People Copying Word For Word From Your Website

[ozmalinois]

Was brought to our attention today that another GSD breeder has copied word for word (minus a word or two) from a page on our website :D

So went to check this site out and sure enough on their For Sale page as part of their sales agreement is our statement.

The font is the same and you can see where they have added a bit - the font is different! Have changed our vaccinated with minimum of P6 to just c3 but everything else is the same.

What we have written isn't rocket science and anyone could have written their own, why do people have to copy someone else's work????

And how much time do they have to check out websites to find what they want to copy?????

This website has some other info that I would be very interested to see where they got that from.

They haven't even put their names on the site, so I have no idea who they are. There isn't even a pedigree name of their dogs on there for us to check.....

Just frustrated!

I'm not a computer wizz and use the website templates from DOL so that we have sites that we can update ourselves, so don't know how I can go about blocking it from being copied - any puter wizzes out there would love to hear from you!

Now deciding whether I should contact these people and request they remove our wording or just let it go. What is annoying is that people looking for puppies surf websites and would see this on both sites and may think this is a bit odd, considering our kennel has nothing to do with these people.

Maybe should name and shame them or put up the 2 pages and see what everyone else thinks.....

[Sue & Waldo]

The same thing has happened to me. Also someone used my craft patterns to make money so don't get me going.

You can do a few things-make your font very distnctictive or make your text a graphic so it can't be altered.

If you want to find out if it is a copy highlight the text and copy it into Google search and see what comes up.

I know it a form of flattery to be copied but I could well do without this much flattery.

[16Paws]

Most websites are a copy or compilation of other web sites, there are very few originals out there.

Technically there is nothing you can do to stop someone from copying your web site content - even if you uploaded locked word documents, PDFs or saved the text as an image there would be nothing stopping someone from re-typing you content to use on their own site.

If you have copyright notices on your web site and proof that your content was live first you may have a case legally but unless the copiers are in some way impacting on your business or reputation this most likely wouldn't be worth the effort.

Either contact the breeder and request they change their content - or change your own.

[16Paws]

Since someone else mentioned it - please don't convert your content text to a graphic. This is extremely inaccessible and annoying for some visitors (i.e. those with a visual impairment, images turned off or people that use the browser zoom or text size options to make text more readable).

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

It's breach of copyright whether you had a copyright notice on your website or not.

Just send them a bill for whatever you think is reasonable ie an hour of your time. Ie grant permisson in exchange for $.

If they argue and you can be stuffed, slug them with IP lawyers. But it's probably not cost effective. Most people don't have a clue about copyright and the internet.

It does help as far as proof goes, if you have things like CD backups of the stuff from way back before their website. The "wayback" machine might be able to help you prove you had it first.

You might also want to google a sentence of your stuff to see where else it has spread.

Also - a really nasty trick for people who link your pictures without permission as opposed to copying them to load up on their website, is to swap the picture for something gruesomely shocking. And update your pages with the new picture location.

You may aslo want to put a robots.txt that stops google from indexing some of your pages that you don't want copied. You leave the home page available but some of the other stuff, make it so they have to visit your home page to get the info eg your terms of service/sales statement/contact details etc. It's easy to find info on how to set up robots.txt - google.

[quickbrownfox]

There are some anti-right click scripts if you search Google, but I don't know how well they work.

One example here

[~Anne~]

It's breach of copyright whether you had a copyright notice on your website or not.

Just send them a bill for whatever you think is reasonable ie an hour of your time. Ie grant permisson in exchange for $.

If they argue and you can be stuffed, slug them with IP lawyers. But it's probably not cost effective. Most people don't have a clue about copyright and the internet.

Is it though?

Not saying it isn't, but copyright is a large area and I am not so sure you can claim copyright on website text in this way :D

[MolassesLass]

What we have written isn't rocket science and anyone could have written their own, why do people have to copy someone else's work????

So they don't have to type it all up? :D

Putting it as an image is probably the only sure fire way to prevent cutting and pasting but then you'd just get people copying the image.

[Aidan]

I just ask them to take stuff down, if they are a genuine website and not just trying to make a few cents on ad clicks they usually do. With the bazillions of pages on the internet it's not worth worrying too much about things like this and there isn't much you can do about it. If you have forms and agreements it can be better to have them as PDFs on your site instead of text, they are less likely to be copied and pasted.

[dwynwen]

So went to check this site out and sure enough on their For Sale page as part of their sales agreement is our statement.

The font is the same and you can see where they have added a bit - the font is different! Have changed our vaccinated with minimum of P6 to just c3 but everything else is the same.

If it's terms and conditions type content I honestly wouldn't worry about it.. Lots of sites have pretty much identical T&C pages - you can buy T&C content written by lawyers but I'm sure many many people just cut and paste. (we wrote our own btw:-)

Is it a lot of text or just a para or two?

If they're using your original images or designs then that's different.

[ozmalinois]

Just googled a sentence from the phrase and our Belgian website came up first and then sure enough this GSD website was right underneath, word for word.

We have the same statement on both our GSD and Belgian websites.

Unless these people were in my head at the time I wrote this statement there is no way that they came up with it themselves - word for word - minus maybe one or 2 words

Our statement -

A NON REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT OF $200 IS TAKEN AT TIME OF ORDER TO SECURE A PUPPY AND THE BALANCE IS TO BE PAID IN FULL BEFORE THE PUPPY LEAVES OUR CARE AT 8 WEEKS OF AGE. AT THIS TIME PUPPY WILL HAVE BEEN WORMED AT 2,4,6,7 & 8 WEEKS OF AGE, FIRST VACCINATION (MIN P6), VET CHECKED, HEARTWORMED AND FLEA/TICK TREATED.

NO PUPPY WILL BE HELD WITHOUT A PAID DEPOSIT TO ENSURE GENUINELY INTERESTED PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO SECURE THE PUPPY THAT THEY WOULD LIKE. BEFORE PAYING THE $200 DEPOSIT BE SURE YOU REALLY WANT A PUPPY. WE DO NOT REFUND SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. WE WILL TRANSFER YOUR DEPOSIT TO ANOTHER LITTER IF NEED BE.

Their Statement -

A NON REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT OF $200 IS TAKEN AT TIME OF ORDER TO SECURE A PUPPY AND THE BALANCE IS TO BE PAID IN FULL BEFORE THE PUPPY LEAVES OUR CARE AT 8 WEEKS OF AGE. AT THIS TIME PUPPY WILL HAVE BEEN WORMED AT 2,4,6,7 & 8 WEEKS OF AGE, FIRST VACCINATION C3 , VET CHECKED, AND FLEA TREATED, A VACCINATION CARD WILL BE PROVIDED..

NO PUPPY WILL BE HELD WITHOUT A PAID DEPOSIT TO ENSURE GENUINELY INTERESTED PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO SECURE THE PUPPY THAT THEY WOULD LIKE.

BEFORE PAYING THE $200 DEPOSIT BE SURE YOU REALLY WANT A PUPPY. WE DO NOT REFUND SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. WE WILL TRANSFER YOUR DEPOSIT TO ANOTHER LITTER IF YOU HAVE A JUSTIFIED REASON.

Might send them an email and request they word their own statement without copying ours. Don't even know their names, why wouldn't you put your name to your website????

[ozmalinois]

Did another google search with a sentence from another page of the website (just out of curiosity) and shock, horror - guess what......the info they have about the breed is basically word for word and copies of photos from another website!!

They must be really busy people that just don't have enough time to do their own work so copy others. There is no mention of info obtained from "so & so" website, absolutely no acknowledgement to anyone else at all.

[~JoLu~]

Is it the one in "Brisbane" . If so even images have been copied from elsewhere. Interesting to google the mobile number also

[~JoLu~]

Did another google search with a sentence from another page of the website (just out of curiosity) and shock, horror - guess what......the info they have about the breed is basically word for word and copies of photos from another website!!

They must be really busy people that just don't have enough time to do their own work so copy others. There is no mention of info obtained from "so & so" website, absolutely no acknowledgement to anyone else at all.

Is that the "About Us" section, where they just changed the size and location of the property

Concerned that they deleted the bit about hip x-rays though (they copied everything else ).

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

It is a breach of copyright.

Whether or not you get value for money trying to enforce is another matter.

I'm beginning to think that the website owners doing the theft - are a bit light on morals and ethics and they do puppy farming maybe. RSPCA might be interested and copyright breach might be a way of making what they're doing uneconomic. Though people don't go to jail much for breach.

This explains it fairly well.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Mobs like Disney have extended the time that copyright applies so that they don't have to give up the money on their movies like Snow White. It used to be 50 years but it's a lot longer now.

And under the F trade agreement we signed with the USA, we basically have the same copyright law as them. China doesn't seem to have any copyright law, which is why you should not send your manufacturing contract to them. They'll put the brand name stuff out the front door and the pirate copies out the back door...

[ozmalinois]

Yes Jolu it is the one in "Brisbane"

I googled the first line of the FAQ page and it is straight from a US German Shepherd site.

Have sent them an email requesting that they take off our content, we didn't and won't give them permission to use it.

Just peeved that these people can take info from others and use it as their own.

How hard is it to type up your own sales agreement??????

What we have on our site is very basic so why cause themselves such drama by blatantly copying.....

Maybe the website needs to be outed so everyone can see them for what they are.

Have searched for the "prefix" they have on the website and nothing at all comes up. Wonder if these pups they are advertising are registered or not?? They are charging alot of money for Shepherd pups if they aren't registered. There is no mention of the actual pedigrees of the dogs they breed with or health checks etc etc etc.

[~JoLu~]

Yeah, definitely something strange going on.

As I said, if you google the mobile number you also get a Dobermann breeder in VIC and a Cocker Spaniel breeder in SA Although I suppose people can change breeds / mobile numbers

Mobile also comes up as a Brisbane based photography business (which also has the same landline). Which isn't to say you can't breed dogs and be a professional photographer

The weird thing about both the GSD and photography websites, is they don't seem to mention their names. Eg " Hi, we're Jack and Jill and we've been breeding GSD's/professional photographers etc. etc."

They have the logo for QLD CCC but don't talk about being registered or showing or their lines etc.

[greydobe]

Is it really such a big deal? They were obviously impressed with the way you have worded things and used it too. Too be honest who really cares?

It is not hurting your site. It is not hurting you physically. They are not making money directly from it.

IMO just let it go. There are a lot of bigger things to get upset about.

[Guest bigdogg]

Is it really such a big deal? They were obviously impressed with the way you have worded things and used it too. Too be honest who really cares?

It is not hurting your site. It is not hurting you physically. They are not making money directly from it.

IMO just let it go. There are a lot of bigger things to get upset about.

+1

[becks]

it is annoying when this sort of thing happens. A friend of mine recently copied a page from my website then emailed me to tell me and say 'hope it is OK I copied'!