Ack! Someone's copied my site! What should I do?

Well, the first thing to do is not to panic. Sadly, content scraping happens all the time. It can be as seemingly innocuous as someone using an article from your site without express permission (even if they link back to you and give you credit) or as extreme as a wholesale copying of your site.

You may be thinking, "But I never filed a copyright for my site! I didn't even have a copyright noticed on my site! I'm screwed!"

Seriously. Don't panic.

All works of original authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression (even on the internet) are protected by copyright. Registered or not, copyright notice or not, you're protected.

Are you breathing yet?

The first thing you do is you try to find out if you can find contact information for the shlemiel who did this. You can try the site itself but your best bet is a who is search at networksolutions.com.

Contact him and demand that he take down the site immedately. You can do a more formal cease and desist letter if you'd like. You can even have a lawyer do it for you if you really want to give them a scare. (I don't know what it is about legal letterhead, but it has some magical power or something... LOL!)

What do you do if you can't find him at all or if he doesn't take down the infringing material after you ask him to? Don't panic, you have a recourse.

Under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, all "service providers" including hosts must have a policy for removing material that infringes another person's copyright in order to avoid being held liable for copyright infringement themselves.

So, what does that mean to you? It means that you visit the host of the infringing website and follow their DMCA takedown provisions. Piece of cake.

And because the DMCA was implementing WIPO treaties, even hosts in other countries (where the countries are signatories to the WIPO treaties) have similar provisions.

No sweat. See, I told you not to panic...

Feel better?