What to do if your Content is Stolen

Dear Chicago House,

Sigh, we interrupt our usual Arty Farty Friday post with a little tip on dealing with content thieves. It is a sad state of affairs when scum bag web sites are ripping off your content and using it as their own…or somehow claiming they have permission to do so and Creative in Chicago is sponsoring their site.

Recognize anything on this page?

Asking nicely for it to removed generally results in nothing, so I resort to a guaranteed solution a DMCA Take down notice.

If your blog posts are being used without your permission here is what you do.

1. Find out which company is hosting the offending website. This is easily done by visiting http://www.whoishostingthis.com and typing in the url of the thieving site.
2. Visit the hosting site and either call or chat with them to get an email for their abuse department.
3. Send the Abuse team a DMCA take down notice – you can cut and paste exactly what I have below making sure you fill it in with your details. When you send the email make sure you attached an electronic signature- I have a scan of mine I attach. 
   

   DMCA Take down Notice

   Copyright work that has been infringed

   Details of the content of your site that is being used without authorisation including url’s

   Infringing work

   Give as much detail as you can about the infringing work including URL’s. When a lot has been stolen I will generally send the url of a search page which lists all the pages

   Contact information of infringing party

   Give any contact information you can, don’t worry if you can’t find any
    
   Contact information of complaining party

   Include you name, address, telephone number and email

   Statement of good faith belief

   The Complaining Party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

   Statement of accuracy under penalty of perjury

   The notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the Complaining Party is the owner, or is authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

4. Hosting companies take DMCA takedown notices very seriously. They will contact the site owner to get the content removed and if they do not comply will have the entire site shut down.

It is very difficult to stop the theft in the first place but relatively easy to get the offending sites shut down. I can think of better ways to spend my time though.

Love from

Creative in Chicago

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