Dutch page stealing content, what to do?

[Biti]

What a bs answer of Betsson.

If somebody with a UK website forgets to put a T&C link, some bonus requirements or a Gamble Aware link or their banners are at animal porn websites, I wonder if it's out of their control.

 

[danniee]

What a bs answer of Betsson.

If somebody with a UK website forgets to put a T&C link, some bonus requirements or a Gamble Aware link or their banners are at animal porn websites, I wonder if it's out of their control.

Good point Biti. I was infuriated with their answer but tried to keep my cool posting here. Absolutely ridiculous answer. Now you know, Betsson has a policy of not giving a rats ass if you reach out to them for help against scumbag affiliates they have no second thoughts about working with.

What an utter disgrace for this industry and a slap in the face of every hard working, proffessional affiliate

 

[LandofOz]

I had this happen to me a few times. I firstly contact the thief and tell them to remove my content. If they don't, then I contact the affiliate programs. I name and shame them on the forums. I've never needed to file a Google DMCA complaint before.

 

[danniee]

Update:

Google seems to have accepted the DMCA complaint, but not sure how it works. Went from 5 Pending URL's to 5 Approved URL's.

Regarding Betssons disappointing response, they sent me a reply I'm much more satisfied with. Couldn't believe my eyes when I read their first one.

"We are sorry to hear that our team’s response to your complaint did not meet your expectations.


While we offer our sincere apologies, we will make sure to contact the affiliate and put pressure on them to remedy the situation, as we should have clarified in our initial response. Otherwise, we would penalise them for not taking immediate action.



What our colleagues tried to explain in their previous email is that we are not able to terminate the Affiliate Agreement based on such accusations since we are not in a positon to prove them. We would also like to point out that the affiliate in question has not made any earnings from our brands so this was never a matter of earnings from our end.



However, we understand that this reply was not sufficient. We thank you for bringing this to our attention and please contact us again should the issue persist."

 

[danniee]

I received the following reply from Google regarding my DMCA complaint:

"We have received a counter notification in response to the DMCA notice you sent us. As described in 17 U.S.C. 512(g), by this email, we are providing you with a text copy of the counter notification and await your notice (in not more than 10 business days) that you have filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the counter notifier's allegedly infringing activity. In order to process your complaint, please send us a copy of the action filed or applicable court order.


If we do not receive such notice from you, we will reinstate the material in question."

If I knew one has to involve court orders, lawyers and whatnot I would never have bothered filing a Google DMCA complaint. I was under the impression it was a lot more straight forward than this, thinking Google would simply compare content in their own archive to see who posted it first or whatever.

Does this mean affiliates will simply get away with stealing pictures and other content unless you're willing to take it to court every single time or did I misunderstand the Google message?

 

[Frank]

When a program knowingly engages in business partnerships with hackers, content thieves spammers.. it normally goes downhill from there, Betsson attitude wont do them any favours and will cost them more then they are probably making. I had something similar.. a Dutch site stealing hundreds of pages of content and translating it direct into Dutch.. perhaps you coudl pm me the site so I can see if it's the same one? if so I will also email the said programs.

 

[danniee]

When a program knowingly engages in business partnerships with hackers, content thieves spammers.. it normally goes downhill from there, Betsson attitude wont do them any favours and will cost them more then they are probably making. I had something similar.. a Dutch site stealing hundreds of pages of content and translating it direct into Dutch.. perhaps you coudl pm me the site so I can see if it's the same one? if so I will also email the said programs.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to sent a pm on this site.

 

[DaftDog]

I can't for the life of me figure out how to sent a pm on this site.

Ask admin to activate your PM abilities as they are not active for new users.

 

[Zuga]

@danniee PM permissions granted.

 

[Vargoso]

Such a very interesting topic this one, but what I don't understand is the Google response. Maybe some update or some other users experienced with this? I'm guessing not a lot of us are willing to go to a court, it's just to much time and it depends a lot of your country and legislation.

 

[BetOnlineUK]

I too do not understand Google's stance in this. Surely they can see whose content is original just by dates alone. For a smart company, they can be really dumb.

I feel sorry for @danniee as everything has been done right and even got the "thief" to admit their wrongdoing, but this was obviously just a delaying tactic with counter notification being put in place.

 

[danniee]

I was quite surprised to see Googles response as I was under the impression that it was a straight-forward tool and safeguard for us honest content writers and site owners. I would guess only larger corporations would have the time and resources to take content theft to court

Obviously, Google was not of help here but there are, thankfully, still a few ways to hit them where it hurts. Approaching the programs to put pressure on the thiefs is one very effective way. If the program refuses, call them out. A program intentionally making money on content stolen from you is rouge behavior in my opinion.

Thank's guys, your support has meant a lot. Sucks to be ripped off, but I strike back like a mad pitbull haha

 

[Biti]

Google's position sucks in this case.

But they have made some kind of pragmatic process (for them) as they get a lot of these requests. Of which many are doubtful and some even are bogus.

I think the best thing to do is outsource this to a lawyer. Sure, it costs money. I've had a case where I paid like € 1.000 to a lawyer. That's cheaper than spend 2 of your working days on this kind of things.

Discussions with content thieves are useless, they always come up with crap like:
- everybody does it
- it's not stealing, it's re-writing
- it was my text writer
- texts about the same subject will always be the same, etc.