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Hosting company refuses to enforce AUP clause on copyright violation?
Hi, I'm trying to figure out what my options are. Back in 2014 I took down a website I owned and later let the domain expire (host and registrar were separate). Now I've found that somebody has acquired the domain, which is pretty normal. But they've also made an exact copy of my entire site with most of its articles and even the logo and the same theme, but upgraded to a newer version of the CMS I was using. I want to re-post most of my articles on a different site that I control, but I don't want Google to penalize me for duplicate content. So I sent proof of prior ownership and copyrighted content to the host (USA based), and I requested them to take down the site based on their AUP, which has a very clear clause prohibiting content that is copied without the owner's permission. But they refuse to take action, saying:
As a hosting provider, we cannot render decisions on such matters unless directed to do so via a court or similar agency of adequate jurisdiction.
Does that sound right to any of you with hosting experience? Is the AUP nothing more than a façade of legal correctness that is only enforced when the provider's interests are at stake, such as resource abuse?
Comments
Well, it would have been nice if the host complied with your request. Alas, they didn't.
If you do own the content and if it's worth the trouble, going the full legal route is the way. At the same time, keep in mind that the guy who copied your content can simply move elsewhere and restore your content.
Yeah, unfortunately it's not worth the trouble. Was just hoping for a bit of common-sense decency from the provider, but of course that's too much to ask for these days.
True enough. I just don't understand why he is doing this. As far as I can tell there is no monetary incentive for him, as he's not running any ads. I almost wonder if it was done to preserve useful content, as I had a couple of popular tech tip articles with lots of backlinks. But he's not responding to any communication, so I guess he's going to be a jerk about it.
Depending on jurisdiction they are likely legally obligated to forward your report, but not obligated to take further action themselves.
If they have forwarded the report and their client doesn't want to comply and the host still refuses to force their hand you would indeed need to go through the court system.
Maybe he shall start serving ads, soon enough.
That's a bad sign.
Doesn't seem to be a fellow enthusiast.
I don't know...
A vengeful troll from the past, saw you left the domain, traveled back to the future and now fills up his ego by owning your ghost town community?
Knowing you noticed him, makes him soooooooo internal happiness...
@jackb Thanks for confirming. Yes, they claim they did forward my complaint to their client, but I have my doubts.
@Janevski:
Possible, but I actually doubt it. The copied site has been up for at least a year, possibly a lot more.
@Janevski:
Ha, doesn't seem very likely, as it was more of a 1-man info site, hardly any comments and no "regular crowd". But as you say, there's no real way of understanding the motives of these nutcases.
Welcome to LET where 99.2% of users are utter nutcases.
I am probably one of the worse nutcases.
Don't put yourself down, son.
Anyone can send an abuse complaint claiming a website is infringing their content. The host provider is not equipped to arbitrate these issues. That is what the legal system exists for. If someone sells pirated version of your book at their book store, you cannot ask their landlord to raid their store and take it down, you have to go to the courts, you've asked the hosting provider to be an arbitrator but that's not their function and it would be irresponsible for them to act in that capacity.
I would not rent an apartment from a landlord with the sort of common-sense decency you are expecting a provider to have. (Thankfully there are tenant protection laws.) So I wouldn't rent a server from such a provider either, I would be fearful every day that they would take down my website because of some random person's complaint.
I get that, although I did send them positive proof of copyright ownership. And at any rate, why do they have that clause about not hosting illegally copied materials on their AUP if they have neither the ability nor the intention to enforce it?
See if it's a dynamic or static site.
If it's a dynamic site and he has your database, assuming your site was secured properly all the time, then it's someone close, like former staff or hosting provider.
If he just crawled a static html version of the site and hosted it, there are two options:
If the assets (images, active content etc.) aren't preserved - he took it from wayback archive.
If the assets are preserved, he crawled it back in the days and kept it all this time, waited for you to lose the domain - quite likely, your lurking arch nemesis.
Either way, since he is a foe, he might:
- try to earn ads revenue money off your ghost page
- seeing it matters, try to sell it back to you for money
- try to piss you off for own pleasure
- sell it to other people as if own work
There is a forth option, he re-created the whole dynamic site from a static image, in that case, you're working with a meticulous person. Quite unlikely, that is.
Fair enough, if proof is clear and straightforward they could look at it.
I think one reason of explicitly stating it in AUP (vs just saying customers must obey laws of the country that the company/servers are located in, or not saying anything at all since that is probably implicit) may be to dissuade people who are planning to use it as seedbox and such. So they deal with less complaints I guess.
@Janevski Good point. Now that you mention that, I imagine it was probably the result of a hack. I was running Drupal 7 at the time, and got hit by Drupalgeddon. Now the plagiarized site is running Drupal 8. Although it is an incomplete copy, because all the user comments are gone, and the last article I posted is missing, and one of the other articles only has the teaser and is missing the rest. Overall it's really confusing.
I was thinking of maybe trying to send Google proof of copyright and submitting a search index removal request, but of course Google tries to dissuade people from doing so by mentioning the scary legal fees and consequences that could be incurred...
@sb56637 actually I missed where you said the provider is USA based. In that case you could send a formally worded DMCA takedown notice and see if that helps. Like maybe you didn't mention "DMCA" and the details of the law enough in your e-mail (https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/07/06/sample-dmca-take-down-letter/id=4501/).
Thank you very much for the link, I didn't think about that option.
If all fails, pay them a visit with a loaded shotgun.
Pfft, lawyers are much more scary.
Edit: you can kill someone with a shotgun, but you can kill them legally with a lawyer.
My ex-wife is even worse.
Oh, gods. Women. Don't mention those monsters.
Your old site is now a pbn. Basically it exists to provide links to other sites for SEO.
The new owner probably bought hundreds of other expired domains and recreated them, and is likely not even monitoring their email.
I'm positive it's not a malicious personal attack, just a slightly shady seo.
If this content really is important to you, then you could follow the new back links added into the content to find out who's profiting from it. Either the sites will belong to the seo, or they will belong to his/her clients.
Before doing that though, run the articles through copyscape, or at least Google the titles and bits of the content.
5 years is a long time, there's every chance the content has been copied and reposted to hundreds of other sites anyway, in which case you are wasting your time.
Good luck
@sacove: Hmmm interesting. Just another reason more why I hate everything relating to SEO...
@sb56637 I suppose I will ask this question, Do you have another site with the exact same content on it?
Did you erase the site and all its content when you gave up the domain?
If you let the content and domain go, then you can do nothing at all, unless you want to get real lawyers involved and that is going to cost a lot of money, and depending on where the site, and person are located you may not be able to anything anyways.
This is what the DMCA is intended for. Once in a while it is legitimate.
@AuroraZ
I recently re-posted most (but not all) of my articles on another site that I own.
Yes.
The domain I did let go, and I don't care about it. But my understanding is that content is intellectual property with different implicit rights, and I never "let it go" because I simply removed it from the public internet and kept a local backup copy.
So, an update: I just followed @perennate 's suggestion to send a more formal DMCA takedown notice written in legalese, but the host again flatly denied it.
So definitely looking like a lost cause. Still pretty greasy evasion from the provider, whether it's legally right or not they're definitely taking the moral low route.
The whole point of the DMCA takedown provision is that they don't have to decide. They take it down on your request and put it back up on the client's request (counter notification). Go ahead and send them a notice following the format. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA_takedown_notice
Ah, good point.
Yeah, that's what I did, and the provider's response to it was the same as the first time, which is what I posted in the comment above.
It's clear that the host has no intention to comply.
Move on or seek a legal path.
Maybe relevant:
https://www.sriplaw.com/6-factors-considered-copyright-infringement-contingency-litigation/
I don't know if the part about registering before the infringement applies if you register now (while the infringement is already happening) and the infringement continues afterwards. I.e. every time they serve another copy it's a new infringement.
In any case, the host has almost no upside so they're likely to cave the minute you shake a lawyer at them.
Abuse? How strange... You see in that case some "abuse", but you ignore (or forgot) yours... You are funny admin.
sb56637, remember what I told you. In the real world, you can't simply "erase people".