Thread: Someone copied my website. I don't know what to do about it.

Originally Posted by Aquarezz

I've been selling OrganizationTips, unfortunately someone copied the website. I don't know what to do about it, but I might sell it for 20$ (Nux made a bid of 15$ on it).

Greetz!

I don't want to get off topic, but the solution is quite simple, Aquarezz. Get a DMCA Copyright Notification template off Google, customize it a bit, and then run a Domain WHOIS on the site that copied you, get their hosting information, and serve it to both the host, and the Administrative Contact. 9 times out of 10 they'll be scared by the letter alone and will take down the material. If not, the host will be legally obligated to terminate their site. Even if you're selling the site, do this out of principle. Content thieves are a danger to us all.

Originally Posted by Kovich

I don't want to get off topic, but the solution is quite simple, Aquarezz. Get a DMCA Copyright Notification template off Google, customize it a bit, and then run a Domain WHOIS on the site that copied you, get their hosting information, and serve it to both the host, and the Administrative Contact. 9 times out of 10 they'll be scared by the letter alone and will take down the material. If not, the host will be legally obligated to terminate their site. Even if you're selling the site, do this out of principle. Content thieves are a danger to us all.

I didn't know you could do anything about someone copying your site. Thanks for this!

Originally Posted by Kovich

I don't want to get off topic, but the solution is quite simple, Aquarezz. Get a DMCA Copyright Notification template off Google, customize it a bit, and then run a Domain WHOIS on the site that copied you, get their hosting information, and serve it to both the host, and the Administrative Contact. 9 times out of 10 they'll be scared by the letter alone and will take down the material. If not, the host will be legally obligated to terminate their site. Even if you're selling the site, do this out of principle. Content thieves are a danger to us all.

Your tip is great, but this is easier said than done...

Well, since this was made into a thread rather than a reply, I'll go the extra mile and post a sample template with some of my own customizations.

Feel free to add the Administrative Contact from the Domain WHOIS as a 'CC:' for this e-mail to show him you mean business.
However, I recommend first contacting the aforementioned individual and threatening to file a DMCA Notification with his webhost.

Attn: <Host Name> Legal Support
Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notification

Hello. The purpose of this letter is to address an urgent matter regarding copyright infringement and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I am the owner of <yoursite.com> and this notification is to report that the owner of <scrapersite.com> – hereinafter referred as ‘offender’- has lifted verbatim some (or all) of my content from my website.

Please find below the DMCA Notice against <scrapersite.com>.

Section 1) The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on:
<Mention all YOUR links>

Examples to Prove That The Content Was Copied:
<Give some examples like Google’s cache, archive.org’s cache etc>

Below is a quick comparison of my site and the offender’s site:
My Site: <yoursite.com>
1) Started in <Date>
2) Page Rank:
3) Alexa Rank:
4) RSS Subscribers:
Offender’s Site <scrapersite.com>
1) Started in <Date>
2) Page Rank:
3) Alexa Rank:
4) RSS Subscribers:

Section 2) The posts/pages where my copyrighted work is published on are:
<Mention all SCRAPER’s links.>

Section 3) Personal Information: (Yours!)
Name:
Address:
Phone Number:
E-Mail:

Section 4) I, in good faith, believe that use of the copyrighted material described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

Section 5) I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Section 6)
<Name>
<Date>

In most cases just serving it to the host will work, so even if they do have fake details you should get it removed. The only time you might have difficulty is when the site is hosted overseas in a country that doesn't have as tight laws.

Originally Posted by Shenron

Your tip is great, but this is easier said than done...

it does take time, but it isn't an impossible mission! if you have good faith in yourself you can accomplish your goals. oh by the way, I have terminated a website because I wasn't paid for the work I made, yes DMCA complaints worked even tho it took a few days but in the end, the justice is brought to light. If you need any help you can PM me

If someone has copied your site, you must take some pain to complain it to authorities like Web hosting of copier. There is no other way right now in my opinion.

Check out this guide I wrote:
DMCA Copyright Notice 101 | Running Online Business

You could add his registrar in email too. For example when one of my site got reported to spam
godaddy turned it off without asking me anything.

I lost 5 days until GoDaddy restored access to my site.

I'm curious, did someone just copy the contents of the site or is it an exact mirror of the site through a proxy etc ? Has anyone checked personally ?

I'm interested in this as I have been dealing with some targeted google proxy hijacks against my own sites, and it seems this practice is still being used to target sites and still ignored by google as it was a few years ago.