I have a specialist aquatic hobbyist website with a subscribed members only area where all the dedicated species, breeding, husbandry and member forum is there are other areas of the site that is in the public domain, which included an articles section. I had a member who was in the aquatic business specialising in selling the same specialised group of fishes. during the latter half of 2006 this member produced his own web site as an internet sales outlet to his business and towards the end of that year introduced a forum. All well and good up to this point and I actually naively joined at his request thinking I would be helping to promote our aspect of the hobby, wrong! On one visit to the forum I found that he has taken an article from me articles page and put it in his forums as a sticky heading. I ask why he did this without asking and asked for it to be removed, to which he made a derogatory remark, removed the said article and then extracted a similar piece from a book I had published on the subject. This P*ssed me off no end and I revoked his membership and refunded him by PayPal what was left on a months banner advertising making the statement in the comments panel provided that he did not have my permission and would he please remove my material. What he actually did was go to my articles page and copy 14 articles, which have also been posted on his forums. My fault I know for not putting the articles page into the members area before chastising him, but nevertheless he is now ion breach of copyright on 15 counts.

My dilemma is how do I tackle this guy? I earn in a week what US lawyers charge per hour and cannot afford to go that way. I have contacted his hosting provider and until I file a claim in court they will do nothing. The guy himself says because he adds my copyright to the articles that he cannot be touched.

Sorry for such a long first post, but I thought a complete picture would be best.

Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

Ian