way, her presentation at WebmasterWorld New Orleans, Peaceful Coexistence - Writing for the Engines talks about this as well. The reason I am covering this thread is because I promised to follow up on the entry I wrote yesterday named Cache Pages are Not Duplicate When Not Indexed and because of the post I wrote this morning combatting the term Content Spam Remix.
I'll summarize by quotation of the thread: - Send out a Cease & Desist - State the content must be removed within 48 to 72 hours - Send it to every single email address I can ferret up
If that doesn't work, then... - Fill a DMCA with the hosting company of the content thief (or C&D) If that doesn't work, then contact the search engines at... - http://www.google.com/dmca.html - http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html - http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_CONC_AboutDMCA.htm
Personally, I can't keep up with all the stolen content. I do not have the resources to report and then follow up on these DMCA requests. It is not a big deal to locate the stolen content, there are programs that automate that. Also it is very easy to find them manually as well. But from that point on, there is just too much work for me to follow up on. I hope it gets easier.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
