Question Regarding Content Theft

[Nickie]

Not sure if I am posting in the right place so please let me know if I should post this elsewhere.

I have a question that perhaps you can help me with. Someone has been copying my blog posts, along with the pictures and has them set up on their blog. They are using their blog to host a number of G ads.

My webmistress and I have tried everything we can think of to contact them to get them to take the site down, but are unable to reach them. All contacts are dead ends.

I have resorted to posting a cease and desist letter on my blog in hopes that when they copy my most recent post it might have an effect, but my hopes are not high. They seem to be quite accomplished at their illegal activity.

Any ideas on how I might be able to get this resolved? Morgan, do you have any ideas?

[KSA]

As the webmistress Nickie mentioned, I'm really annoyed with this whole situation.

Take a look at this site: the red lion bozeat.com (without the spaces, of course). Then, compare it to GetStaged2sell.com/stageblog, starting with the second post on GetStaged. Oddly enough, they haven't posted the first message on GetStaged about web theft!

This domain name was purchased on April 24, 2007, and it's got a Google page rank of 4! And, it's all because of the fact that it's using Nickie's content.

We have tried:
-Contacting the site owner. On the Whois, they come up with PrivacyProtect.org as their contact, but according to PrivacyProtect.org, they're a public site.
-Contacting their Domain registrar, who told us to contact their web host.
-We sent a Cease and Desist to the web host email in the WHOIS, and the email came back undeliverable. The host is called maximus325.com, and it looks like a private server.
-They are hotlinking to Nickie's photos, so we put an image saying that the content was stolen and set up an .htaccess file to replace her photos with that image. That worked for about 2 hours, and now her photos are back, still hotlinked.
-We blocked the IP address at the server level.

This is just the most frustrating thing!! Does anyone know anything else we can do? I'll change the .htaccess to try to block the hotlinking rather than replace it with the nasty message.

I guess if they're doing a copy/paste on the site, there's nothing we can do if we can't reach them. They have updated their site with new posts from Nickie's blog as they are added (with the exception of the one on web theft), so we're thinking this site will be just a mirror of her site on an ongoing basis.

If anyone has any ideas, we'd be grateful to hear them. If you have an idea you'd rather not post, please feel free to PM Nickie or me.

Thanks,

Kathleen

[RESteve]

Fortunately for the most of us, those that perform the content theft are usually apologetic and change it immediately. It seems as though this has escalated well past that point with this particular case, so you may want to seek legal advice.

I wish I had more experience to lend to your situation, but perhaps some of our members with different experiences could chime in.

[Nickie]

Thanks Steve.

Aside from the content theft, I would think the misuse of all the G ads would make someone put a stop to it.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?

[BrandonSternfield]

Sadly, you didn't copyright the blog articles, could have done a DMCA with google then..

If you can't contact them, you try their host. Can't get their host you try to contact their ISP. Can't get them, then you contact google and all their advertisers.

If contacting the offender or their hosting company doesn't work (sometimes they host their own site) then check their site and write all their advertisers, sponsors, membership organizations, ISP (Internet Service Providers), Google Spam Report, Google AdSense as well as any other PayPerClick Services, Yahoo Directory, DMOZ directory, including those who have linked to their website. Inform them this person has stolen your copyrighted content. However, beware, if you do this under false pretences it could result in your own site being removed. So get your facts straight first.

[Nickie]

Somebody did suggest I file a DMCA complaint. I just faxed it off to the powers that be at Google.

I'll be sure to keep you updated in case this happens to anyone else.

And if there are any other suggestions while we're waiting to hear back, I'd love the input.

Thanks!

[REW Christian]

Yeah I would say get a hold of G! and let them know, then send a cease & desist to their hosting company. That will involve them in the situation and they "should" take the site down to cover their butts.

[Nickie]

Can't seem to contact the true host. When I think I've found them, I send them an email and it comes back. Then I find someone else that looks like the right one, and it comes back.

One thing says it is public, then another says private. But then I'm not an expert at researching these things, but we've tried this past week.

At least if Google steps in and prevents the ads from showing, it seems they won't have much purpose in continuing with the site and should just take it down. Hopefully.

[REW Christian]

here is what I found in the DNS lookup

How I am searching:
Searching for theredlionbozeat.com A record at e.root-servers.net [192.203.230.10]: Got referral to B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET. (zone: com.) [took 47 ms]
Searching for theredlionbozeat.com A record at B.GTLD-SERVERS.NET. [192.33.14.30]: Got referral to ns2.maximus325.com. (zone: theredlionbozeat.com.) [took 141 ms]
Searching for theredlionbozeat.com A record at ns2.maximus325.com. [82.208.62.149]: Reports theredlionbozeat.com. [took 987 ms]


Domain Type Class TTL Answer
theredlionbozeat.com. A IN 3600 82.208.63.238
theredlionbozeat.com. NS IN 3600 ns1.dvddom.org.
theredlionbozeat.com. NS IN 3600 ns2.dvddom.org.
ns1.dvddom.org. A IN 3600 82.208.60.130
ns2.dvddom.org. A IN 3600 82.208.61.11

not sure if this will help

[JennSellsFast]

What a mess. I hope you catch these fools. Good Luck