Google offers remedy against content scrapers

Is someone copying your original content? Or other sites are using your images and photos without attribution? Dozens of autopilot blogs scraping/republishing your content without your permission? Google offers a couple of solutions to remedy the problem.

Usually, after repeated communications with the culprits fail to gather any positive results, most publishers/webmaster would resort to a DMCA takedown which is filed with the web host. Sometimes it’s pretty effective and fast and sometimes not (they could always transfer to a new host or server).

The most painful way to get back at the scrapers is to hit them where its most painful — their pockets. Google offers a couple of solutions to this:

• If the culprit’s website runs Google AdSense, you can file for a copyright infringement report against that AdSense publisher. It’s most likely that the AdSense account of that publisher/scraper could get banned or terminated. Here are the steps you need to do that. Here’s more info about the DMCA for AdSense.
• If the site is intentionally scraping (misappropriating and republishing) your content but doesn’t have Google AdSense, you can file for a violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines. You fill out the form here.

Just be reminded though that you must be the rightful copyright owner of the content you are complaining about. If it’s an image that came from screencap you made of a TV show or movie, you don’t own copyright of that image since it’s just a derivative of the original copyright owners (which is the TV networks or the movie producer). Neither can you complain about lyrics copied from your site by other blogs (because you don’t own the copyright to those lyrics anyway).

Now instead of just ranting on your blog about others copying your content, you can do something about it.