Yesterday I wrote a post titled When Has Stealing Content Gone to Far?   At the time of publishing that post, I wasn’t really sure how it would be received because of the subject matter.   So far all feedback has been pretty positive, so I decided to write a quick follow up post talking about how to deal with getting your content stolen.  Thanks to Laurence for the idea.

As most people should know, when you publish content, pictures, or whatever else on the internet, there is always some risk that things will get scraped or stolen completely from your website/blog.  Despite everything falling under copyright protection, people sometimes get away with it because it is often difficult to enforce. 

So, what can do you to deal with content theft?  Here are two things readers suggested that may help:

1. Terms and Conditions - Create a clear terms and condition policy that is findable on your website.   It may not help, but it certainly can’t hurt anything.   Throw it in the footer of your blog or somewhere that it is accessible. 
2. Use Internal Links in your Posts - In addition to the SEO benefits of working on your internal linking structure, scraped and sometimes stolen content will often include these links back to your website.  

Hopefully those methods will help avoid this in the future, but what can you do when your content has already been stolen? 

1. Contact the Offender - Depending on the situation, some sites may have a contact form or some way to contact the thief.   You can also try checking the domain whois records.  This is a good way to request they delete your stolen content and stop stealing your content in the future.   Though most know they are doing so, a few might not be aware that this is illegal.
2. Take Action Against the Offender - If the first option doesn’t yield any results or there is no way to contact the owner, there are two ways to take action against the thief.   If they use Google AdSense to monetize the site (most do), you can report them to Google by clicking on the “Ads by Google” link in the lower right corner of the AdSense box and provide them feedback.  I believe stolen content is actually one of the default options you can check.   The other thing you can do is contact the hosting company and let them know they are hosting websites that are doing illegal practices.  I’ve heard of people have some success going this route, so it is a great last resort. 

So, that is what I have.   What do you do to deal with scrapers and content thiefs?

P.S.  Ironically enough, unless there is some sort of screening process that I’m not aware of, this post will be scraped at least 3 times shortly after publication.   Am I the only one that finds humor in that?

—

Enjoy writing about WordPress? Get yourself more exposure by joining the Hack WordPress writing team!

Digg This Post! | Stumble This Post! | Add this Post to Del.icio.us | Google Bookmark This Post! | Netscape it! | No comment

Hack WordPress © 2008

—
Related Articles at Hack WordPress:

• When Has Stealing Blog Content Gone To Far?
• Use the Feed Footer WordPress Plugin to Add Content To Your Feed
• Premium Theme: Revolution Pro Media Now Available
• WordPress Talk - 04/01/2008
• WordPress Talk - 12/18/2007
• Tips For Protecting Your WordPress Installation

Read it at the source

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Themes and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. read 53 views