Rant: Don't Be an Internet Marketing Leech

[EMGhb]

Originally Posted by WordPro

Hello Tiffany

You might be able to get the other site closed down if you contact their hosting company and threaten them with some legal recourse if it comes to it (as a last resort of course).

But I would certainly contact them about this, what amounts to intellectual copyright theft and see if they will remove the website in question.

Sometimes, they will remove not just the one website but every other website that the infringing party has on that hosts account, which certainly sends a very strong warning shot over the bow of this individual - that you will not be messed around with.

I did this personally myself a while ago and got a well established site completely closed down along with all of their other sites.

The owner was absolutely furious with me but that's what you get when you steal my copyrighted material, use it without my permission and bring the reputation of my business into disrepute online.

It might be worth persuing that angle yourself.

Best of luck to you.


Mark

So you just threatened legal action and that was enough to solve the problem? It would be a real pain to actually have to go through the process and pay legal fees and whatnot.

[HelenS]

I think you reacted the same way anyone would have done so no need to worry!

Glad that it worked out for you

Helen

[kenjitay]

Sorry to hear about that Tiff. But I guess they must have seen that you are very successful and tends to copy what you do..

You can try to contact a lawyer and send them a letter to take down those stuff because of copyright infringement..

Originally Posted by TiffanyDow

On the second guy, he blatantly ripped off my copy to sell his own eBook. Verbatim - but this smart one left MY name in the testimonials. A real winner!

Is it your testimonial or something he made up ? Posting fake testimonials are illegal in the states. Its consider a scam..

Regards
Kenji

[LinearChaos]

This is getting interesting with Roger's addition.

If scanning posts in a forum for ideas for information products is equal to flat out copying an information product...then isn't it true that using anything posted anywhere on the Internet no matter how much to create anything is just like blatant plagiarism?

Close up shop, game over.

There has to be a point where you cross the line and I believe those boundaries have been drawn.

Market research does not equal plagiarism or copyright infringement or unethical behavior.

Great discussion.

[camforbes]

Hey Y'all,

Haven't been here in awhile, and Tiffany that really sucks.

Same thing happened to me back in... oh, 2005-ish. My very first eBook/course was all about helping people create their offline consulting business. I had worked very hard to compile all the information I had gathered from being in the consulting world for a dozen years and put it together in a paint-by-numbers system.

It was beautiful. People bought it. I had raving fans. The skies parted and angels sang.

The checks poured in every few weeks from ClickBank. I could do no wrong.

Then some douchebag bought it, registered a similar domain, repackaged my material as his own, and began going after the same market - using all the same keywords.

Now I'm not afraid of a little competition either. But it really pissed me off to high heaven to see this dude do this because it was so blatant. I saw the date/time he bought my product. A day later he registered his domain. Very shortly thereafter he was in the market siphoning off my potential customers. I bought it and yes - it was almost verbatim MY STUFF.

So I contacted him and asked him "WTF?" and he wrote back all offended - calling my claims unfounded and unsubstantiated. Plus he was in the UK so I couldn't touch him anyway.

Yeah, it made me mad, but I was at peace with it all because I knew that some day karma was gonna come around and whup up on him. Probably has by now.

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by LinearChaos

This is getting interesting with Roger's addition.

If scanning posts in a forum for ideas for information products is equal to flat out copying an information product...then isn't it true that using anything posted anywhere on the Internet no matter how much to create anything is just like blatant plagiarism?

Close up shop, game over.

There has to be a point where you cross the line and I believe those boundaries have been drawn.

Market research does not equal plagiarism or copyright infringement or unethical behavior.

Great discussion.

I think most of us know the difference between gleaning "ideas" from the Internet and flat out copying someone else's product or website or content.

There are those who are incapable of original thought so copying is what they do.

[pbennett]

you guys are kind of freaking me out because my site Gluten-Free-Chocolate has the same domain name (minus the hyphens) that glutenfreechocolate.com does. Mine is more educational and theirs is retail.....

Is that a plagiarism???

[Hamida Harland]

Originally Posted by pbennett

you guys are kind of freaking me out because my site Gluten-Free-Chocolate has the same domain name (minus the hyphens) that glutenfreechocolate.com does. Mine is more educational and theirs is retail.....

Is that a plagiarism???

'Gluten free chocolate' is a keyword rich domain name - not a brand name. There are probably many more domains on the internet with those exact keywords so don't worry.

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by pbennett

you guys are kind of freaking me out because my site Gluten-Free-Chocolate has the same domain name (minus the hyphens) that glutenfreechocolate.com does. Mine is more educational and theirs is retail.....

Is that a plagiarism???

plagiarism is copy someone's content

cybersquatting is registering a trademarked domain in the hopes of stealing the traffic and reputation of the trademark owner

gluten free and chocolate are generic keywords and are not trademarkable. Now if it was GodivaChocolates.com and you registered Godiva-Chocolates.com, you'd be in trouble.

[pbennett]

Thanks!

I'm glad you guys said that about trademarking, cause I was just about to trademark it as GFC....

That's a no go?

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by pbennett

Thanks!

I'm glad you guys said that about trademarking, cause I was just about to trademark it as GFC....

That's a no go?

I don't think it would go through. It's generic and you can't trademark generic terms. When you apply for a trademark, there's a fee (was $200 when I got one) to apply. You don't get that back if they refuse the trademark.

[barbling]

Ouch! What a crummy thing to have happen to you.

The next thing I'd do if I were you would be to make money from it - write up the story in a report/ebook that has your affiliate links for legal web 2.0 issues etc and offer it as a giveaway. I'll bet it's such a human-story it would become viral very quickly indeed.

After being scammed to the tune of 26K back in 1999, I took all of those experiences and wrote Avoiding The Contractor From Hell. Very cathartic, that.

[NewAffilateWealth]

Ouch! What a crummy thing to have happen to you.

The next thing I'd do if I were you would be to make money from it - write up the story in a report/ebook that has your affiliate links for legal web 2.0 issues etc and offer it as a giveaway. I'll bet it's such a human-story it would become viral very quickly indeed.

After being scammed to the tune of 26K back in 1999, I took all of those experiences and wrote Avoiding The Contractor From Hell. Very cathartic, that.

I agree with barbling here. Use your business acumen and stay one step ahead of them and monetize this niche. As you can see there are tons of people here that have either had or know about this happening to them or someone respectively. Write an ebook and publish or give it away if you choose and use the perpetrators as an example in the book. Gives you more credibility.

[ExRat]

Hi Tiffany,

Thanks again for your candid and robust responses. Also thanks to Steven and Nick for your direct responses, and all of the other contributors.

As you may have noticed I find it beneficial to introduce a polemic aspect to subjects like this in order to invite those present to look at the subject from a slightly different angle. I realise that some may see my reasons for this as purely argumentative, but I find great value and education from the responses and I hope that others do too.

As much as I probe and question others to get underneath the surface, I do the same to myself - again, for positive reasons. This has been the case with what I have learnt since commenting in this thread, so I just wanted to return and say thanks.

I'm glad you appear to have resolved the issues raised in the OP without further hassle Tiffany.

[Tron2k]

sorry for your luck Tiffany,I got a niche site stolen here recently by some fool that doesn't even know how to run it right. Oh well they wont last long anyways.

[TiffanyDow]

Originally Posted by ExRat

Hi Tiffany,

Thanks again for your candid and robust responses. Also thanks to Steven and Nick for your direct responses, and all of the other contributors.

As you may have noticed I find it beneficial to introduce a polemic aspect to subjects like this in order to invite those present to look at the subject from a slightly different angle. I realise that some may see my reasons for this as purely argumentative, but I find great value and education from the responses and I hope that others do too.

As much as I probe and question others to get underneath the surface, I do the same to myself - again, for positive reasons. This has been the case with what I have learnt since commenting in this thread, so I just wanted to return and say thanks.

I'm glad you appear to have resolved the issues raised in the OP without further hassle Tiffany.

Hey Roger - I remembered hearing about all of your debate qualifications and I realized you're good at what you do I'm a big fan of debate - even if it is polar opposite of what I believe.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, even if it DID rattle me. Whew! Getting off the Roger ride now...ha ha
tiff