Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of having to deal with people who want to take shortcuts and just steal images and content from various websites I’ve authored. Usually an email to the web admin explaining that they are unlawfully using copyrighted content with my lawyer CC’ed does the trick to get the situation corrected. Sometimes the offending party will tell you to shove off and simply doesn’t care to admit that what they are doing is essentially stealing. I have just had the pleasure of dealing with such an individual once again and I guess he wants to do things the hard way… In cases like this, it may become necessary to protect your site through the DMCA by reporting the plagiarism or image theft through a formal complaint through a service like the DMCA. The “DMCA” stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act and you can read up on it here if you are facing a similar situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
Here’s another excellent blog post on the subject: http://sarafhawkins.com/how-to-file-dmca-takedown/
The easiest way to handle this on an ongoing basis is to sign up for an account with the DMCA HERE. The service allows you to add a protection badge to your website and have the DMCA monitor your website automatically. The best part is it is a free service for the most basic protection of your content and images.
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