More about copyright infringement...What can the ISP do?

1. 81

   Sally's Troveposted 14 years ago

   I've sent three emails and a certified letter to a website owner who has stolen one of my Hubs, following the DMCA protocol to a T.  (I got the vital stats and a postal address from Who Is.) All with no response from the website owner. My next move is to contact the ISP, who is clearly stated on the infringer's website.
   
   What can / will the ISP do? Is it likely that they will remove the offending page from their client's site?
   
   Copyrighted theft has happened to me before, several times, but each time the website owner complied at my first notice.
   
   Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and knowledge.

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2. 70

   Cagsilposted 14 years ago

   If the ISP is threatened with a lawsuit. They are most likely to strip the website down for copyright infringement.
   
   At least, that's what I've read here before, from others, who have had their work stolen.
   
   Hope I helped.

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3. 66

   relacheposted 14 years ago

   I've only had one or two instances where a website owner didn't comply with a NOI request.  And in those cases, the ISP was very responsive when I sent the escalated complain to them.  It's in their legal best interests to take down sites that are copyright violators, and most of them have very clear statements in their own TOS that forbid copyright violations.

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4. 81

   Sally's Troveposted 14 years ago

   Thanks Cagsil and relache.
   
   That's the info I was looking for.
   
   I have not threatened the infringer with legal action or with a notice to his ISP.  Guess he'll just have to find out the hard way.

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   1. 70

      Cagsilposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You're welcome.

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   2. 60

      darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      A legal step but a precursor to actual legal action could be the sending of a Cease & Desist.
      
      There's plenty of examples online, even with a Google Image Search.
      
      I once made a boo boo online and my web host were the first to get the C&D. So as well as them tracking down my contact details my friend (I had the material on his server, therefore he was my webhost) immediately took down the page and was on the phone to me.
      
      A well written, clear and concise cease and desist could be the right step to take next when contacting the ISP who is hosting the page.

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   3. 61

      Greg Cremiaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Forget about being nice. The very first contact they receive from you should be very threatening. I have been down this road too many times and nice does not work.

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      1. 81

         Sally's Troveposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Greg, I've been down this road several times as well, and this is the first time that the infringer has been unresponsive.
         
         There is nothing "nice" about the DMCA notice; in and of itself this notice should be sufficient to elicit action on the part of the infringer.
         
         For the record, it is not my style or intent to threaten anyone beyond sending a notice that speaks for itself. If there's threatening to do down this particular road, my lawyer can do that. It's what he gets paid for...that's what I mean about the "hard way."

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5. 78

   MyWebsposted 14 years ago

   I'm assuming that when you say ISP, Internet Service Provider, that you really mean his or her's web hosting provider which may or may not be the same company.
   
   Pretty much all web hosting providers have rules against copyright infringement. I would expect a quick response and resolution from them.
   
   If by chance the web hosting provider turns a blind eye they probably are just resellers anyways. I would do a traceroute and figure out who they are getting their hosting from. Or who they buy their bandwidth from. Usually there are several levels to this. The ones higher up the food chain would respond.
   
   I would be happy to help you to figure it out if needed. It would be a bit hard to explain. Good luck.

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   1. 81

      Sally's Troveposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      MyWebs, thanks for the good information and the offer of help. If the hosting provider turns out not to be who I think it is, I'll surely be calling on you!

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6. 0

   lyricsingrayposted 14 years ago

   send them spam I say

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   1. 78

      MyWebsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      lol

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7. 69

   easyspeakposted 14 years ago

   How did you find out that someone copied your hubs?

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   1. 77

      skyfireposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      there are some site that can do it for you copyscape.com is one of from them.

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   2. 81

      Sally's Troveposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      easyspeak, HP has a wonderful app they run against the content on this site to look for duplicate content on the net. If it finds a duplicate of your content, you will see a small red copyright symbol next to the title of your Hub in the list that appears on your "my account" page.

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   3. 68

      1974posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      You can do this yourself quite easily with Google.  Just copy a sentence or two from one of your hubs and then paste it into the Google search bar with quotation marks on either end of the sentence.
      
      So if your hub started out with this sentence:
      My hub has been jacked and I don't know what to do!
      
      You would do a search for this:
      "My hub has been jacked and I don't know what to do!"
      
      Hopefully the only search result will be your hub.

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8. 78

   thisisoliposted 14 years ago

   I have had a few instances of content being stolen, in each case contacting the person has either been ignored, or resulted in an abusive email from them, suggesting that I stole their work.
   
   In all these cases a quick e-mail to the ISP results in speedy removal of either the stolen content or the website.
   
   The only exception to this seems to be blogger, especially when another blogger user steals your work from your blogger page.
   
   I had a Blogger website that was pulling in around 30,000 visitors a day, only to be knocked down to around 200 a day after a series of unscrupulous people atole all my content and duplicated it on a tonne of other blogger sites.
   
   I contact blogger about this, and they said something about being unable to prove the work was mine (which I did with word documents, invoices from my writers at the time, and comparing the dates of the blogs and my posts).  To this day all that duplicate content still exists, and my old success has floundered in to a sea of nothingness
   
   Since that experience I have massively cut back on my blogger activity. Instead I have focused on my own websites and websites such as Hubpages, where I have a clear legal right to my work, and can push action against sites such as Blogger when things are stolen!

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   1. 66

      Flightkeeperposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I didn't know this about Blogger.  Thanks for letting us know.  I have to think about how I'll use Blogger now.  I didn't think that they would be that irresponsible.

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9. 81

   Sally's Troveposted 14 years ago

   darkside, thank you. As you said, I found a couple of examples of cease and desist orders that are specific to copyright infringement.
   
   thisisoli, what an unfortunate story. I don't have any experience with blogger, and after reading your words, probably won't in the future. Thanks for sharing this hard lesson.

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10. 78

    MyWebsposted 14 years ago

    This last week I been having problems with a blog hosted on WordPress.com . Let me just say WordPress.com SUCKS .. That is a bit better.
    
    This blog first stole my "Famous Landmark"  picture that usually comes up #1 in Google Images. Then they edited it and said it was no longer my picture when it clearly was the same image. They just painted over my © example.com on the picture.
    
    So I complained to WP and they removed both images. Next the blog posts a private email publicly exposing my email address for all spam bots to see. And another copyrighted picture of mine.
    
    I complain once again. Email address removed and 3rd copyrighted image removed. Then they post my IP address opening me up to attacks. More complaints.. IP address removed..
    
    By now I'm demanding they delete this blog for 3 copyright and 2 privacy violations and harassement all within 1 week instead of just deleting the offending content.
    
    All WP has done is to issue them a warning. Any other web site would have deleted their account for 5 TOS violations in my opinion. Ugggg I'm soooo fed up with WordPress.com and this blog to say the least.
    
    I do have screenshots, saved web pages and emails to backup all my claims.

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11. 69

    easyspeakposted 14 years ago

    thanks everyone.  this is all great info. i guess all the more reason to use hubpages.

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12. 77

    skyfireposted 14 years ago

    Website_examiner posted about "myfreecopyright" plugin. So next time you post something make sure you get digital fingerprint of your content with help of that plugin.

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    1. 78

       thisisoliposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Might have to take a look at that, does it stil work if people select text and copy it though?

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       1. 78

          MyWebsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          @ thisisoli You may wish to go read their FAQ that explains how it works. I just got done adding all of my hubs to it since I been having trouble all week with copyright theft.
          
          Now all of my hubs display their logo with a link below that says: "MyFreeCopyright.com Registered & Protected" that links to the copyright on their site. This shows a potential thief it really is protected.
          
          Its a good proactive step you can take to later prove you published an article first.
          
          I would suggest adding hubs by the full URL and not the RSS feed. RSS method only grabs the meta description  part it looked like whereas full URL takes a snapshot of the full hub text.
          
          http://myfreecopyright.com/frequently_asked_questions

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13. 81

    Sally's Troveposted 14 years ago

    skyfire and MyWebs, thanks for posting the info about myfreecopyright.com.
    
    We on HP shouldn't have to take this extra step, since HP's "copyright" link is quite clear about contributors holding copyrights. But it is also true that too many leap without looking, never reading the fine print. The myfreecopyright graphic is sort of like using a sledge hammer instead of a rubber stamp. But, in this world where we write, protecting against theft needs to be a work effort built into the writing process.

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14. 78

    MyWebsposted 14 years ago

    after getting a response from Maddie in another thread it looks like linking to them on all your hubs may be a bad idea. Thinking I'm gonna so screw it and see what happens

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    1. 81

       Sally's Troveposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I saw Maddie's comment on the other thread.
       
       Sometimes the sledge hammer is the thing that will work to prevent theft. Perhaps the graphic is sufficient and the link doesn't need to be there.
       
       Since you've gone through this effort, maybe you'll have some results about effectiveness to publish in the next few months?

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15. 81

    Sally's Troveposted 14 years ago

    Update.
    
    The host of the infringing site disabled access to the site within hours of my notifying them. This doesn't mean that my stolen words are removed from the infringing site; but it's a first, quick, and positive step when the site owner is not responsive.
    
    ISPs and hosting services don't want to play around with this nasty business.  They are on our side.
    
    Thanks to all who commented here.

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