Your Content Will Be Stolen … Eventually

In this era of copy-and-paste convenience, your online content will be stolen. The only question is when it will occur.

What’s the incentive, and why would someone be interested in your content? The motives are not unlike the typical spammer: Drive traffic by misleading the user. Fool search engines into giving your site higher rankings. Create search results that appear to be from legitimate sites. Leverage free blog engines and other publishing services to anonymously (and economically) market a product or service.

Lorelle on WordPress effectively summarized these issues in recent posts. In her entry on trends in content theft, she highlights three common forms of theft:

• Image theft: lifting images, photos or other artwork without the artist’s permission
• RSS/feed content theft: sites that steal content from multiple sources, leading the user to believe the site is comprehensive and authoritative
• Website hijacking: sites that reproduce most (if not all) of another site’s content

So you discover that your content has been stolen. What are your options? In another post, Lorelle outlines what to do. The choices range from contacting the offender to serious legal action. Lorelle’s list includes:

• Identify the Source
• Contact the Thief
• Issue a Cease and Desist Order
• Contact Advertisers
• Request a Ban from Search Engines

It’s tempting to take a can’t-happen-to-me approach on this issue, but knowing your options – and monitoring your content – will be helpful when your site becomes the latest target.