Odds are that it'll happen to you eventually. If you're any sort of authority on any sort of subject online, whether it be web design, writing, photography, or even blogging, the odds are pretty good that one day someone will steal your work whether you know about it or not. It happened to me for the first time to my knowledge about 2 months ago.
I'll try to keep the story as brief as possible. One day while I was browsing my email, I came across a message from one of the good ol' readers from my site here. I open it up and to my surprise, I see that the message is alerting me that someone has stolen my Wordpress theme "Rock Solid", modified it slightly, removed the sponsored links from the footer, and is now redistributing it under their name.
This person was the so-called "professional" web designer Jeremy Buff over at JeremyBuff.com. I proceeded to comment on his blog and email him asking him to remove the theme from his site, as he doesn't have the right to claim ownership or redistribute it under his name. He responded my IP-banning me from his website and replying back via email that he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He claimed something along the lines of him finding a "framework" that looked similar to Rock Solid on a website he couldn't remember the name of.
We emailed each other back and forth a few times after this. He kept up his charade of not knowing what the hell I'm on about. He actually started up a new story, and now he was accusing me of stealing the theme from him! (For comedic purposes I'll tell you guys what his story was. What he told me was that he had actually finished the theme in December of '08 but never publicly released it until late March of '09. He claims that I stole the files from his server and released a modified version before he did.)
Anyway, since I was obviously getting nowhere with this guy, I went and contacted his website hosting provider. I sat down and wrote up a pretty long and detailed complaint against Jeremy and the fact that he was stealing content from my site. His web host and I had a few emails back and forth before I was finally contacted by the designated agent for claims of copyright infringement notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
I had to officially make a few statements back to this guy that basically said that, under penalty of law, I claim this Wordpress theme as my own creation and that Jeremy has no right to claim ownership of it.
After about two weeks of back and forth claims (Jeremy was still holding true to the story that I stole "Rock Solid" from him), Jeremy had his website taken down. I'm pretty sure it was offline for about 2-3 days. (I think the final nail in the coffin for him was the fact that I provided the Photoshop .PSD files for "Rock Solid" to the agent. Pretty much proof that I'm the original owner.)
Ever since then, I haven't seen a trace of my theme anywhere on his site.
I guess that whole 2-month ordeal ended up working out in my favor. Whew...
How to React to Stolen Content
What did I learn throughout this whole crazy thing? Stay mature. Unlike Jeremy, I kept my emails professional. I represented myself as a respectable person, kept my grammar and punctuation perfect, and never referred to Jeremy as "that jackass" or something in that nature (as much as I wanted to).
It's sad to say, but this is something you have to expect with online content. I mean, it's just too easy to steal. When you do discover something of yours that has been stolen, follow these steps:
- Firstly, find a way to contact the person that stole your work.
- Politely (but assertively) tell them to remove the content.
- Remember to always keep a professional tone, no matter how the other person acts.
- If they don't respond or don't take the content in question down, contact their website hosting provider
- (Find the host of any website using this tool)
- Take the time to write up a professional email to them, claiming copyright infringement / Ask for a DMCA notice against the person in question
- Follow all of the instructions and try to provide as much evidence as possible to the agent
- If all works out well, everything should be resolved shortly
I hope you'll never have to go through this, but if you do, just follow the steps above. Even though a DMCA notice isn't enough to legally have the thief remove the stolen content, it usually scares them enough that they take it down anyway.
If you liked this post, stay updated. Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to our RSS Feed via email.
Some people are just using their feeling of anonymousness which is completely false. Everyone can be tracked, and every unlawful behavior can be seen.
Yeah being mature usually helps with thieves. It also works wonders for hate-mail. I once got a particularly nasty one, but I responded professionally. Eventually, we worked things out and everything ended happily, with him apologizing for his actions.
And what kept you so damn busy these last few days?
Dan´s last blog ..New Layout