Plagiarism

[dtobias]

I just stumbled onto a site that rips off many sections of my own site about domain names, word for word, without any credit at all. (But their version is less useful than mine; they took out all the hyperlinks, which, in my site, go to many other related sites to provide much more information about the subjects I discuss.) A few pieces I didn't write (sometimes with advice directly contradicting mine) are interspersed. No bylines are given for anything (I don't know if the stuff I didn't write was the original work of the other site's author, or ripped off from yet another author).

You can be the judge yourself:
My site: http://domains.dan.info/
Their site: http://www.get-a-dot.com/

What should I do? Issue a "cease and desist" letter? (Do I need a lawyer for that?)

I have occasionally given other sites permission to reprint parts of my sites, but always with proper credit. I've never heard of this particular site, and certainly wouldn't have let them lift most of my site uncredited.

 

[namedropper]

Yeah, cease & desist would be what you want. You don't need a lawyer, but one would be helpful to put some oomph into it.

The nameservers listed for the get-a-dot.com domain are in the US, and thus probably must follow the 24 hour response rule if you file a DCMA infringment letter with them (site and host are not in the U.S. unfortunately). You can google for "DMCA sample letter" and see some suggested ones.

In the past two weeks I've sent notices to six different people for ripping off one of my articles at mythology.com. Two people took the page down immediately and apologized, claiming they got it from someone else and didn't know it was ripped off. One was out of the country and didn't have any hosting ties I could see to the US so beyond the DCMA's reach. The other three got reports to their host about the infringement and two were yanked by the hosts immediately (and both people wrote to me to complain and pretend they didn't do anything wrong and whine about how mean I was). The third one I can't even get the webhost to respond. I think I'll have to send them something buy certified mail or call the host or something.

 

[jberryhill]

Dan Norder has the steps right.

Ask politely.

Use the DMCA.

Register your copyright.

File suit.

For a "no show" copyright suit, your expenses will be a couple of hundred dollars tops for the filing fee, and some time.