I found out today that someone had copied one of my posts and copied it onto their website. Now, this wouldn’t be a big deal if they had linked back to my website. But the “link” they provided only redirected people back to their website. Needless to say, I was quite thoroughly pissed off. And so began the Google search to try to figure out how to stop this from happening.
Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to stop people from copying your website or blog content. People that do this are using YOUR content to make a buck. Some have GoogleAds, others, like the one that stole my content, are using it trying to make themselves sound like experts and get money from people. They have a Premium Membership so that aspiring authors can gain access to content to help them become better writers. From what I could see, every damn POST was stolen! This person has only had their website for a month or so and have a TON of posts.
The Google search was quite fruitful, and also quite confusing. Each website/blog often has their own rules for reporting scammers that steal content. But the one thing they all have in common is this little thing called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and a form that you can fill out addressing the issue of copyright infringement in this digital age.
I stumbled across this amazing website that had a very simplified DMCA form, complete with yellow highlight to show you where to input your information (contact info, website of the infringer, your website content).
The other thing you have to do is figure out who owns the website and who hosts their site. Most of the time, the scammers won’t be able to be contacted on the website. The website that stole my content didn’t have any contact info at all.
But not all is lost! There is a nifty website that can help you search for the owner of a domain name. It’s called domaintools.com. All you do is type in the domain name (blahblahblah.com) and it will pull up all the info you need to contact the perpetrator and the domain host.
I sent a rather scathing e-mail to the owner of the website. I also sent one to the domain host. They were the ones that informed me of the need to fill out the DMCA form. By the time I got the form filled out and sent to the domain host, the perp had already taken my post down. But I am livid, because it is quite obvious that she has stolen a LOT of content from a LOT of authors and others in the writing industry.
A lovely friend on a FB post told me about this great website called myfreecopyright.com. This will protect any and all posts you make from a website or blog and best of all…it’s FREE! That’s a word we starving authors like to hear 
The website gives you HTML code declaring to the viewing public that your work is protected. Hopefully it will deter them from stealing your content. And if they are dumb enough to do it anyway, you have incontrovertible proof that you are the originator.
Hopefully this will give someone the tools they need to put in a complaint of their own, should they find their own sites compromised. It sucks that there are people out there that have no issues with stealing other people’s content. But at least we have some tools in out arsenal to stop them.
Cheers! Shay Fabbro
Sorry this happened to you Shay. I know it’s an awful feeling to have work or ideas snitched in such a manner. I started using freeopywrite.com as well and it’s great I have it on my blog and website.
Good luck. I hope that others will take action against this thief as well.
Shay, because that site did something so egregious, you should post the URL. Spreading the word about someone who maliciously stole original work is one way to combat it (a) now to expose them, and (b) possibly in the future. The power of social networking can be used for good…
~Steve
So sorry to hear this. Thanks for sharing the links to help us out if required. People are so lazy and sly when they steal from our blogs!
Have you heard of creativecommons.org? You can register there, too.
Definitely share out the URL, so people both know where to look for stolen content, and where to avoid it. A group of nail art bloggers (myself being one of them) had this same thing happen…blogs were stealing our photos and using them as their own. We all got together and wrote very public posts exposing those blogs for what they were, and that along with take down notices got very quick action in righting the whole situation. Domain hosts also tend to act more quickly under very public pressure with these things.
Copyright is all well and good – but it’s not going to stop anyone from stealing your stuff. It will give you the means to win money in court, but that’s about it, unfortunately. But the time/date stamps on your original posts should be plenty to prove ownership of your content, and get plagiarized content removed.
Don’t protect them by keeping the site secret though – let everyone know. They can’t hide or continue to operate as they are in the spotlight.
Thanks for sharing all of the info. Glad to hear the person took your post down. I feel for all the other people that had their posts ripped off by this person.
thank you for this blog I will check out sites mentioned – I’d say give out the name of the theives – name and shame them – like all theives they want something for nothing
Scary stuff!
It’s a shame there are people that steal to make money. Good on you for taking a stand against it though.
sarah
I didn’t post the site because I didn’t want to get in trouble. The guy wrote me back claiming that someone had sent him the RSS feed (no idea what that even is) and that he didn’t know that it wasn’t part of the public domain.
But here’s the site: http://schoolofcreativewriting.com/
Looks like most of their content is probably stolen