Yes, even I was victim to content theft from my Web site.
My Firefox related Web site, FirefoxFacts.com had almost its entire archive stolen by a guy that I guess couldn’t come up with anything else to say of his own. Now this is not a new problem, it has been happening on the Web for a really long time.
How Can You Find Out if People Are Stealing Content?
Well, if you are running a blog or anything with a trackback system, it is going to be an easier thing to find. Then you can just search your links back and hope for the best. If not, you might hit up the search engines for your titles or phrases and see what you can find. Going through your Web site’s referral links might be a good way to find out things as well. Usually these people don’t bother changing anything so you might have many links from them coming back at you.
Why Do People Steal Content?
They do it because they are too lazy or uninspired to create their own content. Instead of coming up with their own material, they attach themselves to creative people and leech off all that they can. There is also a lot of money to be made as well. Copying over articles and then running Google AdSense ads all of them can rake you in some serious dough if you know what your doing.
What Can You Do to Stop Them?
Well, this is the Web Hosting Show – so it would only be related if I mentioned something about Web hosting here. First things first, you should try to contact the author of the Web site to see if they will kindly remove the articles. If that does not work, then you can go to the Web host and tell them that these leeches are stealing your copyrighted material.
If they still refuse, then you could always go after the Web host’s Web host. Contact their data center and complain and complain until somebody does something about it. It is not right and it is not legal. The biggest problem you are going to run into are lazy hosting industry professionals.
Take this response I got back from The Planet:
To Whom It May Concern – Please note that below-referenced copyright infringement notice does not substantially comply with the required notification elements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (“DMCA”). Please note that we have not passed on the substantive merits of your claim.
Thankfully the Web host that they were hosting did listen to my complaints and took the copycat Web site down.
+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 95!
Will the Term Web Hosting Die?
I noticed a thread about this very topic not too long ago on WebHostingChat.com. The poster wanted to know if anybody thought that the world Web hosting would die. Now most people might read that and think the guy was crazy, bonkers, nuts even. If you look at it with an open mind though you have to at least thing that it might happen.
What if the phrase Web hosting was replaced by another term? What would that term be? Now I am not exactly the best forecaster of the future, but what if we started to refer to Web hosting as “Online storage”? Would it mean the same thing to you and me?
I think no matter what you call it, Web hosting is still going to confuse people. When I walk up to a guy or gal on the street and tell them I am in the Web hosting business, I usually get them scratching their heads and saying, “hu?” at me. No new words or candy coating is going to help that.
It is even worse if you tell people that you work “Online”. When that term comes out of your mouth it seems like folks automatically assume that you either spam people or work in the adult industry. Sometimes your lucky and you get that confused aunt or uncle that think you do both.
People just want to know how to get a Web site and us folks inside of the hosting industry are going to have to live with that. We might not be celebrities or high-class socialites, but we will continue to keep the Web running.
+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 95!