Who to direct copyright violation to

I think my question is partly about how to get at the person/organisation that will pull the plug .

ACCOMODATION-SCOTLAND.COM has been a consistent violator of our copyright material for the purpose of promoting ..well God knows what - in little popup windows.

It is all taken from our own site www.scotland2000.com/accom

A Whois lookup shows the plagiarist is a guy in Latvia. I don't anticipate that approaching him will do much good. Who in the data below would be liable to take action...godaddy? STEPDNS?

Any advice on where to go from here?

Many thanks

Robert

Domain Name: ACCOMODATION-SCOTLAND.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS1.STEPDNS.NET
Name Server: NS2.STEPDNS.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 10-nov-2004
Creation Date: 12-oct-2003
Expiration Date: 12-oct-2005

If they are pulling data directly from your site (like images), then I've seen other sites (like TechReport) change them to embarass the violator. In that case, he put amusing pictures of his son up with taglines, and of course changed the image links in his article. That got attention from the violator pretty quickly.

You may also be able to approach the hosting company or domain registrator and complain in an effort to have the site taken down. I have no idea how successful that will be.

Generally its best to first send cease and desist, go through all other avenues, and finally to small claims court. If the violator is in another country, its pretty hard.

Note, this isn't a unique situation and I'm sure you can find much better advice if you search the web.

Thanks for taking time to reply ...no, all photos, image maps, text & structure have been taken from our site and placed on new Server, so we can't change links as you suggest (we've done that in other cases). This appears to have been done in order to attract traffic via Search Engines and then offer the view a popup which takes them to 'hotel offers' ...there's also links to pills and potions or the likes. So you can see the level it's at!:-)

I can't find the hosting company. Godaddy say they are only the Register and can do nothing about it. Re. STEPDNS, I can't see to find any contact point and emails bounce when I guess an address. Anybody got any suggestions about how to contact them?

Another possibility is to await renewal date of the domain and see if it dissapears.

Robert

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yoursite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|png|jpeg|wmv|mov|mp3|bmp)$ - [F]

Do you still need help with this?

If so do the following;
Email abuse@theplanet.com stating all their IP (69.56.255.98), their domain (ACCOMODATION-SCOTLAND.COM) and all the copyrighted material. Also, try and provide any proof which you can to prove that you own the copyright to the material involved. Try using archive.org and see if your material is listed at an earlier date than to when they use the material.

Don't expect a fast response off The Planet, but they will do their best to resolve the issue within a few weeks that's of course if you supply them with all the necessary information.

I hope that helps.

Regards
Steven Billings

I do concur , The planet does take these issues seriously.
But have the proof and the logs. They dont just disregaurd
your request they do need to be made aware.

Steven

MANY thanks indeed. That's a most practical response. I will try to get the evidence off within the next couple of weeks. Will post here if I get results.

Robert

Glad I could help

Try and keep us updated with how it all works out.

Regards
Steven Billings