Copyright Violations - What To Do When Your Article Is Stolen

Copyright violations are out of control on the Internet. In the case of articles that are stolen, however, it is often just a misunderstanding as to how the articles were to be used. In today’s Internet Marketing world, there is a great deal of confusion with PLR articles (private label rights) and reprint rights.

If you find that your article has been used by someone else, and they have changed the resource box or the links in the article, your first course of action should be to contact that person directly, and explain to them that the article was not a PLR article, but an article with reprint rights – and also explain what the difference is. Tell them that you understand that they may not have realized this, and ask them to change the article or remove it from their site.

If you don’t get a response, and the article is not removed, it usually means that the article was indeed stolen. Usually the mention of your lawyer and a lawsuit will do the trick, but in some cases, you may be forced to take it all the way to court, which could become costly.

You might try shaming them into removing the article. Post to your blog about it and make it public knowledge that this person has stolen your work. What are they going to do? Sue you for defamation of character? You can prove what date that you submitted the article to the article repositories – can they?

Contact the article repositories where the stolen article is appearing with the thief’s name. They will usually instantly remove the article from their database, or exchange it with your article in its original state, with your author’s resource box.

Make sure that you clearly state how your article is to be used. State that anyone can reprint your article, providing that the article remains intact, including the author’s resource box, and as long as your link is active, meaning that it is clickable.

Keep records. After you’ve submitted your article, make sure that you type the date it was submitted on the article itself. Also, set your word processor to time/date stamp the article as well.