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Ask HN: Competitor is Copyright Infringer. Remedy?

5 points by WadeWilliams ↗ HN
I have a little bit of an issue with a competing website. They are selling advertisements around copyrighted content that they are copy/pasting from newspapers from around the world. This is easy enough to do, set yourself up some google alerts and as long as you know CTRL+C and CTRL+V, I suppose you can make a few hundred a month in advertising.

I've been working hard on my website for much longer than this competitor, and I'm honest about my content, I write it myself. Unfortunately, to the naked eye, it appears as though I don't do quite as good a job as the other guy who knows how to copy and paste.

Aside from emailing the editors of all these newspapers (we're talking 25-50 newspapers from at least 5 different countries), is there a way for me to gain the upper hand in this situation, without sacrificing my scruples?

8 comments

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WadeWilliams
PS they dont have a DMCA filing.
rhizome
Been getting ideas from Righthaven?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/righthaven/

WadeWilliams
Had never heard of them before now, thanks for the link. Interesting. I dont really want to get entangled with this, i'd just like to have a level playing field. Same site has sniped content of mine in the past as well. More frustrating than anything else.
rhizome
The thing is, it takes more than "copyrighted content" in order to be actionable. I mean, you can sue anybody for anything in US courts, but it's not apparent from your question that they are taking entire articles, which makes a big difference to the kinds of options you have to deal with it.

If it's entire articles of content for which you hold copyright, you can certainly send a DMCA Takedown notice to their ISP and start the ball rolling that way. Warning: may require lawyer. If they aren't taking whole pieces, then your course of action can get murkier and will definitely become more expensive.

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pbhjpbhj
>Aside from emailing the editors of all these newspapers (we're talking 25-50 newspapers from at least 5 different countries), is there a way for me to gain the upper hand in this situation, without sacrificing my scruples?

Where is your competitor based? Which jurisdictions are valid wrt copyright infringement? How do you know they haven't applied for rights (eg via a clearing house)?

Note that there are still some places in the world that are not signed up to Berne/TRIPS and the like international treaties. A person (or presumably a web server) based there who (on which) compiles such would be untouchable on copyright infringement. Moreover, many places allow excerpts/snippets to be used and the definition of "commercial use" varies around the world.

I suspect all you can really do is improve your content or put money before morality.

>I suppose you can make a few hundred a month in advertising

A few hundred what? US Dollars, GBP, Euro, ... why is this important to you?

jimrandomh
If they copy any of your content, then you can send a DMCA notice to their ISP. And if they're doing what you say they are, then they'll do that soon enough. You may be able to figure out who their ISP is using tracert. You can also notify the sites they're plagiarizing from, and get them to do the same.

If they file a DMCA counter-notice, or pop back up on a different ISP, then you'll have to go to court to get rid of them. That might or might not be worth it, depending whether they have money to sue for, how difficult they are to track down, and how much your lawyer charges.

pbhjpbhj
Personally I would send a message to each of the largest players (or most notable for protecting online content) in each of the jurisdictions requesting to use their content in the same manner as company X - that you too would like to post their stories and images immediately after release - and requesting what it would cost for you to be licensed to do the same.

If you're serious then you should send the request by post using registered mail. Probably marked something like "FAO copyright licensing department (legal)".

Either they give you terms that are agreeable or they say something along the lines of "when hell freezes over" and you've appraised them of the actions of your competitor.

You might want to check the sources for the stories, perhaps your competitor is just getting AP or Reuters alerts and licensing off the wire?