DMCA counter notice...what's the next step?

[danniee]

Hi guys,

So we've noticed there is a particular website owner who systematically use other peoples images and rewrites our (and others) reviews on a regular basis. It's pretty easy to tell because often the images are custom made and sometimes we have exclusive access.

So we've filed a DMCA copyright removal. Google accepted it, which was good news. Of course, the website owner has submitted a counter notice with some bs excuses. Russian site and Russian website owner as has been revealed in the counter notice.

So what is the next step for me? From what I understand reading the mail from Google I need a court order? Can anyone give me some advice what to do here? It's not as simple as sending a cease and decist I assume?

Is it a good idea to join DMCA.com (or a similar service) and have them to all the work?

Thank you

 

[AussieDave]

@danniee - I'd say joining DMCA or paying the once off fee of US$199 for the Take Down assistance, would be far, far cheaper, than hiring a IP attorney to obtain a court order

 

[danniee]

Indeed, I have realized this after having done a bit of research. That's likely they route I'm going to take

 

[awesamko]

DMCA is good but u can also use Plugins that will prevert copying your content and pictures.

 

[baldidiot]

DMCA is good but u can also use Plugins that will prevert copying your content and pictures.

If you're talking about those ones that stop you right clicking or highlighting text they won't stop them being copied all it does is annoy users.

Images are downloaded to the users temp files and you can grab the text from the source code.

 

[AussieDave]

Agree with baldidiot, those scripts to prevent right clicking etc... or place a watermark over an image, are useless. They may stop the clueless BUT they wont deter scrapers.

Scum bags use bots to scrap a site's content etc. Not uncommon to find them spoofing the UA, claiming to be Google and such.

Limiting access to one's site by filtering out the scum bags, script kiddies and misbehaving bots, and only allowing genuine (real) people access, from genuine ISP's (not servers), helps to stop one's content from not being scraped/stolen.

If you have not got preventive measures like this in place, then your basically inviting content thieves to scrap your site.

Speaking of scum bag scrapers, here's a new member, who is seeking to hire such a scum to acquire player data, by means of scraping:
https://www.affiliateguarddog.com/c...r-data-mining-services-lead-generation.15837/ (the type of member we don't need at AGD).