As what you may now know, someone copied your website. What’s worse, your users think of your website as the one which copies the other website. Any digital agency Philippines will know what to do, but it is best to learn a thing or two as well.

In this context, your website is regarded as the ‘site’ while the copied website as the ‘offending site.’ In your ongoing effort to protect the credibility of your brand, it is your responsibility – first and foremost – to bring down the offending site.

It is critical to have the offending site be removed whether it’d be an image, article or the entire website otherwise it will only rob your website and ultimately, your brand’s credibility. The offending site will get all the credit that you deserve. Not to mention, the offending site will receive all the traffic, leads, sales, profits, etc. that your brand should be receiving instead.

Before we proceed to the right actions, we might as well discuss what copyright in the web entails. Yes, copyright also applies to the web.

- As soon as your work is created, it is already protected by copyright for your entire lifetime plus 70 more years.

- Copyright expires, and when it does, your creation becomes a public domain.

- Ideas are not copyrighted; only the tangible expressions of these ideas.

- Logos and trademarks can be used.

- Copyrighted materials can be used based on fair use doctrine.

- Limited portions of the work can be quoted, but not the whole article.

- Excerpts can be republished.

- Author’s permission is required when translating the article.

- Removing copyrighted material does not mean removing the copyright infringement.

 

To continue, here are some courses of actions that you can consider:

1) Gather proofs

• Look for the contact information of the offending site
• Conduct a whois research if you cannot find the contact details on the site itself
• Take note of the hosting provider
• Find past views of your site to prove that your site exists longer than the offending site
• Provide link(s) to Google Cache that show that the site is discovered earlier by its spiders than the offending site
• Take screenshots of the copied site
• Save the source code in case the entire site is copied by others

2) Contact the offending site

• Send a polite email to inform the owner and request him/her to remove the content within a certain timeframe
• If the owner of the offending site won’t reply back or comply to the request, send a cease and desist order
• Monitor the offending site if it was already removed or not
• If the owner of the offending site refused to remove the site, contact the hosting provider to complain
• Send the hosting provider the cease and desist order and evidences
• File a DMCA complaint thru http://www.whoishostingthis.com/dmca/#.

 

Why you cannot go directly to Google

Google can only remove the site in search results. The website will still exist through its URL and other search engines. Right, check if the offending website also appears in Bing and Yahoo, among others.

Google advocates contacting the webmaster of the offending site through the

• Contact Us page
• Whois
• Hosting provider

When the webmaster brought down the offending site, send a request to Google so it will remove the site thru https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals

Hopefully, Google will de-index the site.

 

GoDaddy as the host

For trademark infringement, fill out this form: https://supportcenter.godaddy.com/TrademarkClaim/Index?prog_id=GoDaddy&isc=

For copyright infringement, contact GoDaddy.com’s Network Abuse Department. Send the claim to CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com.

Please read how GoDaddy.com respects Intellectual Property because it does. It will take down  the offending website after a thorough investigation. So, make sure that you can prove that the website is yours.

 

That’s pretty much there is. At all times, it is advisable to go to the proper authorities especially when the owner of the offending site is unresponsive. Throughout the process, keep your cool. Anger will take you nowhere. Just follow the tips above, and the offending site will be taken down eventually.