Has anyone had any experience in content theft? Our site has been stolen from several times now, I have been successful in getting most of my content removed from the @#%^! who stole it. I'm wondering if its more prevalent in the real estate industry, or if its more wide spread.

I've had it happen to a few of my sites in the past. When people direct link images from my site I occasionally switch the image with pictures that say "I am a bandwidth theif".

Send a cease and desist letter and if you have to cc it to abuse at their hosting company if you know it.

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Web content theft is rampant, because for most thieves, the consequences aren't too dire. They get discovered, you send a cease & desist letter, and they probably take down the stolen material. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my understanding that it's hard to sue them and get monetary compensation because you have to prove they harmed you financially.

You might try surfing the boards at www.webmasterworld.com - this topic comes up regularly and people have good advice for how to handle it.

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Eileen Coale, Copywriter
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I bet over the next decade a lot of changes will be made in regards to site content and theft. If it was plagarism, it would be easy to prosecute and collect damages on. The laws need to be changed.

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Visit the most comprehensive Las Vegas Real Estate, Las Vegas High Rise Condos and Las Vegas Homes website online.

Actually, if you copyright it, it is covered.

But, are you going to sue someone?

Maybe it's best to just feel good that someone thought enough of your site to steal it.

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"A person who take a risk may sometimes lose but a person who never take a risk always lose" -Sal Valenzuela of CyFocus.com-


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By virtue of you creating the site it's copyrighted, but not filed with teh Govt. So you do the poor mans proof which would be to save the site on a cd and mail it to yourself.

While I wish there was something to do about it I think Pete is right. One idea might be to put a link at the end of the content pages so if someone wants the article on their site they can request it.

My Small Business Trends site is a blog and I encourage people to use my content.

All I ask is that they give me credit for it and link to me. I issue RSS feeds to encourage such use -- right now over a dozen sites use my content and I am happy for it. See the Articles section of this site for an example: http://www.small-business-forum.com/articles/

I freely quote other sites, too, but always link to them and give them credit.

Almost always they are happy with the free PR and "Google juice" I give them. And under copyright law as I understand it (U.S., anyways) quoting a small portion and crediting the copyright owner is considered "fair use" and allowable.

Now if I were using their content without linking or crediting them, then I'm sure it would be a different story. Or if I used up their bandwith by direct linking their images -- well, that's simply dirty!

You might want to think about whether you can turn the content theft around to your advantage for free PR.

Good luck,
Anita

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Anita Campbell
Small Business Trends "Keeping tabs on trends in the small business market"

Unfortunately we have had content lifted from out site as well if you havent used this tool you should it helps idendify sites that may have your content:

Copyscape - Website Plagiarism Search - Web Site Content Copyright Protection

Great tool Victory I have already put it to use!!