Real Estate Blog - IF YOU'VE BEEN VIOLATED BY A COPYRIGHT THIEF, DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!

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IF YOU'VE BEEN VIOLATED BY A COPYRIGHT THIEF, DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!

This post inspired by Tracy Santrock's excellent post describing her experience discovering that her content had been stolen and used by a competitor. I could surely identify with her feelings of shock, disappointment and finally outrage. I have felt those same emotions many times, each time I discover one of my location maps on a competitor's web site. Not unlike my experience, Tracy discovered her content on a competitor's blog by accident.

CONSIDER THE IRONY. In my case, I was reviewing Baltimore real estate agents' web sites looking for a referral agent. I saw a comprehensive web site for the area of my search and when I started to tour the web site, I ran into not just one, not just 3, but between 11-13 of my maps on that web site. He has also used my unique demographic presentation. This was about 4 years ago. How I discovered my unique maps on another agent's web site was as interesting as what transpired following. I love irony.

I came to a web site and saw a link to Baltimore County and "BAM", right in the solar plexus, MY BALTIMORE COUNTY MAP. So I looked at other links on the site; Anne Arundel County, MY MAP, Montgomery County, MY MAP and so on. It's been some time now but I believe that there were 11-13 of my maps on that agent's web site. I contacted my attorney and my copyright adventure began that day. Not only did the agent lose the opportunity to receive 4-6 Baltimore County referrals each month, he eventually paid me $41,000 in damages for Copyright Infringement. His broker paid about $10,500 and two other agents who were sharing that web site paid about $7,500 each.

PRE-ACTIVERAIN. Before ActiveRain, I often review local web sites and contact site owners looking for good referral agents. My Internet presence generates far more business than I or the brokers in my network can help. Needless to say, that agent was not invited to join the Homefinders.com Referral Network. That cost him too.

You gotta love the irony.

Baltimore Map

Posted by Lenn Harley, Real Estate Broker, Maryland & Virginia on 11/26/2008 03:15 PM

Comments (39)

Post is included in group: Club Chaos
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: The Ninety-ninth Percentile

39 Comments on IF YOU'VE BEEN VIOLATED BY A COPYRIGHT THIEF, DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!

NOV

Lenn, Was that the one with the Russian webmaster?

Richard. That was one of the excuses he used. Yes.

Believing in karma as I do, I have to think that you probably well out-performed this competitor and something bad happened. Of course, on the up side, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Have a Happy Thanksgiving. !

Lenn - Have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Lenn, one thing I learned right off the bat here on ActiveRain, don't mess with Lenn, and don't copy her maps. Have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow.

I drool each time I look at your maps. Now, how could it not look juicy enough to use on other websites? Just right-click, copy and paste right?

I'm sorry I may sound I didn't take this seriously. But I'm in a Thanksgiving mood with a tummy full of food. It's hard to think!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, my friend!

Be thankful that it is a infrequent event so we can do our job and not have people stealing our copyrighted material.

NOV

Wow, Lenn you are "no joke" lady! Good for you.

Amber. Thanks. No joke when folks want a free ride with my hard work.

Terry. Right you are. Most agents would not think of stealing a word or anyone else's content. However, the ones who do must be dealt with swiftly and made to pay.

Loreena. Thanks for the gracious comment. Now go take a nap.

George. Thanks and the same to you.

Jeff. You too. It will be a fun day.

Lenn,

I stopped by to wish you and those you will gather with today a Happy Thanksgiving Day! You're my go-to blogger on copyrights (should that be singular? LOL)

Mike in Tucson

Mike. Either or either.

Very cool maps Lenn! I wish that I knew how to do maps like that!!! Very cool!

Thank yuou for sharing Lenn. I may at some time need to contact you. I am afraid that I am one that some times gives up because I am copied so much. Not so much for art work but for content. By the way I love your maps. They are the best! You are an extremely taented person.

Thanks. Tami. The maps are fun.

Jim. The only advice I can give you is to preserve the evidence. Beyond that, you just pay a good attorney to represent you.

Thanks Lenn! Happy Thanksgiving!

Lenn, I haven't followed your copyright crusade from the beginning... so if I'm asking a question that's been answered before... forgive me. How do they determine those amounts $41,000... $10,500... $7,500..?

Is it based on how much it cost to develop the maps... a specific amount per map and per use... how much money they, potentially, made off the map usage?? Just curious (and no... I don't have pages full of copyright protected stuff on my website).

I love your maps so much I am actually illustrating one for that Bob Stewart market report from hell that I am working on. I want a black think tank tee like Chris Elizabeth and figured I can not go wrong following the best brains in the business (LOL). Truth is, I am having losts of fun with it. Happy Thanksgiving, love. You are my hero. YOU ROCK!

Alan. The damages are based on how many of my maps they used, how they respond when they receive the C&D letter from my attorney. If they cause my legal fees to go up by not cooperating with the demans, the legal fees go up. Copyright damages for registered content are $750 to $30,000 per use, PLUS LEGAL FEES. The more they make me pay to collect damages, the more I collect. The fact that my maps rank high in SERP is important too. Each case is different.

Also, I believe you do have copyright protected stuff on your web site. Even a list is copyright protected.

Carolyn. I'm not sure I understand what you wrote, but Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, since real estate isn't bringing in much income right now, maybe I need to start searching websites!

Like they say a copyright is only as good as you are willing to defend it. You have been an inspiration and a great tutor to many of us. Thank you!

NOV

Randy. The thought of someone sitting with a smug grin on their face thinking how smart they are to just find, right click and use anything they want on the Internet infuriates me. I refuse to let them get away with it.

Jeremy. Maybe you should.

Lenn.... as always, you put out some good information on this.... and it kills me that someone would steal your stuff... well, anyone's stuff... and as I mentioned, even blurbs of someone's stuff, just to gain SEO to their site to sell stuff to others...

PS... did you get my e-mail about that? In regards to the same person stealing my stuff, but how to go about it, since there are no contact information. Just a site to gain SEO so people click on the links to sell stuff. thanks

jeff belonger

Jeff. I did NOT get any e-mail from you about the matter. Send it again to

lennharley@mris.com

I'm cleaning out some malware today, so I may not get to it until later.

Lenn

Lenn: I would be interested in your response to Jeff's issue. I talked to Jeff about this and I have had the same issue so if you could write a blanket post about it, that would be super!

Also, I believe you do have copyright protected stuff on your web site. Even a list is copyright protected.

Lenn... if you could let me know what you think is copyright protected... I'll look into it and remove it if you're right. I am not interested in purposely copyright infringment.

thanx

Renee. As soon as someone can explain the problem to me, I'll see if I can figure it out.

Lenn

Lenn... I just went through my blog, and the few lists I have there were either created entirely by me... or gleaned from many many lists on the internet (a bullet point here, and a bullet point there)... not taken from any single e-mail, or website... so I don't see how they would be infringement.

You are allowed to "clip" small portions from copyrighted materials (you are supposed to reference them... but when they arrive as jokes, anonymous emails, etc... how are you to do that?).

Alan. You wrote: I don't have pages full of copyright protected stuff on my website).

I looked at your Coldwell Banker web site and saw a number of lists, which are copyright protected by YOU.

That's what I meant. I suspect that you meant copyright by others. You site is quite clean from what I saw.

The reason I wrote what I wrote is because I've read where someone would advice that lists cannot be copyrighted. That's not so. Lists are copyright protected when the writer creates a list themselves. However, if someone copies that list and put's it on their web site, they would have violated the copyright of the person who created the list.

We were talking about two different "copyright" meanings.

ahh... you're right... I was referring to my having "stolen" copyright materials. But I'm sure there are plenty of things on our CB site that are copyright protected by CB.

Laziness can be a costly mistake. Lack of integrity, even greater.

Lenn- Good for you, you go! When they pay out of their pocketbook, they will think twice about ever doing copy and pasting your work again. Happy Thanksgiving, back to putting up our lights.

If an agent is so arrogant or lazy to steal someone else's content, that tells me a couple of things -- 1) they don't appreciate the time and effort it takes to create original content, and 2) they probably cut corners and bend (or break) rules in other areas of their business. That's definitely not the kind of agent I want to do business with.

NOV

John. You focus on an important matter, honesty. An agent who would steal the creative content of another agent would surely not have the ethics and standards of conduct we expect and rely upon in fellow agents and brokers.

Katerina. Thanks. Hopefully, they will think about taking the creative property of anyone.

Rebecca. Thanks you. I try to put a financial hurt on anyone who steals my intellectual property. The more they take from me, the more I want to take in $$$$ from them.

Alan. Good. We're on the same page. What you can use of CB property is between you and CB.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that ran into this problem. I appreciate your generous words of advice and encouragement regarding my case. Thanks to your advice I have a plan to make sure this doesn't happen again in the futture.

Tracy. Thanks. We have to keep these content thieves in line.

SEP

Very interesting. I wonder though how much time should be invested (or maybe use Copyscape) to protect my content?

Tina. I don't bother to protect my text content. It changes often and I'm not sure it's worth bothering with .

My map images, however, are unique, copyright protected and I make any map thief pay.

OCT

Lenn, After several emails I finally learned that the folks at HomeRenovationGuide.com decided that if they were getting my newsletter, then it was okay to lift my articles and publish them on their site. The mistake they made was to give credit to my franchisor rather than me as the author (they said they thought it was corporate material which it's not).

I've left the article there now that I'm getting the bio box and link. I've got tons more to learn in this space, that's for sure so I know I'll be back here looking for advice soon.

Tina. One important thing to keep in mind.

Credit or attribution is not PERMISSION. Just giving a person credit for the original isn't enough.

I found two of my maps this week on different service company's web sites. I e-mailed them and told them to revove my copyright protected map or give me a back link.

They gave me a back link. Of course, if they had been real estate licensees using my maps to compete with me, I wouldn't have contacted them. My attorney would.

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