What to Do If Someone’s Stolen Your Website

Issue #2375

• WEALTHY: As the days get hotter, so does this commodity (Rick Pendergraft)
• HEALTHY: High blood pressure? Try liquid gold (Kelley Herring)
• WISE: Mark Twain on copyrights

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• What to do if someone’s stolen your website (David Cross)
• 2 easy ways to accomplish any goal (Suzanne Richardson)
• It’s Good to Know… about setting up multiple homepages
• Add "obvelation" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

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The Golden Days of Summer

By Rick Pendergraft

It doesn’t make much sense that a hard commodity would follow a seasonal pattern, but the ultimate hard commodity does just that. For a number of years now, gold has bottomed out during the summer doldrums and then rallied sharply. 

Last year, gold bottomed at the end of June around the $640 level before rocketing to $1,000 per ounce in March. In 2006, gold hit bottom in mid-June and then rallied more than $150 an ounce. In 2005, gold bottomed in early July at $420 an ounce before shooting up to $720 an ounce in May ‘06. 

This summer could present the same scenario we saw last summer when gold pulled back to the 50-week moving average in June and then went on a tear. Right now, gold is in the midst of a pullback, and the 50-week moving average is within reach in the $815 range. 

To take advantage of this pattern, you can buy futures on gold. If you are not comfortable trading futures, you can buy an exchange traded fund (ETF) that will rise with the price of gold. The Spyder Gold Shares (GLD) is the best ETF for tracking gold itself.

It might not be time for this trade yet, but as the days get hotter, so does gold.

[Ed. Note: Making money with your investments doesn't have to be risky or difficult. In fact, market analyst and professional trader Rick Pendergraft has uncovered a genuine, legal, and easy way to potentially make a serious amount of money with very little work. Continue here...]

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 "Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

Mark Twain

Righting Copywrongs

By David Cross

"Someone has copied our entire website!" Charles told me. "And," he huffed, "their site ranks better than ours in Google!"

The website in question was an exact copy of Charles’ website. The imitator had published Charles’ content, mistakes and all, at an almost identical domain name. The only difference was the contact details.

Now and then, I hear about blatant rip-offs like this. And I believe Charles was rightly upset. So I helped him set things straight.

Keep in mind that there is nothing you can do to stop anyone from copying your website or other digital content. However, there are a number of things you can do to prevent them from actually publishing what they plagiarized. In some cases, you can even close them down.

I’ve been on both sides of the online copyright issue. When I ran a large Web-hosting company, I sometimes had to fight for clients’ rights against companies or individuals who copied their content. I also had to advise clients who were concerned about stepping over the line themselves. So I’ve come up with a process for fixing the problem.

Let me state straightaway that I am not an attorney. So if you require specific legal advice regarding your particular situation, you should contact a professional. Of course, attorneys cost money - a minimum of $2,500, in my experience, to handle an online plagiarism dispute.

And there is another reason for not bringing in an attorney right away: It immediately puts the other party on the defensive. The more resistant they are, the longer it will take to come to an agreement. You are seeking a result through shared cooperation here, not a fight. The procedure I had Charles follow took him an hour or so, and everything was resolved within one week.

Before I tell you how Charles and I solved his problem, you need to know what type of copying is acceptable - and what isn’t.

A Little Background on the Law

A copyright protects all sorts of creative works. According to Nolo.com, poetry, movies, software, sculptures, songs, video games, photographs, plays, sheet music, and even notes scribbled on the back of an envelope qualify. But the work must be original. "So long as the author toils without copying from someone else, the results are protected by copyright," says Nolo. The work must also be "the result of at least some creative effort." Nolo cites a telephone directory - which is just an alphabetical listing of names and phone numbers - as an example of "non-creative" work.

Another thing to remember is that you can’t copyright ideas. According to Nolo, "Copyright shelters only fixed, original, creative expression, not the ideas or facts upon which the expression is based." This is important, because it’s entirely possible for two writers to write about the same idea at the same time - even if they’ve never met. My editor, Suzanne Richardson, told me that she often sees this firsthand when two (or more) ETR writers send her articles on exactly the same topic. So don’t get up in arms if another website has ideas similar to ideas on your site. Any Internet marketing company, for example, is going to have articles on its website about Google AdWords and affiliate marketing. That’s just the nature of the industry.

There’s a lot more to copyright law than this. (For details, check your local library.)
But the main point I want to make here is that if you publish original content on your website, it’s protected by copyright. You don’t even need to say "copyright 2008" - although adding this to your site can remind copy "borrowers" that they have to give you credit.

That credit is important. Anyone who wants to republish your content needs to have your permission. Some websites - including Early to Rise.com - freely give permission to others to republish their articles. In order to do so, they must simply include a little attribution.(See ETR’s instructions for republishing their content right here.) You might do the same. That way, no matter where readers find your content, they know it’s from you.

But what if your copyright-protected content is published without your permission? In that case, you can take action. Matt Turner, Agora’s chief legal counsel, points out: "If you think someone has copied your work unfairly, the burden will be on you (the burden of proof is always on the plaintiff, i.e, the party bringing the lawsuit) to show that the defendant’s writings are, in the words of the courts, ’substantially similar to yours.’"

But you may not need to take your case to court. Here’s how I helped Charles get rid of his copycat…

What to Do First

The first step I took was to check who owned the domain name and see where it was hosted. You can do a "whois" lookup on any domain name to find details about the person who registered it - including their e-mail address. Many companies offering domain registrations - such as GoDaddy.com - allow you to do this type of search. Or you can use a service such as Whois.sc.

In Charles’ case, the domain name in question was registered to someone in India who was using a U.S.-based domain registration company.

To find out where the domain was being hosted, I turned to the "What’s that site running" tool at Netcraft.com. I discovered that the network address for the domain in question was owned by a U.S.-based hosting company.

Now we knew who owned the domain name, where it was registered, and where it was hosted.

Once again, I am not an attorney. But in my experience, simply sending a polite but firm letter or e-mail to the person listed on the domain registration will motivate them to change their errant ways. State the problem and ask that they remove your copyrighted content from their website immediately. Saying "please" and "thank you" is important. You don’t wish to ruffle feathers until you are sure the person’s intention was malicious or nefarious.

So that’s what we did in the case of Charles’ copycat. He sent a firm but polite e-mail to the person listed on the domain registration.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

After four days, there was no response to the e-mail. So I had Charles move on to the next steps.

1. Contact the Web-hosting company. Most Web-hosting companies have an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), and copyright violation almost always breaches that policy. They will also have a specific procedure that you must follow if one of their clients is hosting content that is in violation of copyright. This is easy to do, though it can be tedious.

2. Contact the domain registrar. The same thing applies to domain registrars. Most have policies preventing the use of domain names for illegal activities. Copyright theft certainly falls within that category.

If all you want to do is put an end to the other person’s illegal online activities - if, for instance, you don’t mind if they use the domain name for other, legal purposes - you can skip this step. But if the domain name in question is very similar to yours (as it was in Charles’ case), and it is being used to violate your copyright, you would contact the domain registrar and follow their procedure.

Let’s say someone registered the URL "Early2Rise.com"  and started to copy all of ETR’s content and ideas. ETR could claim that the domain was registered only to engage in illegal activities. As proof, they would cite the high degree of similarity to the ETR domain name, the theft of copyright-protected content, etc.

3. Contact the legal departments of search engines where the site violating your content is being indexed or featured. Each of the large search engines has a procedure you can follow for copyright theft.

4. Contact the copycat site’s credit card processor. In Charles’ case, the copycat site was advertising his content, products, and services, and using PayPal to accept payments for orders - orders they couldn’t fill. Charles contacted PayPal’s legal and fraud department.

The result of taking the above four actions was quick and severe. Within one week, PayPal prevented the offending site from being able to accept payments. The Web-hosting company canceled their Web-hosting account. Google removed the site’s content and links from its search engine. And because the domain registrar now considered the site’s domain name to be "disputed," it could not be used until the registrant could prove that it was only to be used for legal, legitimate purposes. (Highly unlikely.)

Creating an online business is a lot of fun - but, as with any business, there are potential problems you need to be aware of. By taking advantage of lessons learned by people who’ve already "been there, done that," you can avoid most of the pitfalls… and end up with a successful company that you will be proud to own.

[Ed. Note: There's no need to worry about whether someone's copying your content if you haven't got a website. Of course, not having your own website and Internet business means you are missing out on one of the most enjoyable and lucrative ventures around. It's super-easy to get an online business up and running. You can do it in 5 days. Learn how here.]

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== Highly Recommended ==

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By now, you could be forgiven for thinking making money online is akin to some kind of black magic! You’ve probably heard the talk about SEO, XML, PPC and ended up more confused than when you started.

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Ready? Here it is (drum roll please)…

The Problem With Enormous Goals

By Suzanne Richardson

When Bobby announced that he was going to write a novel by the end of 2007, his family was a little skeptical. Bobby has a demanding job in investment banking. Plus, he’s never taken a single writing class. And, to be truthful, the only thing he regularly reads is The Wall Street Journal. So when 2008 rolled around and Bobby hadn’t written more than 10 pages, no one was surprised. Except Bobby. He was upset and felt like he’d failed himself. And his dream of becoming a writer went down in flames.

It’s not that Bobby CAN’T be a writer. The problem is that he set an unrealistic goal for himself. And when you start out with an unrealistic goal, you are setting yourself up for defeat.

According to Professor Richard Wiseman - leader of a year-long study of goal-setting - you’ll have a better chance of reaching a major goal if you break it down into smaller short-term objectives. So instead of a big, broad goal like "I’ll write a novel this year," you might plan to write five pages of the novel every week.

The study discovered that men who made goals this way were 22 percent more likely to achieve them.

It also helps to make your goals very specific. For example, instead of saying, "I’ll go to the gym three times a week," you would make a commitment to go every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

[Ed. Note: Setting specific goals and breaking big dreams down into manageable bites are two of the simple yet powerful principles taught in ETR's Total Success Achievement Program. You can discover dozens more strategies for making your dreams come true with this comprehensive package. Learn more here.]

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Drizzle to Drop Blood Pressure

By Kelley Herring

You’ve likely heard that the Mediterranean diet is good for your heart and your brain. Now new research indicates that the olive oil in the diet should get part of the credit due to its ability to lower blood pressure.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that 25 ml (4 teaspoons) of olive oil daily reduced blood pressure in men who were previously not eating a Mediterranean diet. In fact, among the 110 men in the study, blood pressure dropped an average of 3 percent over the nine-week study period.

Researchers believe a compound called oleic acid - a monounsaturated fat that makes up 55-85 percent of olive oil - is responsible for the benefit.

So go ahead and splurge on some good, organic extra virgin olive oil. You’ll get the most health benefits when you use it cold - drizzled over salads, roasted veggies, and the like - instead of cooking with it.

[Ed. Note: A better, healthier life is closer than you may think. Get your roadmap to becoming stronger, healthier, sharper, leaner, more energetic, and feeling years younger in mind, body, and spirit right here.

And be sure to check out Kelley's website, www.HealingGourmet.com.]

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It’s Good to Know: Setting Up Multiple Homepages

When you fire up your Internet browser, there are probably a few sites you always visit before you do anything else. So why not set all those sites as homepages? With tabbed browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, you can.

In Firefox, go to the Tools menu and choose Options. Then go to the General or Main tab (depending on the version you have). In the Locations box, put the address of each website you want as a homepage, separated by a "pipe" ( | ). (The pipe symbol is right above the Enter key on most computers.)

With Internet Explorer 7, go to the Tools menu and choose Options. Then, in the General tab, enter each Web address on a separate line.

These multiple homepages should not, of course, include news sites, YouTube, your MySpace page, or any other time wasters. Restrict them to sites you use throughout the day for work: Web-based e-mail and other applications, your company’s online archives, or reference sites you use for research and other tasks.

(Source: Upgrade Your Life)

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Word to the Wise: Obvelation

"Obvelation" (ob-vuh-LAY-shun) - from the Latin for "veil" or "shroud" - is the act of concealing.

Example (as used by the 19th century English preacher Charles Spurgeon): "Every revelation of God must also be an obvelation; there must be a veiling of his infinite splendour if anything is to be seen by finite beings."

[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]

Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008

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