Easier way to go after article thieves

[Amy W]

So I was recently on the attack against mrbluesky.org because they had stolen three of my articles - and had them posted on their website for months! I was all set to file a DMCA with Google and Bing, but I didn't want to give mrbluesky the opportunity to keep my articles online. I'm also too impatient to wait a few weeks. So I wrote to the website's online service provider, stated my case, gave links to the offending site, and two days later the entire website of mrbluesky.org has been disabled. I also got a nice email from the service provider apologizing for the delay.

So if anyone wants to take this route in the future when their articles are stolen, here's what I did. I went to whois.domaintools.com and looked up the website. I wrote an email to the site owner asking her to take down the content, but I never got a response. That's when I turned into this - - and I spent an hour searching for the online service provider. Mrbluesky's was based in the UK, and it didn't have a website, so it took a while. To find the service provider's name, click on the Server Data tab in the WhoIs search - it's listed on the IP Location line. Then just do a search online for an email address associated with the provider. Write them a letter stating that you own the copyright of the articles and you never gave the site your permission to use them. If that still doesn't work, you can try contacting the domain's registrar - just email them the same letter.

Hope this helps someone!

[jak]

Thanks Amy. I had an issue with mrbluesky too. I put a comment on the article of mine that was stolen, but of course it was not published. I've just tried to go into the site again and got a broken link so they may have taken the site down.

[Lysis]

OMG Amy, nice job! I'm glad that the hoster worked with you. That is really great. I'm a jerk when it comes to article theft too. It really burns my butt.

Also, you can use samspade.org to get some good info on hosters and domain owners. It's not as pretty as domain tools, but sometimes it's useful.

[Amy W]

Thanks for the site info, Lysis - I'll check that one out next time one of my articles is stolen. Pretty sad that I just assume that my articles will be stolen again!

And now for an even easier way to go after article thieves. The WhoIs search usually lists an address for the website owner, and in the case of most of the sites where our stolen work is posted, the address is fake. Just search for the address in Google maps to find out if it is fake or not. If it is, report it to the domain registrar. I just received an email from mrbluesky's domain registrar, saying that they have notified the site owner to change the address. If they don't, the website will be shut down. It's already shut down, but whatever. Wish I had thought of this a few months ago!