It’s more annoying than I can say to keep discovering my posts have been copied to some dubious website that exists purely for ad revenue. The lastest culprit is http://www.ukasian.co.uk/, a hideous looking site that just grabs any old content and then hopes to gain readers and cash in on ad revenue. Although my site is tentatively protected by copyright law, actually pursuing a copyright claim is nigh on impossible. Bascially, you have to go to the site’s host – in this instance, The Planet. Of all hosts, The Planet is the one I most often come up against. They don’t do anything – they aren’t interested and they insist on all kinds of hoop jumping before they will even investigate a claim, no matter how much information you put in your original email. What The Planet asks if you want to submit a copyright infringement abuse complaint is that you complete a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) Form, which is rather full of legalese that I would guess the average blogger (such as myself) would struggle over somewhat. It feels like it is designed to put you off complaining, although I suspect once you have waded through one, you will pretty much be able to do it again and again. It is actually the case that DMCA is a US copyright law and how it holds up in the UK is anyone’s guess. But, my site is UK based and the perpetrator’s host is in the US. Does that make UK bloggers bound to fulfil DMCA obligations? Really, the whole thing is so complicated as to be unbelievable. I have tried to find answers on the internet to some of these questions – one thing leads to another and another with no clarity at the end of it. When you’ve jumped through all the hoops, you’ll receive an email from The Planet saying they may not even let you know whether they’ve investigated or taken any action. Gee, thanks. How helpful.
I’ve issued warning letters to http://www.ukasian.co.uk/ (please don’t click through and perpetrate this site’s existence) which reads:
You must remove all posts on www.ukasian.co.uk that have been taken without permission from www.britishbeautyblogger.com with immediate effect. You are served from now with a legally binding Cease & Desist order in consultation with lawyers.
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Subject: Notice of Copyright Infringement
The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http:/ukasian.co.uk which is taken without permission from www.britishbeautyblogger.com.
The URLs where our copyrighted material is located include http://ukaisan.co.uk at various locations within the site.
You can reach me on britishbeautyblogger@gmail.com for further information or clarification.
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
If you are having copyright issues, please do feel free to use this as a template. In some instances it can do the trick, but hardcore ad sites that fish your posts won’t really care. I had to file this to Ukasian via their facebook site as, of course, there are no contact details on the website – a sure sign that something’s up!
Anyway, if this is happening to you, I’d love to know how you deal with it. I’m hoping to speak to someone who might be able to help guide us a bit more effectively; if and when I do, I’ll issue a full guide.
Ironically, because ukasian.co.uk grabs any old post, it will probably grab and display this one!
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14 comments
It’s happened to me before & it annoyed me but apart from a strongly worded email i could do nothing, what i love is they dont even edit it in the slightest, i’ve seen BBB on a post! idiots!!
How annoying. How did you find it on there? Hope you get a proper and professional rsponce this time x
How did you know your content had be re-published on that site hun? Any one of our posts gunna be being taken and re-used by someone else as their own, but I dont know how we’d ever find out?
xxx
Hi Jo..I only know if I am surfing the web or key in something I know I had as an exclusive on a search..and of course if other people are kind enough to let me know.
And Computer Girl…no response..and I won’t get one either because I haven’t filed a DCMA.
If you can get their address from the domain records, it sometime works if you send them an invoice for £100 for each copied piece. I’ve tried it a few times, and though haven’t been paid, sometimes it gets the work taken down.
It is an annoying task though.
THis has happened to me as well, from a nigerian site!
The worst of all? I couldn’t get them beacuse the only email they had on the site was MINE!
In fact, i’m getting all sorts of nigerian spamming crap in my junk folder! 🙁
I had a great big huge long comment here, with a link to a place for more, clearer, information about filing DMCA complaints (I’ve most definitely waded through all of that), but it appears that Blogger ate it.
Dang.
Short points:
The web host is perhaps being less helpful than they could be, but there’s a reason why they’re not always proactive – and there are ways to give them enough ammunition without you tearing your hair
Check the website chillingeffects.org for more information on filing DMCA notices
Over the next few weeks I’ll be publishing a series of posts on how to file proper copyright-violation notices (and including a form letter bloggers can use), how to protect your images, how to block image hotlinking, et cetera.
Sorry, I forgot to say, please don’t publish my help.
I don’t particulary want to be known for this kind of thing. 🙂
I am soft and cuddly deep down.
This has happened to me too! It grabbed stuff from tons of bloggers though; lotuspalace, pinksith, nonblonde, rougedeluxe. SO annoying.
OMG they don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re plagarising! How annoying… I hope after reading this post they stop :- [
It sucks so much that this happened to you.
I wish you luck sorting it out.
Hi Jane,
That site is awful! I’m not surprised you’re annoyed at finding your blog posts on there.
It looks like they’re scraping your blog posts through your Feedburner feed. (They’re basically subscribing to yours and loads of other bloggers’ feeds and automatically publishing it all on the ukasian site, instead of subscribing to the feed for personal use only). If you notice in their articles, there is still a link at the bottom of the article to your original blog post on BBB.
I just looked this up, and apparently there is a name for these fake blogs that just scrape other people’s content – they’re called “splogs”.
You’ll be able to see other potential splogs when you log into Feedburner. Look under “Uncommon Uses” in the Analyze tab.
You can try preventing splogs from stealing your content by turning off Yahoo Pipes (when logged in to your Feedburner account, go to the Publicize tab, then NoIndex in the left hand options. From there, check the option “Indicate that your feed should not be used by Yahoo! Pipes” and then activate this new setting. But make sure that you *uncheck* “Indicate that your feed should not be indexed by search engines” because you don’t want to stop Google from finding your posts for their search results.
I don’t know whether the above will stop all splogs from stealing your content, but it’s worth a try. I’ve just gone through the above steps myself too.
Hope that helps.
I am training to be a solicitor and have done a bit of intellectual property law. I’m not fully trained so please don’t take my advice as gospel, it’s just what I know myself!
First of all, I would not bother trying to fill in the Planet’s own claim form. Particularly if it only applies to US law. You don’t need to jump through their hoops to file a claim against them. They should not be investigating a claim against themselves anyway.
Secondly, bringing a claim against them will obviously be very expensive. It might not be worth it if you don’t make money from your blog, which I presume you don’t. One option might be to file a class action against them with a group of other bloggers who have also had their copyright infringed. Another could be to file a claim with the Intellectual Property Office. You could also try the Citizens Advice Bureau.
It is totally unfair and they know that by picking on bloggers they are unlikely to face any comeback, which is why they do it. If you can find any way to challenge them, please do.
Just out of curiosity, you have authorised your content on Wellsphere haven’t you? As it has a link back I assume it is a legitimate use of your stuff.