How To Find Stolen Content & Get It Removed

Believe it or not, it is very easy for someone to steal content from your website and reproduce it on another. And as we mentioned in our last article, Can You Prevent Your Content From Being Stolen?, there is very little that you can do to stop it.

However, there are remedies that you can take to find any stolen content and get it removed from an offending website.

Find Stolen Content

If your website has been around a while, or receives a steady flow of traffic, it is possible that content from your website has been stolen. In fact, there could be many unlawful uses of your content, all without your knowledge.

Here are a few methods to find any stolen content:

1. Use a search engine. You can use a search engine to find a unique phrase in your website. If you find any matches to that phrase, other than your website, you might have found your content thief. To make it easy to find you content, you can also use this tactic in reverse. Select a unique phrase or character combination and embed it in your pages, articles, and blog entries. Additionally, you can also use an image search to find images which have been stolen.
2. Review incoming links. Sometimes websites will link to the source of the content. Go to all incoming links to see if any copyright violation has occurred.
3. Use Copyscape. Copyscape is a website that enables you to enter a url and find other web pages that contain content similar to yours. Unfortunately, this only works if both the content in your website and in the offending website have been indexed by search engines.
4. Look at log files. Your server log files may also give you additional information as to whether your content is being stolen. If you have a lot of traffic from a certain host or IP address, this could be an indication of some sort of content theft. And it could also highlight potential hotlinking of your files.

Once you’ve found violators of your copyright, you can now take action to get your content removed.

Get It Removed

Most webmasters are generally afraid of being sued. As a result, they are usually compliant when asked to remove any content which does not belong to them.

Below, are three steps which will generally help this process run as smoothly as possible.

Step 1: Find Contact Info

In order to make a request of a webmaster, you will need to be able to contact them. Generally, contact information is easy to find on the website itself. Consider looking for an email address on a contact page or in the footer of the website.

If you cannot locate this information on the website, you will have to use external sources. These may include the following:

• Whois website, such as DomainTools.com - Stores contact info for domain registrant.
• Alexa.com - Often stores contact information for websites.
• Search engine - Use a search engine to search for information on the domain.

Step 2: Make Contact

You will want to initiate written contact.

Whether via email or snail mail, send a formal notice which identifies the theft and lays out your conditions. These may include removing content, paying a fee, crediting you as the author, or all of the above. Also, be sure to include the length of time that they have to comply with your conditions before you take further action.

Step 3: Escalate The Situation

Sometimes a webmaster may not respond to a first or second notice. This could be due to inaccurate contact information or an incorrect belief that no action can be taken against them. In cases like these, it will be necessary for you to escalate the situation.

Your next step is to contact the web host. The web host may be able to successfully contact the webmaster and/or take the site offline until the illegal action is stopped.

If this doesn’t work, there are a few other things that you can do. This includes contacting search engines and notifying them of content theft, as well as any affiliate programs or advertisers that the website uses. Finally, your last resort is legal action.

Taking legal action is tricky, and most people will never need to go this far, so we won’t cover this here. But if you do take action, make sure that you have adequate proof that the content is yours. Additionally, if you are very concerned with content theft, consider copyrighting all of your work. This will make it easier to prove ownership in the event of a lawsuit.