What To Do If Your Article Is Copied
How to find out if someone is copying your writing?
There are many ways to find out if someone is copying your articles. You must know the who and what, before you can handle the situation.
One way to see if someone is copying your articles and hubs is to keep an eye on your traffic. If you see large gains or weird websites, this may mean they are copying but at least putting your link up. You are still going to lose traffic if it is something like a recipe, so you may want to investigate the site.
Another way to see if you are being copied is to take a chunk of the article and paste it in the Google box. You don’t need quotations, just copy and paste, then hit search. This will find all the websites that are using your words. This will not catch paraphrasing, however I am more worried about those that coped and pasted it.
If you see the red copyright mark at the end of your hub on your traffic page, well my friend someone has copied your work. In my case, I did the above and found over 10 websites, a few had links, but most were just blatant infringement. Some even tried to copyright my work, several years after I wrote it.
I have heard others say to try free plagiarism websites to check if you are being copied.
So they jacked my work, now what?
Well my friend, you need to first contact the website and send a DCMA takedown notice. This is usually sent via email. It has to be in writing and signed, although electronic is okay. Give the url of the page using your work and the url of your original work, I like to state the date of publication since theirs will be after yours. State that you have not agreed and this is copyright infringement and close with your contact information.
This should be followed up with a takedown within three days. If not, you should send a complaint to the copyright infringement site and they will sort it out for you. Best way is to find the DCMA website and that will give you the name and address of where to send your copyright infringment complaint.
Everyone should keep up with this because you can being losing traffic and money over these crooks. Some may do it honestly, however many you find, copy your work to make a few buck in ad money. So be aware and good luck!