[RickDuranddotCom]

I think Jessie has a great point/idea. Why not turn this around into a learning situation for everyone in your office. Or perhaps at KW?

Teaching internet laws and ethics to your agents, may get your point across very well without causing any ripples. Use your situation as an example. It's a win win for everyone.

Just my opinion.

[AustinReilly]

My wife just found another site with word for word stolen content and a photo on www(dot)kcaustin(dot)com/cardinal-hills-homes-for-sale.htm. All the content was taken directly from my page here... http://austinhomelistings.com/guide/...nal-hills.html

Does ANYONE have a boiler plate "Cease and Desist" letter for content theft? I know this subject comes up a lot here but I haven't seen any real letters that anyone has used. I need a good letter. I also need a strong drink right now. I'm seeing RED!

[AustinReilly]

by the way, my wife found many more pages than just this one!

[thataway61]

I have and will be glad to share the e-mail I sent to culprit and broker.

[thataway61]

Her ya go Rob:

Dear --------,

I worked long and hard writing original content for Laura’s website investing hundreds of hours.

Today I got a web hit from the ------- Team on my www.gulfshoreslife.com site. When I clicked back to see where the hit came from I noticed that the source page was your Gainesville Ga Links page. It looked exactly like the www.lauraallenteam.com links page. It appeared that you had copied and pasted it from our site to yours. Even down to including --------- Flower and Gift shop that happens to be my sisters and is in Greenville, Mississippi!

When I tried to copy an excerpt to e-mail and notify you that I felt somewhat agitated and to inform you that search engines will punish, handicap, and ban pages and sites with duplicate content, guess what? Yep, a little pop up that says – “This site is copyright protected by The ------- Team, LLC. Please do not copy our site!”.

Since your e-mail agent link on the page took me to a dead page, I went to your home page and what did I find? Text verbatim from Laura’s site that was written by me and is copyrighted.

Examples:

The script banner running across the top of your page is exactly the same wording as ours! I thought long and hard what to put there!

“If you are buying or selling property, we are your real estate resource center. Find mls listings of homes for sale , condos for sale , commercial properties , investment properties , residential , hunting , and recreational properties , land , lots , and farms or acreage . “ Is on your site verbatim with the same hotlinks!

Click here for further extensive information including demographics, maps, and aerial photos. Gainesville GA Information to enhance your real estate, home, and mls search. If you can't find the information you need for Gainesville GA, let me know. . Was written by me and linked to what it is by me! You did not create that content!

We can help you buy or sell upscale condo 's, unique retreats , stunning luxury properties , magnificent masterpiece executive homes , custom waterfront and lakefront homes , ultimate recreation and mountain paradise properties . Taken directly from our site!

Your opening text on this page http://www.-------.com/Cities/Gainesville/index.html

was copied directly from this page http://www.lauraallenteam.com/Gaines...ge_752592.html

Your local links page was copied directly from ours – believe me there are a few links in there that would not be in there unless it was copied directly from our site.

I was going to point out all I could find but the items became so numerous that I quickly became incensed and found it to be a waste of my time and effort.

Your site smacks of blatant plagiarism and is a violation of copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , and the NAR Code of Ethics. From your background, I know you are aware of this!

NAR Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice, in the section entitled 'Duties to the Public' it states:

Standard of Practice 12-8 The obligation to present a true picture in representations to the public includes information presented, provided, or displayed on REALTORS®’ websites.

Standard of Practice 15-2 The obligation to refrain from making false or misleading statements about competitors’ businesses and competitors’ business practices includes the duty to not knowingly or recklessly repeat, retransmit, or republish false or misleading statements made by others. This duty applies whether false or misleading statements are repeated in person, in writing, by technological means (e.g., the Internet), or by
any other means.

I would very much appreciate your shutting down your site and scrubbing it clean of violating content. Unfortunately, the violations are so numerous that you would have a difficult time finding all of the violations and may be best starting anew. I am very disappointed with your actions and find it particularly troubling when I tried to copy and paste content from your site to validate instances of pilfered content and a popup came up that told me not to copy, that the content was owned by the --------- Team LLC!

The content on our site has always had a copyright notice, and 99% of the content was drafted prior to your getting your Real Estate license which we can substantiate via Wayback - http://web.archive.org/web/200507240...aallenteam.com . We are prepared to protect and defend our copyrights and if necessary will have you completely removed from your ISP via the DMCA if necessary. I trust that will not be necessary and that you will rapidly show a willingness to me and our broker to cease and desist via the immediate shutdown of your site until the offending content is removed. I expect you to have your broker communicate satisfaction of this request to me when you have addressed these issues. We will consider additional avenues if we come back to the site and find any content violating our copyright.

When you came to meet with us about Keller Williams you asked me what was most important about Keller Williams and my response was “doing the right thing” as exemplified in the KW culture. We trust this issue can be resolved quickly to our satisfaction and that our relationship may be salvaged in some way.

Disappointed,

Cal Carter

--------------------------------------------------------

It took about 15 minutes after this e-mail was sent for the perpetrator to shut down the offending site. The individual was sponsored by me and I had taken much time to mentor him. He also had a background in the computer industry and should have known that what he was doing was wrong.

Cal

[webmaster]

Pardon the vulgarity but the next person who tells me that I have no right to be upset because "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" can KISS MY @#$#@$@!

I REALLY think that agents need to get on NAR about having some stronger verbiage (and penalties for violation) surrounding IP theft on the web.

I tried to head this up a few years ago, but my appeal to NAR fell on deaf ears unfortunately (I feel due to the fact that I am non member which is unfortunate)

Perhaps it is time something more robust in scope and participation was organized??

[Malok]

For me personally - I skip the confrontation part with the other person. I don't want to hear the excuses: their website manager did it, it was a technical glitch, how they didn't really take the info, if its on the web its FREE to take, and the rest of the BS.


So, I go straight to getting their site taken down.

As soon as I find someone that copies me, I immediately file a DMCA violation with their hosting company and get their site turned off.

That way, I only spend a minute or two of my time writing up the stock fill-in-the-blank DMCA complaint.

And they can tell the BS excuses of why they are a thief to the hosting company instead of me.

[NY RE Broker]

Originally Posted by webmaster

Pardon the vulgarity but the next person who tells me that I have no right to be upset because "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" can KISS MY @#$#@$@!

I REALLY think that agents need to get on NAR about having some stronger verbiage (and penalties for violation) surrounding IP theft on the web.

I tried to head this up a few years ago, but my appeal to NAR fell on deaf ears unfortunately (I feel due to the fact that I am non member which is unfortunate)

Perhaps it is time something more robust in scope and participation was organized??

Any agent who said this to you must be stealing content themselves because for those that put in long hours and possibly paid someone to write content, they have every right to be pissed off.

NAR does address this. It is stealing copyrighted material and just like stealing a copyrighted MLS listing to advertise on line a big No No, so is this. The problem with NAR and all the little NAR's it spawned is how you report.

Imagine This:

You see a video of someone robbing a store. You know who it is. You go to the police and they thank you, then hand you a document where you have to write a report with documentation to back up your statement. Print your name address and phone number and then SEND A COPY to the accused.

That is how we have to report offender of NAR policy and ethics as well as people who violate NYS licensing Law. Absurd isn't it.

[AustinReilly]

I REALLY think that agents need to get on NAR about having some stronger verbiage (and penalties for violation) surrounding IP theft on the web.

webmaster, I'm all for this. I think if you helped draft an online petition or helped create a clearly worded letter to NAR, many of us would sign on and back it. I am going to bring this issue up to our local board but I agree it should presented to NAR and pushed for a newly added "standard of practice" under Article 12 of the code of ethics.

We could even draft the new standard of practice here and submit it in a letter to NAR with all of our companies that agree to it as supporting it.

[Del Mar Homes Pro]

I'd definitely say something. Most of us don't register copyrights on our website material, but copyright exists from the moment of creation. That would make them... thieves. How hard would it be for them to write their own content? Seriously sad. You're a powerhouse agent and they could learn from you.