The Increasing Trend of Site Theft

This has personally happened to me since starting my site. I’m sure that I’m not the only victim of site theft! What would you do if someone stole your hard work?  

How Are They Caught
I know that the internet is an extremely large place but when you start narrowing it down into specialized categories such as blogging it suddenly starts to become a lot smaller in size. In most cases a reader of your site community will stumble across the violation and end up reporting it to you.  

Your Immediate Circle  
Jumping on the blog bandwagon just because someone you know in your immediate circle is doing well on the net! What do you think the percentage is? I personally think the stats are high when it comes to family, work colleagues, and friends that commit the crime of site theft after finding out your site is making money.

Areas of Theft

  • Articles – Content
  • RSS or Atom Feeds
  • Site Graphics
  • Site Coding
  • Site Layout Customized (free templates acceptable – customize it)
  • Forum Layout - Categories & Labels

What Would You Do
Send An Email? Half of the time, you will more than likely find that the perpetrator will not even have a contact number or email listed on their site. If you are lucky enough to find an email after a few sarcastic remarks they my end up apologizing and removing your work in the end. Sites without emails in my opinion more than likely will end up disappearing from the net anyway due to lack of personal creativity and motivation to drive towards a long term goal.  

Take Legal Action? Unless you are an extremely successful site then this is most definitely not the answer you are looking for. More than likely the attorney fees in the long run will end up costing you more than the copyright infringement is worth to you.

 Have you experienced site theft? What actions did you take to resolve it?  

August 2, 2007 | posted in Talk 

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12 Responses to “The Increasing Trend of Site Theft”

  1. Erik Karey on August 2nd, 2007

    I’ve never had my work stolen as far as I know, but I’ve seen articles from one site on another and notified the original writer. In a day and age where a lot of bloggers are using free templates, I think site design is less of an area that gets stolen. Like you said I think free templates need a bit of customization to work.

  2. Steve's Tech Blog on August 2nd, 2007

    I only seen part of text “stolen” but still linking to my blog for the rest. Those blogs are more Made For Adsense in my opinion. They hardly added things to the post. It was not a quote. I should check the other post next time to see if they do that to other bloggers..

    Do thing it’s “stolen” or “borrowed”?

    One way without getting too legal is by contacting the hosting company. I would do that if I can’t contact the blogger.

  3. icedragon on August 2nd, 2007

    blogging is more than the content, is the social networking what helps you be a high traffic website, if someone steal all your original posts, they’ll eventually fall and your readers will notice how’s the copycat in case they read both of sites

    In an ackward way, we will be a little flattered in case that we have a stolen content situation, but hope not in the future

  4. Life is Colourful on August 2nd, 2007

    I really did not ever try to find out if ever my content is stolen… Looking at the short existence of those blogs… I don’t care much!

  5. Jason Neuman on August 2nd, 2007

    Interesting comments but it seems that content is the main topic of discussion and not site design, graphics, and layout. In my case my layout for my forum was copied word per word in the exact same layout and order.

    However if someone was copying my articles I would not be impressed either. I do realize that by having RSS full feeds turned own people are able to steal my articles and feed them into made for AdSense sites, which is actually happening a lot with our celebrity site.

    Any form of theft in my opinion is wrong! Use other sites for inspiration only and then form your own ideas from there.

  6. icedragon on August 2nd, 2007

    Do you make some legal actions against the copyblogger?, or maybe only an email?, sometimes we get astonished of the quantity of blogs out there, and the many more daily posts, you are right Jason, any form of theft is wrong, for the original blogger and for the person that steals . . .

  7. digitalnomad on August 3rd, 2007

    I do not see much recourse for the little guy. As you point out feed sites and content theft are the most disturbing.

    At first, many people may be flattered to see their content is being picked up in feeds.

    Made for Adsense blogs that steel content through readers should be banned somehow.

  8. 50 Ways Get Traffic to Your Blog » Ja Kel Daily Dot Com » Blog Archive on August 6th, 2007

    […] 40. Be original never a thief  […]

  9. Online Community Building on August 12th, 2007

    Someone once set up an exact copy of one of my sites; they even registered an almost identical URL.

    I contacted their web host and the affiliate network they were using to try and squeeze some cash out of the rip-off.

    I also emailed them advising them that I would proceed legal action if the copied content was not removed immediately.

    They were closed down within 48 hours.

    - Martin Reed

  10. Jason Neuman on August 12th, 2007

    I had the same result also within 48 hours but after emailing them.

  11. digitalnomad on August 12th, 2007

    That’s good advice from Martin. I guess it would be hard to actually sue someone though…or would it?

  12. SEO Roundup for August 3rd on August 16th, 2007

    […] talks about content theft and how it sucks. I can attest to this as […]

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