Since starting with my own content based website I have grown it from zero to about 200000 visitors per month which I am happy with as it is still growing. In recent months I have been subject to a number of scrapers stealing content to try and profit from my work. However, I have not needed to send a DCMA notice to anyone yet. I have only asked 1 website to take down my work and he did with in minutes of my request (I got lucky with that request maybe).

Rather then email them I just try deeplink between my content pages. When scrapers steal my content they also create link backs to my other pages and in the grand scheme of things they actually help me get higher rankings with Google which in turn, sends more traffic to me and makes more money.

For a little bit of an explanation on what I mean it could be worth you reading http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/foil-scrapers-improve-rankings/

It relates more to blog scrapers who use RSS feeds to take content, but any content that is stolen will benefit should you have a fairly trusted site.

I am going to bookmark this blog Erica as I have seen your previous business around quite a bit (being in the same industry around the same time). You have some great content on here! Keep it up and I am confident you will reach that 1 Mil a year goal

I understand what you’re saying. I’ve had content from my RSS feed stolen countless times, and this isn’t a huge site (~8000 unique visitors in January.) It might be worth it at some point to hire someone to deal with the scammers. You should be able to train someone to do it quickly. That depends on the return the site gives, you, though — in my case, since I don’t currently run ads on erica.biz, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

One thing I struggle with is being tired of the time involved in filing complaints. There was a point where our content was stolen at least once a week. I had to assess how much was taken, and if it was a small amount, sometimes I let it go because it was unlikely to raise a duplicate content flag to the search engines.

Many times the site owner will take it down after an email from me. But site owners in non-western countries tend, in general, to be less agreeable to doing this and simply ignore my email.

I’ve also found when dealing with GoDaddy as a registrar or host, they ask proof of copyright registration of the content in question. Because my site changes frequently, it’s a pain to file an official copyright claim on it all the time.

When I do write to violators, I let them know I have no qualms about filing a spam claim with google and yahoo. That tends to get their attention more than anything else.

Each host, ISP or web site that wishes to maintain the liability protections afforded by the DMCA, must fill out and file (and pay a fee) a registration statement designating who is your “Authorized Agent to Receive Notice.”

You don’t have to do this, but you will lose the protection of the DMCA if you do not.

Full details here, along with the forms and fees to send: http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/.

Also, we advise everyone to actually file Copyright for the content of their web site. It only costs about $45 and will greatly enlarge one’s protections, and must be done in order to collect damages and file injunctions, among other things.

Hope this helps.

Hakim Chishti

Great information. We have used many of these same tactics ourselves over the past few years to stop infringement of our own and many clients’ intellectual property.

We even stopped an infringer of an artist’s work being carried out in China! So, these tactics do work. A lot of persistence is required, as you note.

One point that may make things easier — in order to be protected against damages under DMCA, a company MUST provide the name of the Company’s Designated Agent to receive notification of alleged infringement. Usually that person is named in the Terms of Service page, or elsewhere under one of the “About Us” or “Contact Us” pages.

Once you have the name of that person (it is sometimes a contact at their law firm), things move very fast. Either we or our attorney first makes contact with an e-mail. If the case is important enough, we also send a FedEx letter. We have never failed to close down an infringer in almost five years.

Another point to stress is that it is also a crime to make false allegations of infringement. The penalties are quite severe. One should never try to use such tactics to “punish” or “get even” with a competitor or anyone else.

As you well know, these are very aggressive tactics that should only be used when truly appropriate.

I always advise people who lack extensive online or business experience to contact an IP attorney, simply to avoid getting themselves into a legal mess that could be expensive to get out of.

BTW, why do you disallow people to copy the materials above you provided? I wanted to save it to provide a shortcut sheet for our own use. I find it a bit petty that you provide all the info, but make it tortuous to actually reference and use it. Of course anyone can copy down the pages, if they want to.

Anyway, thanks again.

All the best,

Hakim Chishti