With so much stuff on the internet available and ripoff-able, what steps can we take to fight back?
Q: I have several blogs, and I wrote several articles that I have published to article directories. Doing research on my topics I found my article posted on another website and another author put his name to it. I e-mailed the author and he said he didn’t put that there, he never saw the article, and I asked him to take it down. Well, it’s still there. What should I do?
A: If the article is still there, it could be for a couple of reasons: 1. Either the “author” is telling fibs, thinking you won’t do anything or 2. there’s a technological glitch somewhere that the “author” doesn’t have access to correct.
Under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you can write to the website/blog service provider to alert the provider to the situation. Be sure to include the following information:
- Your name, address and electronic signature.
- The infringing materials and their internet location or, if the service provider is an “information location tool” such as a search engine, the reference or link to the infringing materials
- Sufficient information to identify the copyrighted works (e.g., the title and link to the article)
- A statement by the copyright owner (you) that you have a good-faith belief that there is no legal basis for the use of the materials complained about, and
- A statement that the notice you’re sending is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on the behalf of the owner (e.g., the “owner” may be your company and you’re the president; or if you’re one and the same, say that you are bringing the complaint individually and you are the individual owner).
Once you send the notice, the service provider is required to remove, or disable access to, the material.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 5:26 am and is filed under Basic Training, Horror Stories, Intellectual Property. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
