I was altered by a fellow blogger that my posts were being scalped and posted as original content by a website called Photography Newspaper. This happens for time to time and pretty quickly these sites disappear but it’s annoying to see your content used without permission. So how did I fight back ?

So If you’re reading this on Photography Newspaper site, they didn’t write this. My names Alan and I posted this on my blog at austerityphoto.co.uk. What you’re looking at is my page being copied completely by these cowboys. I’d suggest you might wanna get your photo news from sites that can actually write their own stuff.

I’m not alone. They’re scalping a lot of sites some much bigger than me (more on that later. Now normally I wouldn’t bother but the scale is huge here.

So I decided to fight back

And this post is part of that fight back. They seem to use automated scalping. I post a post and they copy it automatically. So By the time you read this, I’m guessing they’ll have scalped it. That’s unless my other actions have stopped them. I’ll add at the bottom if it worked

Gorr Bless America ! – DMCA Takedown

If you find your images and other content being used online without reasonable exceptions, the easiest way to deal with it is to issue a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice

DMCA Takedown sounds like a Wrestling event, but the DMCA is US copyright legislation introduced in 1998. I’m not going to bore you with the details but in brief it ratifies World intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) treaties. Now I live in Blighty and bar a 2 brief refuelling stops at LAX and being on a Canadian Ferry that went into American waters at Niagara, I’ve not really been to the US. And yes there is equivalent legislation here in blighty

But folks know the DMCA and I can request material takedown via it. That’s provided either the website or the Hosting is in the US, otherwise I’d have to look at using region specific legislation. And there are plenty of cut and paste DMCA takedown notice templates online for free

Now Photography newspaper claims to be part of Content Spots who proudly announce they’re based in Wisconsin, USA. They mailing address is in the Village of Bruce (pop 779 in 2010). Here’s the high street

Now I tried emailing content spots but their email address doesn’t actually work (there is no server). I’m not convinced they’re there. Infact I’m not entirely sure they’re really based in the US

But a WHOIS search told me the hosting company is.

Host with the most

I contacted the hosting company. Weirdly the DMCA actually protect hosting companies from getting sued but they must take reasonable action notified about a site they host is in infringing. In most cases they will block those infringing pages. There is obviously an appeals mechanism in case of malicious complaints and to raise a DMCA notice you must provide details of what is being infringed, where your material is and where it’s being copied to.

And credit to A2 Hosting within 24 hours the pages I gave them were knocked off and I got an email.

But I then spotted they’d scalped a few more of my pages so I decided to have some fun

You’ve got a friend in me

I’d been alerted by Peggy Marsh of Camera Go Camera about this and I thought only fair to alert someone else. That someone else is a much bigger site who will likely have a proper legal team…..

And how Peggy handled it inspired me. She’s posted a couple of brief posts which these cowboys automatic scalping has added on their sites but pretty much like this one but briefer

And did it work

so I posted this and checked back on their site

and about 10 minutes later…..