How to Fight Copyright Infringement

In most cases, after contacting the suspected site, the content will be deleted. It is important to document the infringement before this happens and again if it is deleted. Follow these steps to document the duplicate content you have found.

1. Capture a screenshot of the suspected webpage
2. Download the source code while on the page by clicking File, then Save Page as.
3. It is recommended to search in Archive.org if they have saved the webpage.

In order to use the screenshots and source code in a court of law, be sure to include when these steps were taken and which browser and version, i.e. Internet Explorer 9, January 20, 2017.

When you first find that your content has been duplicated on another site, it’s important to find out how much has been taken. Two paragraphs is very different compared to routine scraping for months. Something else that needs to be considered, is how long the content has been live.

1. Find out the date the article was first published.
2. Check how long the website has been online with WHO-IS. Keep in mind this tracks the whole website, not individual pages. For example, if the website was online for one month, the maximum amount of time your content was live and damage was done is up to one month.
3. Use Archive.org to see their version of the website.In some cases, the specific page that contains your content is not always available.

One other point to be conscious of, is if the website was making money off of your content. For example, if there was a Google Ads campaign, you can expect that they were able to make money from that webpage.

If this is the case, you are able to notify Google Ads and they will immediately end the campaign.

There are various online services and extensions that can help you determine if the webpage is monetizing from your content.

They can search if their pages were indexed before their original content, and this increases the damage done. If they are ahead, google is giving them more benefits, and it’s harming your original page.

The easiest way to find out if your ranking has been affected, is to look for your SEO search phrases on Google and other search engines. If your website appears after the suspected site or not at all, this means your ranking has been affected by the duplicate content.

For example, if you created a post about 'Lights in aquariums', you should search this phrase and see if your site appears.

The first step is contact the website owner in order to remove the content. You should specify the original content URL (your webpage) and their webpage URL that has the same content.

You can find their email address in most cases in a 'Contact us' form. If not, another way to find an address is in 'Terms of use' (which in most cases includes the company address). Another option is to get the address from WHO-IS.

After finding the address and sending a request for removal, the content should be removed.

Once this happens, the search engine will also remove the reference to this article and your page ranking will then be accurate.

In serious cases where you do not receive a response from the site owner, actions include a cease and desist (and possible law suit) as well as send a request to search engines to remove the content manually You can request for Google and Bing to remove this content.

If the website owner does not answer, in some cases you can contact the platform to remove this content. For example, if the website is hosted by Blogger and the website owner does not answer, you can contact Blogger directly to ask them to remove the content.