Last week, a former client of mine contacted me in a panic. She had discovered quite by accident that a competitor had stolen her website copy; the very copy she had hired me to write for her. With only a few word changes to cover the difference in their services, the copy was identical. She was furious, felt violated and emailed me in search of guidance. As her copywriter, I was angry too. After all, I had put in my time and effort to create copy that was original, appropriate and accurate for her organization. Though my all my clients fully own the rights to any work I do for them, to have my work stolen is the emotional equivalent of having a stranger playing with my baby. And although I know text is stolen all the time on the web, this was the first time it had happened to me or one of my clients.
So I did some research and spoke to a lawyer friend of mine about protecting copy on the web. Prevention is key. Any original work – whether you wrote it yourself or hired a copywriter – is protected automatically under the copyright laws (That’s “copyright,” not “copywriting”. The former is the legal protection of original works of authorship, the latter is what I do for a living.) However, obtaining a copyright registration brings added benefits when someone steals your content. You generally need a registration to bring a lawsuit, if it comes to that. Also, statutory damages and attorney fees can be awarded only if you have a registration before any infringement starts. So if you are really concerned about protecting your copy, I suggest you visit for more information about filing an application.
In the case of this client, however, she did not own a copyright registration, which is why she was in such a panic. My research to help her turned up this , which guides the reader to first find out who owns the website (if it’s not obvious from the site itself) and who is hosting the website or the web master of it. Then send a formal cease and desist letter to the competitor and their web master, both describing the stolen content and giving them a window of time during which they need to remove the content or you will pursue further action. (Here are a couple of websites that have sample cease and desist letters: UTSystems and .) The idea is to be polite, professional but firm. Most people should react quickly to this approach, if they want to save their business from any unwanted attention, challenges and fees. And in fact, that’s just what happened with my client’s competitor; their website is now currently under construction. Her approach worked.
Your business is important to you; that’s why you hired a professional copywriter to create your content. Taking just a few extra steps to protect that content can save you a lot of headache in the future.
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