Have you ever had your website content copied or stolen?
If you have been running an online business for any substantial period of time, than you probably have experienced that awful sinking feeling when you discover that someone has stolen your content from your website. It doesn’t feel good to know that someone has blatantly stolen the work that you spent days or hours pouring over to create.
So you may be wondering what you can do when someone copies or steals your stuff. There is a law that governs copyright infringement on the internet and its called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA for short. This law makes it relatively easy and inexpensive to have your content removed from a copyright infringer’s website.
Watch this video for my 3 steps to dealing with website copycats including information on how to send a DMCA Takedown Notice to have your website content removed from an infringing website.
[If you're viewing this via email, see the video here: http://goo.gl/BsV1y.]
Now that you have a basic understanding of how to respond to website copycats, what do you think? How do you plan to deal with this issue? Let me know in the comments.
FYI – There is a more in-depth lesson on intellectual property which includes a sample DMCA Takedown Notice in my course, The Online Entrepreneur’s Non-Confusing Guide to Business Law. This course will be available again in just a few weeks so join the waiting list if you don’t want to miss it.
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Great tips here Rachel! As you know I’ve had my content and illustrations copied/stolen on more than one occasion and it’s really important we know how to deal with the situation when it arises! Sharing!
Thank you for your comments and for sharing, Ameena! Its become extremely common to have one’s stuff copied/stolen. That’s why I wanted to people to know that there is definite action you can take when it happens.
Great information, Rachel,
I’ve heard that before, that you have to protect your copyrighted material or you lose your rights.
I’d love to know how people find out they’ve been copied. With the pressure on to create lots of great content and publish it as widely as possible, how is it possible to keep track of it all?
Don’t the copiers make an effort to change the title and the key phrases to make it look like their own work and to trick a Google alert set up to report on occurrences of the title or key phrases?
Most of the time, copiers are pretty blatant and lift entire articles, e-books, etc. and simply put their name on it. Sometimes copiers are more clever about it. I’ve used google alerts and copyscape.com which can scan your entire website and then search the web for even an exact sentence or phrase that comes up on someone else’s website. Some of my clients have also received reports of copying from members of their community who came across the infringing work and notified them.
Thanks for commenting, Megan!
BEFORE beginning STEP 1 and emailing the web infringer to cease & desist, record screen captures of all unlicensed media appearing on the pirated website.
Hi AC,
There is nothing wrong with taking screen captures, and its a good added step. However, I wouldn’t call it a requirement before Step 1. If the infringer later takes down the material, that is typically the desired result, for most.
Hi Rachel,
is the DMCA Takedown Notice applicable for non-U.S. copyright owners? I live in the UK, but my website is going to be a .com domain. Also, should the notice be served as a paper letter, or can it be in an email?
Thanks!