But let's assume that no notice is taken of your polite missive. Your next step is to get "nasty" and to contact the ISP that hosts the offending site with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint.
This is not as formidable as it sounds. It consists merely of sending an e-mail, followed by a registered letter, to the ISP explaining that a client of theirs is infringing upon your copyright. The ISP doesn't want trouble and will usually do everything it can to help you. The message takes this form:
December 5, 2007 To the Administrator of (the ISP name): Re: Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint I am the copyright owner of the web site "Llewllyn's Llamasery" at llewellynsllamasery.com. My registration certificate for the copyright is dated July 14, 2005, and has the certificate number 12345-67. It has come to my attention that the site "Lloyd's Llama Llore", hosted by your service, contains material which has been copied from my site. Appended to this message you will find a list of the pages on the offending site and the corresponding pages on my site. If you compare the two you will see the copied material. I HAVE A GOOD FAITH BELIEF THAT USE OF THE COPYRIGHT MATERIAL DESCRIBED HERE ON THE ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING WEB PAGES IS NOT AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER, ITS AGENT, OR THE LAW. I SWEAR, UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY, THAT THE INFORMATION IN THIS NOTIFICATION IS ACCURATE AND THAT I AM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR AM AUTHORIZED TO ACT ON BEHALF OF THE OWNER OF AN EXCLUSIVE RIGHT THAT IS ALLEGEDLY INFRINGED. A copy of this notification follows by ordinary mail. Thanking you for your immediate cooperation, I am Llewellyn Llamalover, 607-123-4567 llamalover@llewellynsllamasery.com Box 8008, Station A, Turkey Neck Bend, Kentucky 88888
List here, side by side, the URLs of the offending pages and the corresponding URLs for the corresponding pages on your site:
Pages on Lloyd's Llama Llore: Pages on Llewllyn's Llamasery: lloydsllamalore.com/llama.htm llewellynsllamasery.com/info.html lloydsllamalore.com/llama2.html llewellynsllamasery.com/info2.html
etc.
You can copy these addresses from the URL line in your browser.
Include all the pages that have pirated material, even if that means every page! The more instances you can demonstrate the more convincing your case will be.
Include a date, as shown, because that unambiguously specifies when you informed the ISP of the infringement. They than have no excuse for saying that they couldn't tell.
The paragraphs in capital letters represent the legal text that must be present in your message.
Again, sending a copy of the notice by registered U.S. mail is a further fortification that you mean business, as well as a physical thing that can't be lost in the ether somewhere. Include a paragraph stating "this is a copy of an e-mail I sent to you on December 5, 2007".
Send the messages off and wait for a response. I'd think that two weeks is more than enough for the ISP to respond to you; if nothing comes, repeat the messages but include a paragraph stating "I originally sent you this message on December 5, 2007. To date I have had no response from you". If you get no answer to this, or if the offending site is not cleared up within a reasonable time, then you probably have no recourse but to engage an attorney.
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