Home: Message List - MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

websolutions — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:38:29 GMT

I see way too much useless info. The report you see on RIPOFF states that you have copied content from there website and made it your own. When I read the report it contained the URL which the copied content was located on but when I clicked on the url, the page was missing. When I started digging, I saw that you have 99.9 % smimilar to theirs on the specified page, the page that doesn't exist anymore which you can view by going to the internet archives here: http://web.archive.org/web/20071111195559/www.orientalrugcareny.com/rugrepair.html

Now, someone is BS-ing here, I did more research and saw that you have been in business longer than the company who has left a neg. feedback about you but this doesn't mean that you did not copy their content. You can visit copyscape.com and check for these types of issues all day long.

Now, the only way to fix this is through:

a lawyer who will send out a C&D letter
SEO, some that you can place enough positive testimonials to bump the negative one down.

or
you can contact RIPOFF and ask them to remove it.

I wish you luck!

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Milkage — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:47:07 GMT

Er..... I also noticed that this was a couple months old, but decided to post anyway...

And the link that I posted was wrong... The one with the blatant copy/paste is http://www.masterweaversny.net/area_and_oriental_rug_cleaning.html

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Milkage — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:44:12 GMT

I googled your company and came up with the posts you were talking about... He also claims that http://www.masterweaversny.net/services.html is the same company as Oriental Rug Care NY. I would hope that it is not, as on that page, Master Weavers NY didnt even bother to remove the other company's name when they copied and pasted.

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Lighthouse24 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:06:25 GMT

P.S. The articles I was talking about don't even earn ME $2,500 in a 180-day period! (LOL)

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Lighthouse24 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:50:53 GMT

Thanks for the info MotorDoc. I have quite a few registered copyrights (some dating back over 40 years), so my attorney and I have more than a casual knowledge of copyright law. A federal prosecutor is the person who must file the type of felony infringement suit you're referring to, and will generally only do so if the copyright owner can show that the infringement was willful, done for the purpose of commercial gain, and resulted in more than $2,500 within a 180 day period. There are only 93 federal prosecutors in the U.S. and all its territories, and in my experience, they won't investigate unless the complaint offers solid evidence of all those conditions up front -- and even then, it's an understandably low priority (considering every other type of federal case they have in their backlog). Yes, the law is there, but in reality, it's the civil case that gets action. Either way, the business owner has to collect the evidence to even HAVE a case -- which is all I was suggesting in my initial post. Thanks again for the comments.

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

MotorDoc — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:22:11 GMT

Lighthouse

You have protection for copyright through the US PTO with your articles, regardless of whether or not you state copyright or place a copyright notice on the document. The complaint should be launched through the US PTO, as this is part of the new (OK, late 1990's) copyright rules.

However, you cannot claim damages on the copyright infringement unless you register the copyright and can show the damages. At the same time, the US PTO can fine or even imprison the criminal(s).

Copyright issues are something of specific concern to me because of the number of publications, training material and books I have published and the amount of revenue I have lost to infringement. If you are having problems with copyright, lawyers can be quite expensive. My decision this year was to join the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) for a few hundred dollars and use their grievance process to pursue the violators.

Howard

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

Lighthouse24 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:32:17 GMT

The suggestions above are all great. One point hasn't been mentioned yet: As a business owner, something you'll want to be doing right now is gathering and documenting evidence of your damages. The process of contacting the other business, involving attorneys, etc. will result in one of two things -- those folks will either stop what they're doing or they won't. If they don't, the FBI isn't going to haul them off to jail for trash-talking. You'll have to file a lawsuit (a tort claim) -- at which point you'll have to prove your damages (i.e., show conclusive evidence of the business revenue that they have stolen from you as a result of those web postings). If you intend to pursue this matter, now is the time to start collecting that evidence.

I have found that gathering evidence of damages helps you choose (and fight) your battles more wisely. For instance, from time to time, I see something that I wrote or that my firm published posted on the net verbatim with someone else's name on it. That's copyright infringement, plain and simple, and it makes me angry. I ask them to take it down or add the proper citation. If they ignore the request, I have to gather evidence of damages. If I can't really come up with much (in other words, if them claiming to be something they're not isn't taking any real money out of my pocket), then I have let "karma" deal with it. Believe me, it doesn't make it any less frustrating when I see my work posted with someone else's name, but ultimately it's a business decision. Of course, if they do eventually generate revenue as a result of having used my work, then I'll already have what I need to lay claim to it.

Good luck with this matter.

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

DomainDiva — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:33:40 GMT

Works perfect. Thanks for the info!!!

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

MotorDoc — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:28:16 GMT

The full address should be http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

I also tried linking through my post. For whatever reason, it did not want to link.

Re: MY BUSINESS AS BEING STOLEN THROUGH THE NET!

MotorDoc — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:26:47 GMT

Not sure why, try this one: http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

It did not work for me either when linking from this site. The above is the full address to the main page.