A non-technical suggestion:

Write your texts from an individual point of view - as long as that makes sense. Facts and figures can be protected from scrapers, but not really from "real people"; by writing personal articles, you as an individual will be associated with the work. Be careful not to fall into a "blog-voice" (nobody wants to read a blog unless in a blog).

Agree with the international comments. I am in Australia and filed a DMCA complaint against a WW member in Austria and Google removed the entry, but didn't nuke his AdSense account. I wrote to another author he had copied but this person was not fazed by this, so I didn't get his support.

I find photos are copied as frequently as text, and a visible semi-transparent watermark can help with this.

It can help to work your domain name or brand into the text, but in moderation and only where it makes sense to do so. "We don't usually discuss X on MYSITE, but..." is going to look strange on a huge mega-scraper site full of stolen content, even if MYSITE is replaced by THEIRSITE.

.
I had this problem with a competitor, and I found a
curious yet effective solution.

I threw a small disclaimer at the bottom of several
pages, noting that my website was in no way affiliated
with #*$!, visit at your own risk, etc., etc.

Just to twist the knife, I then created a "Warning"
page and listed several sites including theirs,
who had plagiarized our work.

Lo and behold.. Their content and verbiage
changed rather quickly, and problem solved.

FWIW
.

by writing personal articles, you as an individual will be associated with the work.

People steal it anyways. I had a page where I was talking about something that happened to one of my kids, and I found my page, taken verbatim, as an answer to a question on an advice site, with someone else's name and RN initials attached to the answer. It was slimey because 1) it was my content; and 2) it gave readers the impression it was medical advice from a licensed professional when it was really just an anecdotal story from one of my sites.

I'd say it was like these content-stealing thieves were raised by wolves with no ethical, legal or social constraints, but I don't want to insult wolves.

I think there are cases where ignoring it is the best. On one instance where someone had copied an article of mine and used it for their phony antiques on eBay writing to him simply resulted in an attack on our EBay ratings.

Afterwards it occurred to me that the auction would have passed and it all wasn't worth it.

Ebay has a very good program to deal with this (VeRO). You register for it, and after that, when you send them an email with the info about what has been taken, that item is gone within hours.

Agree with HRoth. I've had to resort to VERO several times. Worked each time.
More here -
[pages.ebay.com...]

Our mistake was to write directly to the guy but usually when you do that the person apologizes and takes it down.

So for those of you who register copyrights, do you pay the current $35 fee per article that you publish?

Well I certainly didn't mean to kill the discussion with that question! I'm confused by the lack of a response though - does that mean those espousing registration are hiding a better deal somewhere, or do they not actually register?

civgroup, if you want to register your material, you can put the entire contents of your site on a CD and register that, for one fee.

I have a ten-year-old site, with hundreds of articles on it, and I've never taken that step, because it just hasn't seemed helpful. Registering your copyright has only ONE benefit that I can see (other than getting the date of registration, but you can prove the age of your material in other ways)--it enables you to get statutory damages for infringement, which means that if you take someone to court and win, you get serious money.

For some sites, that may be a real possibility. I find it hard to imagine a situation in which I would do that.

I suspect the latter... :-)

Let's ask again: have any of you (in the USA) ever actually registered any of your content with the USA Copyright Office?

Syzygy

Syzygy asked: ...have any of you (in the USA) ever actually registered any of your content with the USA Copyright Office?

I have registered my site with the US Copyright Office, and I've submitted updates from time to time since then.

The one submission is made for my entire site, including all of the articles. I burn the site onto a CD, and mail that in with the paperwork and a check. I think the fees have gone up, though; they're about forty-five dollars per filing now.

Note: If my experience is anything to go by, some hosts are now requiring some sort of documentation for take-down requests. (This may be to prevent the mis-use of take-down policies when competitors squabble in "black hat" sorts of ways.) One or two have specified that I include information on, or a printout of, my latest Copyright Registration before proceeding any further. So the documentation can be useful, even without going into a courtroom.

Hope that helps!

Eliz.

If a web host chooses to require anything other then a properly filed DMCA complaint or refuses to act on a legitimate filing I would be glad to name them as a defendent in a civil suit. While it's admirable for a host to review a filing and try to weed out the BS they have no authority under the current Act to determine what is or is not copyright infringement.

Note: If my experience is anything to go by... Hope that helps!

That is insightful and very helpful - thanks.

Syzygy