One of the challenging things about the online world is that everything is just out there.
You create something (whether it’s a blog post, a web design, a photo, Pinterest image, or e-book) and you post it online, and anyone can try and steal it and claim it as their own—and unfortunately, there’s not always a lot of recourse or a clear path of action to remedy the problem.
It’s happened to me more times than I care to count on The Work at Home Woman. In fact, one time, I found out that someone had copied my entire website: logo, content, website design, and all. It was disheartening and infuriating.
I’ve read tales of other writers and bloggers who’ve had paragraphs or entire blog posts stolen. I’ve heard of designers who’ve seen their graphic art show up on t-shirts and mugs, resulting in someone else’s profit. Many Etsy business owners and artists have witnessed their designs being stolen by big businesses, resulting in publicized litigation and settlements. It’s not limited to just small-scale plagiarism or stealing here and there.
While there are laws in the U.S. that protect intellectual property, it’s hard to constantly keep tabs on all of your intellectual works.
- So what are online creatives and bloggers to do?
- How can you protect your hard work and find out if someone is using it as their own?
- How can you find out if your content has been stolen?
Over the years, I’ve learned a few tricks and tips that can help keep what’s yours, truly yours.
Keep an Eye on Your Website Traffic
One of the ways I found out my site had been copied was by watching Google Analytics. I noticed that traffic had suddenly increased from a single odd source I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t typical, and I could tell something was amiss.
Keeping an eye on your site traffic through Google Analytics is just one way to notice quickly if something seems a little off. Irregular traffic from a weird or unusual source is one indicator of possibly stolen content, but, there are additional helpful tools you can use to track your website and content if you have suspicions.
Tools to Help You Detect Copycats
Copyscape
Copyscape allows you to enter an URL and scan the web for any duplicate content (for free). If you think a blog post (or worse, your whole website) has been copied, you can simply enter the URL to see if any duplicates of that page pop up anywhere on the Internet. They also offer a premium service for 5 cents per search that allows you access to additional functions like searching at higher volumes and working with plagiarism experts.
Google Alerts
You may have already set Google Alerts for trends of interest to you, but have you ever thought of using it to alert you of stolen content? It’s simple and free to set up and use. Just go to the Google Alerts page, set an alert for a portion of your content, brand or company name, or any other unique marker. You can set how many times you’re alerted (per day, per week, or as it happens), and Google Alerts will send you an email with any notifications. This option is a good choice if you don’t have a ton of content you want to track.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
Trackback and pingback notifications are automatically generated on most major website and blogging platforms. When another website or blog links back to your content, a trackback or pingback is automatically created and usually appears in the comments section of the post in question. If you happen to notice a lot of pingbacks from the same site over and over, it may be an indication that they’re stealing your content and worth investigating.
What to Do If You Find Stolen or Reposted Content
If you’ve found your content copied and reposted, there are a handful of steps you can take to have it removed.
First, determine how much content has been copied. Did the offender steal a few sentences, a paragraph, a whole blog post? You may decide not to pursue the incident. However, if you see full blog posts, photos, designs, website content, or your entire website copied and reposted, you’re going to want to take action, especially if the offender is using your creations to turn a profit!
1. Contact the Offender
Most websites and blogs feature a Contact Us section on their site. Look for an email address or a contact form and send a notice. Inform the culprit that you are the original creator of the content and that you’d like the copyrighted material to be removed right away. Provide a link to the original content—and remember, politeness goes a long way! In fact, there have been a couple of times that an individual has used my logo, but seriously, had no clue that they were doing anything wrong and they apologized profusely.
Often, the copycat will oblige and remove the stolen content with no hassle. If not, don’t be afraid to be forceful. Send a cease and desist letter and threaten to file a copyright complaint against them. It might motivate the offender to remove the stolen work more quickly. Can’t find their Contact page? Try looking for their social media handles on Twitter and Facebook under the same site name.
2. Contact the Hosting Site
If your request falls on deaf ears, it’s time to take further action. Depending on the amount of content that’s stolen (again, a few sentences versus full posts or site content), decide whether or not it’s worth it to contact the hosting provider.
If you don’t know which host a site uses, look it up on WhoIsHostingThis to find out. Contact the hosting provider with the site information and links to the duplicate content. Offer proof that you’re the original creator and explain the situation. Hosts are usually much more efficient than site owners when it comes to removing stolen content.
I’ve had to do this on a couple of occasions. Both times the hosting company has removed the culprit’s website entirely. Now, there is one caveat to going through the hosting company — if the hosting company is located outside of the U.S., your request may be denied as there is no such thing as international copyright that will protect your work throughout the world.
3. File a DCMA Complaint
A Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint can be filed against an offending site if the stolen content issue is severe enough. This can be filed through Google’s DCMA Dashboard. You can also go through a takedown service like DMCA.com for a fee. Filing a complaint is a somewhat extensive process and usually, results in an entire site being taken down and blocked from Google search rankings.
If your content is displayed on a social media site, you can also try contacting their legal departments to have the content removed. In fact, I did this just the other day. An individual on Pinterest stole five of my pins and redirected the content back to his own website. To contact Pinterest, all you have to do is click on the pin in question and click on the three little dots at the top of the pin — which will show the words, “report pin”. After filling out some additional information, it took about four days for Pinterest to remove the pins in question.
4. Consult Legal Advice
If you’ve taken all of the above actions, you may want to consult with a lawyer, particularly if a company stole your property or if an entity is now earning a profit from your creation, words, or design. However, this can be pricey and many creatives don’t have the financial resources available to pursue this option.
Unfortunately, theft of intellectual property happens on a regular basis. You may find it challenging to keep up with each and every instance, so pick your battles and consider how far you’re willing to take it before you invest your time and money. If it’s taking money or driving traffic away from your business, then it probably needs to be addressed.
Conclusion
If you find you seem to have a reoccurring issue with stolen content, create a Terms of Use page with a Copyright Notice on your website that explicitly states your policies. If your copyright notice is clear and concise, it may deter potential content thieves from skimming your work. You can also use a WordPress plugin to help prevent theft — WPKube shares five different plugins that can be helpful in protecting your work. If you want to learn more about copyrights, Plagiarism Today offers some excellent resources.
There’s nothing more frustrating than finding out your hard work was stolen, but there’s plenty you can do to resolve the issue!
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, authors of The Work at Home Woman are not licensed legal, financial, or medical professionals. The information on this website is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. If you need specific legal advice, consult with an attorney who specializes in your subject matter and jurisdiction.
Originally published July 15, 2009. Content updated on May 4, 2017.
Nootan Kumar
Hi, I am also suffering from this problem. One of the bad guys copied my web content, and when I try to request to take it down. He doesn’t respond to me. Now I am worried what should I do?
Actually, he didn’t copy my whole article, he is using the same title and some post data. But the data is perfectly clone.
Please Give me some advice.
heather
Hey Holly,
I’m also a blogger, and lately have been discovering as you did, a lot of “stolen” pins. These large sites will do round ups with 50 links, and instead of using a regular blog image, they’ll use people’s pinnable graphics. So now, my pinnable graphic leads people to their crappy round up :( I want to contact Pinterest, but I’m scared that reporting their pin will inadvertently or somehow negatively effect my own. Did that happen to you, or was Pinterest able to isolate the “hijacked” pin? Thanks for any info!! Heather
Holly - The Work at Home Woman
Hi Heather,
When you report the pin, you have the option to 1) remove all or 2) remove just this pin. You’ll only want to remove that pin image, not all, otherwise, they will take down all of your pins with that image. I haven’t had any negative repercussions when I’ve reported pins. You can also ask the author to remove your image from their roundup post. Good luck and let me know how it works out for you.
Leslie Farrell
Holly,
I wanted to find work from home opportunities and ran into a million scams. Then I found your site. It was entirely inspirational. At the same time, I decided to start my own blog for work from home job opportunities that I found after hours of searching the internet.
Most of my information comes from company sites directly but articles I find that would be helpful to job seekers are also provided. Now, if I do copy an article, the author’s name and/or links remain the same. Do you consider that to be theft?
You are my mentor in this business and I hope you can find the time to get back to me. I do want to publish some of your work for free and crediting the author as the source. In fact, I was contemplating placing an ad for your site on mine. I operate on donations at this point with no source of income.
Holly - The Work at Home Woman
Hi Leslie,
If you’d like to republish a post, please contact me via email and let me know which article you’d like to use. My email address is holly @ the workathomewoman dot com
Thanks for asking!
Melanie
I have found my artwork used in logos, web design, blog posts, turned into glittery animations, used as jewelry molds and everywhere else on the web. When I found out what a “reverse image search” was on Google- I was astounded by the amount of copyright theft of my own work there was out there! If someone is just using my art for a sample of “favorite halloween images” for example, that’s fine- doesn’t really bother me. What really bothered me was when I saw my work used in logos, advertisements or used to sell a product without consent, payment or any other form of acknowledgement. Sadly, I realize there really isn’t anything I could do, especially since most of the theft is outside of the US. (An irish restaurant for example is using a fish painting I did) So really, what legally could I do? It’s just frustrating. When I launch my new web portfolio, I plan on watermarking anything new I add- making it at least a little more difficult to steal my work. So I really feel your pain!
Holly - The Work at Home Woman
OMG Melanie, that sucks! Many people have said to me, imitation is the finest form of flattery, but it just makes me feel violated. Did you confront any of the individuals? This time the guy lived in Canada, but his hosting company is in the US, so I should be able to get it shut down.
Danielle
Wow. That’s awful that somebody would steal 17 of your posts. Do they even have any content of their own on their blog at all?
Great post, though. I’ll be prepared if something like this were ever to happen to me. Although, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you find out that someone had stolen your content? Did someone else bring it to your attention or do you use some type of program/software for that purpose?
Holly - The Work at Home Woman
Hi Danielle – There was one article on there that wasn’t mine.
I found the culprit via my site analytics on Go Daddy. It tells me exactly where my web traffic is coming from, and I saw that I was getting some traffic from a site I had never heard of. I clicked on the link and BAM – there was 17 of my blog posts with photos. The culprit didn’t bother to change any of the hyper-links, so they were linking back to my site.
Melanie Jerdon
I’ve come across many people who have “borrowed” my portfolio images and used them in their blogs, or even site design! Usually I only find them when they happen to give me credit for my work, but it only makes me imagine how many people actually steal what they want without permission and use who knows how. I guess this is the risk you take by putting it out on the internet for the whole world to see and potentially steal….
Heather Allard
Holly,
Though unfortunate that someone stole your content, you’ve turned this experience into a “teaching moment”–kudos to you!
Thank you for the wonderful information about how to handle this matter. May I ask HOW you discovered the person had stolen 17 posts? Was it all at once or post by post?
I discovered one of my posts on another website–but it seemed to be translated into broken English. It was very strange. When I posted that on Twitter, another person said the same thing had been done to their entire ebook. Weird.
Anyway, thanks so much for sharing your story and the very useful information about how to handle it.
Heather