Please help, DMCA Takedown Notice

I am an author. I am published on Amazon. I have agreed to be exclusive with Amazon and by not being exclusive I could lose my account. You can also lose your account for having "content found freely available online."

A blog has my content up, taken from my book. They are even posting it using my pen name, acting as they are that name. I need to stop this as soon as possible.

Can anyone walk me through the process. I am even having trouble with finding out who is hosting the blog. Please, please, help.

First and most important, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. I'm not licensed in your state. It's just some stuff that is interesting and is just a beginning. IT IS NOT THOROUGH OR COMPLETE AND I'M NOT OFFERING ANY CONCLUSIONS.

www.pitt.edu...
And also:

What can you do if someone uses your copyrighted stuff without getting permission?
You can file a civil lawsuit in federal court to get an order stopping the person from using your material. A copyright attorney can get you started in the process. If the person has used your work and is attempting to make a profit with it, then the U.S. Attorney can get involved.

What do you do when someone posts part of HTML Goodies without permission?
Usually I write a calm email letter asking the person to stop and take the pages down. If they have registered the pages with search engines then I ask them to place a re-direct on the page so that hits come to the right place.
If that doesn't work, I contact the webmaster of the server and tell them to shut down the user's site, the entire site, or civil action will be brought against the server people for allowing copyrighted material to be pirated on their site. The next step would actually be to file a suit.

Has this ever happened?
A few times. I've only had to go to the server people once. When I did, the site was off-line in a matter of hours. I've never filed a lawsuit.

Would you?
Yes.

www.htmlgoodies.com...

Simple, you start with a cease and desist order. If they don't stop violating your copyright, you take legal action and sue the owner of the blog/website.

A lot of lawyers will take copyright cases pro bono, especially for single entities such as artists, writers, etc.

Usually conflict can be avoided by simply contacting the owner and asking him to cease and desist, informing him/her you will take legal action if they do not comply.

ETA: There are websites that will give you information regarding who owns a website. If the blog is managed through tumblr or some similar template, you should contact their support and they may provide you with information such as the IP address of the blog owner.

Fret not! There's lots you can do about it.

Found this for you: blog.kissmetrics.com...

reply to post by Ameilia


Thank you for the responses so far. Can someone more intelligent that me, please tell me how to find out who the webhost is.

So far I have used whoishostingthis.com which told me the host was Vistaprint (uh, isn't that the place the prints business cards? what the heck?)

And then I used godaddy.com which tells me the host is amazon.com.

How do I know which one is right?

Please, talk to me like I'm five years old, the biggest idiot you ever talked to. That's me.

reply to post by Ameilia


Just set up a server to continually ping their server about 10,000,000 a second until they stop...........

I am just kidding, don't do that, or you will be in a lot more trouble than they are. Just follow the advice of the 2 posters above me, they got it all in line for you already, even the step by step process for a fast conclusion to the problem.

If you do take legal measures, it should be sufficient to satisfy your agreement with amazon, and stop them from cancelling your contract.

I am sure your contract has a statement in it about fare use, and 3rd party infringement, it will also state legal liability. Are you sure your even liable to prosecute this or void your contract? It may be their responsibility to do so, and they are just hoping to pass the buck and the bill onto you.

Maybe if you post the link here, someone can find it for you.

Try www.networksolutions.com...

I am sure your contract has a statement in it about fare use, and 3rd party infringement, it will also state legal liability. Are you sure your even liable to prosecute this or void your contract? It may be their responsibility to do so, and they are just hoping to pass the buck and the bill onto you.

The problem with the contract is:

1.) If Amazon finds my content as "freely available online" which it is, thanks to this piece of stank, they will ban my book, and possibly, my entire account, costing me thousands of dollars each month.

2.) If Amazon finds I am breaking my terms of exclusivity by posting my work, which should be available only through Amazon, ANYPLACE ELSE on the web, no matter for sale or free, they will ban me from the program called Select, which I am a member of. Select allows me to lend my books to readers. They pay nothing, but I still get a royalty of $2 average per lend. I generally pull $100-$200 in lends each month.

ETA: Basically, I am trying to say, they don't care whose fault it is, I will take the fallout.

So a simple whois lookup wont reveal the details of the website owner? Then what you need to do is contact the website host (the whois lookup should reveal at least that much) and inform them of the situation, they should be of some help unless they are a shady hosting company specifically structured to accommodate illegal websites.

EDIT: use this service for whois lookups: whois.domaintools.com...

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


All I am getting is either Vistaprint or Amazon as the host, no matter what website I use to locate the host. Unless I am misreading the info? Could be, since I have inexperienced at this. I could post a copy here?

reply to post by Ameilia


Post the info which you get using the link in my last post.

Originally posted by Ameilia

I am sure your contract has a statement in it about fare use, and 3rd party infringement, it will also state legal liability. Are you sure your even liable to prosecute this or void your contract? It may be their responsibility to do so, and they are just hoping to pass the buck and the bill onto you.

The problem with the contract is:

1.) If Amazon finds my content as "freely available online" which it is, thanks to this piece of stank, they will ban my book, and possibly, my entire account, costing me thousands of dollars each month.

2.) If Amazon finds I am breaking my terms of exclusivity by posting my work, which should be available only through Amazon, ANYPLACE ELSE on the web, no matter for sale or free, they will ban me from the program called Select, which I am a member of. Select allows me to lend my books to readers. They pay nothing, but I still get a royalty of $2 average per lend. I generally pull $100-$200 in lends each month.

ETA: Basically, I am trying to say, they don't care whose fault it is, I will take the fallout.

edit on 4/12/13 by Ameilia because: (no reason given)

That's one tough spot to be in, can you PM me a link to the blog, I will try to find out who is hosting it. It usually isn't very difficult, mostly depends on how it is set up.

Originally posted by Ameilia
ETA: Basically, I am trying to say, they don't care whose fault it is, I will take the fallout.

This is the one reason why I detest places like paypal, amazon, ebay, etc. This is the exact reason I've seen countless places online talk about the absolutely powerlessness they feel when they are in the right but are treated with contempt by these places.

Amazon can revoke your kindle books if they deem fit, you can lose all your purchases and have no recourse. They maintain the ownership to anything they sell, even after it is sold. You only have the right to use it as a customer of amazon.

If these shonky businesses masquerading as legit companies were in a physical location, they'd be fire bombed.

I don't know how you can prove your claims, but I'd have thought it would be a simple thing to prove you're the author, and they're the plagiarist. Even so, having said that, amazon do what amazon want.

Good luck, sorry I can't offer any advice. If the website is godaddy and they've used a fake name, etc, I can't even think what to do.

But remember the domain name is not the server the content is hosted on. I'd be focussing on the host rather than the domain name.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Ameilia

 

Post the info which you get using the link in my last post.

Using the link you provided, domaintools.com, this is what I get:

Registrant:
VistaPrint Technologies Ltd
Canon's Court
22 Victoria Street
Hamilton, HM12
BM

Domain name: XXXXXXXXX

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, Domain
95 Hayden Avenue
Lexington, MA 02421
US
+1.7816526199 Fax: +1.7816526096

Technical Contact:
Administrator, Domain
95 Hayden Ave.
Lexington, MA 02421
US
+1.7816526199 Fax: +1.7816526096

Registration Service Provider:
Vistaprint,
866-811-1674

Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 20-Jan-2013.
Record expires on 11-Dec-2013.
Record created on 11-Dec-2011.

Registrar Domain Name Help Center:
tucowsdomains.com...

Domain servers in listed order:
NS4.VPWEB.COM
NS2.VPWEB.COM
NS3.VPWEB.COM

Domain status: clientTransferProhibited
clientUpdateProhibited

I have intentionally X'd out the domain name. If anyone will interpret this for me, I would be grateful. More to follow.

Originally posted by charles1952
First and most important, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. I'm not licensed in your state. It's just some stuff that is interesting and is just a beginning. IT IS NOT THOROUGH OR COMPLETE AND I'M NOT OFFERING ANY CONCLUSIONS.

What a joke seriously.

Anyone has the human right to give legal advice to anyone as they see fit.

Don't give me this 'only licensed lawyers can practice law' garbage. That's for the totalitarian fascist scum.

I CAN GIVE ANYONE LEGAL ADVICE AT ANY TIME I WANT 100% LEGITIMATELY BY LAW.
I DO NOT NEED A LICENSE!

reply to post by Ameilia


Using whoishostingthis.com it tells me the site is hosted by Amazon. I can't determine why one place is saying it's Vistaprint and one is saying it's Amazon.

If I accidentally provided revealing information, PLEASE DO NOT OUT ME OR QUOTE ME.

reply to post by Ameilia


Judging by the nameservers you should focus on vpweb.com. However it looks like some sort of shady crap which claims to be affiliated with VistaPrint, which I highly doubt. It may be very difficult to pin down the true owner of the website if that is the case. Maybe others who are more educated on these matters can offer further advice but it seems to me a lot of effort has been taken to conceal the true identity of the website owner.

I don't know how you can prove your claims, but I'd have thought it would be a simple thing to prove you're the author, and they're the plagiarist. Even so, having said that, amazon do what amazon want.

Amazon could clearly see the date my work was published, and the date on the blog posts, dated AFTER my work. This would be obvious to anyone. However, Amazon is notorious of not giving a crap and nailing authors no matter whose fault it is. This one book does not make too much, I may make $100+ this month in sales. But if I get my entire account banned, that is THOUSANDS.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
reply to post by Ameilia

 

Judging by the nameservers you should focus on vpweb.com. However it looks like some sort of shady crap which claims to be affiliated with VistaPrint, which I highly doubt. It may be very difficult to pin down the true owner of the website if that is the case. Maybe others who are more educated on these matters can offer further advice but it seems to me a lot of effort has been taken to conceal the true identity of the website owner.

edit on 12/4/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

See, I thought it was crap too. And I wasn't sure if I thought it was crap, cause it is, or due to my own ignorance in these matters.

Actually Vistaprint now hosts websites. started a couple of years ago. vpweb.com is their shared hosting domain. Without the domain name of the offender, the investigation can not continue.

Now having said that you have a solution. Follow the link below -

Vistaprint - Reporting Copyright Infringement