People Posting My Articles w/o Permission or Backlinks

[ericbramlett]

I'm sure this is a common problem, but is there anything I can do beyond contacting them & requesting they add the backlinks? Also - a local Board in Denver used one in their newsletter. They gave me credit, but didn't put my email address.

Any ideas beyond the obvious?

[ResaleBroker]

Just curious, and not that it matters, do you include a copyright notice and/or article reprint notice in your articles?

[ericbramlett]

No - I'm not putting anything like that. Do you think it would make a difference?

[coastal]

It may or may not make a difference but at least you will have legal recourse if they copy it even after seeing the copywrite symbol

[ResaleBroker]

No - I'm not putting anything like that. Do you think it would make a difference?

Posting a copyright notice is rarely a bad idea and can work in your favor as a deterrent. Posting an article reprint notice gives you the opportunity to be very clear about the conditions under which you will or will not allow reprints. For instance, you may reprint this articles as long as the authors bio box and live links are kept intact.

[ericbramlett]

Good idea - I'll start including reprint instructions.

[Search Engine Book]

Unfortunately, this will happen from time to time. Some people seem to think they can do whatever they want with online articles. I publish a lot of articles online, so I've run into this several times.

I have an email I cut and paste and send to them. Even if they don't have an email address on the site, you can usually do a WHOIS lookup to find the administrator's email address.

I politely ask them to either remove the article from their site or add the required information. I close by saying my next course of action would be to file a complaint with the web host (or WordPress, or whoever) ... something that neither of us wants.

This works about 99% of the time. Hope it helps.

-Brandon

[jbferris]

great advice Brandon! After reading this thread I decided to add a copyright to my blog which reads:

© Copyright Information
© Copyright 2007 Joshua Ferris. You should assume that everything including all text and photos on "Real Estate in the NYC Suburbs" are copyrighted and property of Joshua Ferris, unless otherwise noted. You may not be reproduce any materials viewed on, and/or related to this website under any circumstances without the expressed, written permission of Joshua Ferris.

It's the best I could do given the circumstances of the blog's templates. Eric, I hope this helps!

[Skycap15]

Are these articles submitted to free article sites? I thought that you forfiet any copyrights on your article when submitting to these sites. People should, out of courtesy, post your links when they copy your articles from the free sites and most people do. I think it's a waste of time getting on the deadbeats because nothing is 100% foolproof.

___________________

Michael Stazko
Frisco TX Real Estate
McKinney TX Real Estate
North Texas Real Estate

[jbferris]

I doubt you forfeit any copyrights but I haven't done the research to back that up. Articles will be stolen, yes, but it may deter the casual real estate agent looking to populate their site with content who may not know any better from giving you a headache.