“Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
-Voltaire

The issue of original content being copied has been discussed quite extensively as of late. Still, I’d like to give my take on the topic since I, myself, have been a victim of such. Just the other day, a writer friend had emailed me to ask for help because somebody stole her articles. I advised her to do the most obvious thing — that is to write to the offender and ask for her articles to be removed. The culprit replied that they had never been to her web site, had never seen it before, and hence, had not stolen her content. Funny, that would have meant they had just happened to write the exact same words written on another web site.

I do agree with Voltaire, what with artists sprouting at the rates mushrooms do, it’s very hard to find any kind of art piece that is truly and wholly unique. However, the best artists could make the ideas their “own”. In the World Wide Web, as you all know, originality is very important, more than just to please human eyes but also for a web site to rank. There’s no need to go into details, you all know what the Google supplemental toilet is.

So, what do you do once you find out your content has been stolen? Here are some tips:

1. Email the Offender

If the web site has a “Contact Us” option, use it to email them. Let them know that you are aware of what they have done. If you cannot find any contact information on their web site, you can perform a WhoIs query on the domain. Usually, the knowledge that you know you have the right to take legal action elicits a response. Depending on what their reply is, you have either solved your problem or need to take further steps.

2. Cease and Desist

If the offender has not replied or replied unfavorably upon your initial contact, send a formal letter of Cease and Desist. At least now the offender/s know(s) you’re serious in pursuing them. Samples of Cease and Desists letters could be found all around the Internet. Here’s one from the Copyright Crash Course home page.

3. Contact the Web Host

To find a domain’s web host, you could also use WhoIs. Notify them of the content theft. Hosts usually remove the web site if you can prove that the offender really stole your content.

3. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)

Since the stolen content would have been indexed by search engines and could devalue your content, you should also send DMCA letters to search engines for the stolen content to be removed from their index.

Whew. That’s a lot of work! Perhaps many people just leave offenders without doing anything. Yes, it would mean a lot of time on your part, but it’s a matter of integrity. You won’t let anyone just steal, say, any of the appliances inside your house, would you? It’s the same thing with web copy. You wrote it (or bought it), you own it. Don’t let anyone get away with stealing what is yours.

Now, the steps above might require for you to provide proof that you indeed own the stolen content. Next post will discuss how you could do that.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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