Looking4Fast and Easy way to cease distribution of unwanted materials on the internet

[globalwarming]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY

I need to remove a lot of unwanted copyrighted materials (my own) redistributed without my written consent by half-spam websites (like pinterest, tumblr etc.) from Google and Bing search result pages under my name.

How can I hit this giant corporations strong enough, so they clean up all trash under my name?

 

[Silverplum]

PHx would be mandatory.

 

[FlyingRon]

Each of the major sites has DMCA representatives. You are free to file takedown notices with each. Almost all of them will do it via email or webform.

https://about.pinterest.com/en/copyright
https://www.tumblr.com/dmca

Pretty much you can google "DMCA" and the name of the site you are concerned with and things are usually pretty quickly taken care of. If it is a site that isn't one of these aggregators of third party stuff, then you can generally find the ISP (http://whoishostingthis.com will help) and write them with your complaint.

I've got pretty good experience. The only site that was a royal PITA to get them to remove my stolen content was theexperienceproject, but they seem to be dying anyhow.

Note that if you complain to some of the sites (google's subsidiaries like blogspot), you'll get the "Chilling Effects" listing of your complaint. Chilling Effects counters a very small issue by creating an even larger one, an attempt to surpress copyright holders from defending their works. I abhor their behavior. As your mommy told you at a young age: two wrongs do not make a right.

 

[quincy]

PHx would be mandatory.

^^^ Oh my goodness.

Although FlyingRon has provided you with excellent information on the DMCA takedown notices that allow you to have infringed content removed from sites hosting your copyrighted material without your permission, equally important can be to protect your works from being infringed in the first place.

There are several ways you can make your copyrighted works less vulnerable to infringement. One way is to use the copyright symbol (©) along with the date of your creation and signature on all of your works. Although the © is no longer necessary - copyrights are automatic once the work is fixed in a tangible form - the symbol provides notice to others that your works are rights-protected.

If you have your own website, providing a copyright notice on the site can also help, stating that everything on the site is rights-protected. You can provide along with this notice your contact information and licensing information. Those who wish to use your works can contact you for a license.

It is up to each copyright holder to police the internet for infringement of their works and this can be quite the task. There are tools available for monitoring the internet, however, that make this easier (check out resources like "Google Alerts").

If you find that your works are infringed, you can then follow the steps outlined by FlyingRon to have your works removed from their online locations. If removal alone is not enough to remedy the harm caused by the unauthorized use of your works, you can consider sending a demand letter requesting compensation and/or you can sue the infringer.

Although federal registration of your copyrights is not necessary, registration of your works prior to infringement makes you eligible to collect statutory damages. Statutory damages range from $750 to $30,000 per infringed work, or up to $150,000 per infringed work for especially egregious, willful infringement. The cost to register a work is small ($35) and the benefits can be large.

Good luck.

 

[FlyingRon]

By the way, even when the copyright marking was required the word Copyright was an allowable substitution (or perhaps the circle-C was an allowable substitution for the word Copyright).

 

[quincy]

By the way, even when the copyright marking was required the word Copyright was an allowable substitution (or perhaps the circle-C was an allowable substitution for the word Copyright).

The copyright symbol (©) was not introduced until 1954. Prior to that, the word "copyright" or the abbreviation "copr" was used, along with a date and signature, to signify the work was copyrighted. The notice was required prior to March 1, 1989, to have copyright protection for a work.