In early July (maybe earlier), I have noticed this kind of infringement of copyright (see the image at right, it was posted on July 1st and partially duplicated on the same day), some people partially duplicate your blog posts with exactly same post title. But I didn’t take any actual steps to stop this. I only changed the licensing method. About three days ago, I noticed another incident on my another post (second image at right). That post was posted on August 1st, then partially duplicated on August 7th. Today, I read the article, WordPress.com Blogs Feeds Scraped, through dashboard. Now I have 10 posts has been duplicated on the same website.

Is time to fight back? Can poor bloggers?

I have to say… it’s not easy!

How to locate

Check your WordPress dashboard

The Incoming Links section provides some traces from scrapers. Try to follow the links. By the way, you can also comment on those real posts, that will make some real friends for you.

Use Google Blog Search

Google Blog Search updates more frequent than Google Search for blogs. You can try to search:

• Your root of blog, e.g. link:http://www.yourblog.com/blog/
• A sentence of first paragraph or your titles of your posts, which are popular and fresh.
• The permanent link of your posts, which are popular and fresh. E.g. link:http://www.yourblog.com/blog/2007/01/01/a-blog-post-slug/

What to do

Find the hosting providers, then file a complaint

If you don’t know who provides the hosting service, you can use Who is Hosting This?. Once you find out, send a mail to the abuse department of the hosting provider.

File a Infringement Notification to Google

If the infringing blog or website is using service from Google, such as Blogger, AdSense, etc.
You can take the steps such as Infringement Notification for Google Blogger.

Lorelle suggests two spam reporting forms: Google Report Spam or Webmaster Tools Report Spam Form.

Cut the ads revenue

This is the motivation why they infringe. If we can cut the ads revenue from their website, then they may stop (a while). This post, Please help me get Google to pull their ads from a blogging thief, mentions how to pull the ads. Like the comment on this blog post, I got a mail with subject “Google AdSense DMCA Complaint,” it tells you to take steps Infringement Notification for AdSense. This won’t work, you can only file a Google DMCA Complaint.

If you can find any other violations of AdSense policies, you still can use this way to stop them.

Find the BIG victims, and depend on them

This is a dreaming idea. BIG victims means companies those have legal department. Inform them what they have been infringed, and hope they will sue scrapers or take some legal actions at least.

Conclusion

What conclusion? We take hours (maybe days) for a blog post, they take minutes for dozens of blog posts. We spend money and days to send a mail or fax a letter, they could still be untouchable.

Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

This sentence is cited from Infringement Notification for Google Blogger. How a blogger have an attorney?

* If you know some better actions, please tell me!