How to punish an unscrupulous site owner who earns on someone else's work?

Question

Marketing

Briefly. My dad is a music teacher. About a year ago, he began recording video piano lessons using his own author's method. He contacted one person who had a burning desire to create a site, take over the administration and start promoting his video tutorials in order to make money. At the initial stage, I somehow didn’t really like everything, but okay, I think that something bad can happen?

And this is what happened - this unfortunate administrator exhausted all the nerves of both dad and me (I also had to delve into the situation). Under the video lessons there are comments where students can communicate with the teacher - he climbs there and, listening to himself as a teacher, gives completely idiotic advice). He posts some materials compiled by him (naturally, all this is complete nonsense; imagine a schoolboy who has just learned the basics of Pascal and undertook to write a Pascal textbook, is it absurd?).

Result: the relationship with the administrator was terminated, not a penny was received from the site, but the site continues to live and this person earns money on it, on advertising and paid video tutorials (there are 12 of them released). He continues to communicate with students on behalf of the teacher, but the visitors do not know this, they think the teacher answers them.

My dad and I decided to create our own small website dedicated to his work, where we can post everything for free and without advertising. No purpose to earn. Still, the main goal is to "cultivate the population" and convey his (father's) method of teaching music to as many people as possible. The site was created, posted all the lessons for free.

Now, in fact, the essence of the problem: due to the fact that “that” site was created earlier, it is more promoted and people are more likely to find it in search engines than ours (despite the fact that we have everything for free, and lessons one and a half times more have already been released and new ones are published regularly).

Task: “redirect” the audience from someone else’s site to ours or in some way and convey to this audience that all lessons are free and that you don’t have to pay some administrator for them, but you need to come to us, where there is a live teacher who is in charge questions and publishes new lessons.

How to proceed? The plan is to file a complaint with YouTube, but this will not help much - that administrator stores all paid content on the server and plays it through his own player, which is quite logical. Are there any options to contact, for example, search engines (at least Yandex), so that they understand the situation and lower the bad site in the search results? Should I write to the host? (Hoster, like, reg.ru). I wouldn’t want to resort to particularly drastic measures (sue), it’s a lot of time and nerves, dad would be better off doing creative work ...

If necessary (and / or if interested) - I can provide links to both sites. I don’t give them right away, so that you don’t consider this post as hidden advertising.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Who would create the same lessons on legal literacy? :)
Videos with lessons belong to your father. Without an appropriate agreement, their use, especially for profit, is illegal.
To a copyright lawyer and then with him in court.
You simply seek:
- removal of your videos from the site
- compensation in the amount of illegally obtained profits
- compensation for moral damage
- compensation for legal costs
- depending on the amount of damage - up to the deadline, though most likely conditional

Answer 2

The search engines will not do anything at your request and, at best, will advise you to go to court.

Answer 3

Try to write an abuse not on the hoster, but on the domain registrar. If he loses the domain, then you win in the direction of promotion. True, there is still a chance that that person in terms of SEO is better than you. And then it will be easier for him to promote a new domain than for you just by filling your site.
There is an option to force it out of the search engines by black methods. From the mass purchase of links from shitty sites, to throwing the site into the grid of shitty satellites. This can be addressed to the SEO community on Search or other major SEO forums.
In addition to the voice mention in ALL lessons, his new site. It is also worth inserting a visual line into the video. So that the address meets there ... It is possible as a logo for TV channels. Plus, sometimes on top of the lesson it’s translucent to start up for 2-3 seconds, 5 times per video. And just at the moment when there is some kind of explanation. To make it harder to cut.
You produce lessons. That is, they appear regularly. At the same "entrepreneur", they do not appear. Or he stupidly pulls them from the Internet, not limited to your father.
Z.Y. Personally, I would have scored on that person, well, I would have done an abuse to the domain registrar without much bothering with the result, but I would have developed my site myself. Not in a week, but in half a year, with proper marketing, it would be possible to overtake a competitor in the target niche.

Answer 4

Maybe try filing a police report? As a rule, one communication with shoulder straps is enough for a person to score on this matter.

Answer 5

The minimum compensation for copyright infringement is 10,000 rubles. You can multiply by the number of facts of violation and boldly demand this amount along with the requirement to remove the videos from the site. But, only judgment. In my opinion it's worth it.

Answer 6

A hoster is not a permanent thing, if problems arise, then the client switches to more bulletproof ones.
Search engines are designed to find relevant information to a query. The user entered "Music" and he gets the music, and the search engines do not care about its source.
The court is such a headache, especially in the field of copyright. To prove authorship, to prove violation of rights, and so on, it will take a lot of time and nerves.
Therefore, negotiations or SEO remain.

Answer 7

As far as I know, REG.RU immediately responds to such questions, and with sufficient evidence, you can achieve success.

Answer 8

> he climbs there and, listening to himself as a teacher, gives completely idiotic advice
, uh, sorry, making a shield? :)

Answer 9

Statement to the police and to the court you.

Answer 10

Guys, what kind of lawyer?
To begin with, you can get by with little blood by writing to WebMoney arbitration, abuses to other payment systems, to the hosting provider at which the site is located.
For everything about everything - an hour of leisurely inventing texts.
Well, who will bother with bulletproof hosting?
Simply with little bloodshed, you can create N problems for the user, on the solution of which he will spend more effort.
If you are a fool, nothing can be done about it except for a “lawyer and a court”, and if you are not a fool, you will make contact and settle the issue with you personally.

Answer 11

After reading the previous tips, I'll try to decompose logically.
The villain breaks the law. The most correct will be to act according to the law, demanding financial compensation. Spend a little time talking to at least a couple of lawyers, inviting them to take over the case and pay according to the result. If the case is won, then the scoundrel will pay the costs of the lawyer. Recently, copyright in Russia has ceased to be an empty phrase, so the chances of a positive outcome for you are high.
Writing to webmoney makes sense only if the goal is to “complicate life” for a nail. But he will spend as much time as you do to simply turn off WebMoney or switch to another wallet.

Answer 12

Friends, it is necessary to choose a solution method that is most effective and will work most quickly.
I vote for:
1. Sending a well-formed legal letter to this person. Moreover, you must convey to him the idea that the letter was written by a lawyer and that you actually have the intention to go to court, and not just decided to scare him. In the letter, you need to colorfully describe the consequences of going to court.
2. Filing with the court by hiring a competent lawyer.
There is also such an organization as RAO (http://rao.ru/). They might be of some help to you too. You can try to register your video lessons in the RAO, and then, being the legal owners, set the RAO on the offender. They have their own very experienced lawyers in these matters.
3. Alternatively, if this person works in the administration of the province, try to go to an appointment with his boss and explain the situation. If the boss is an adequate person, everything will stop very quickly.
If everything you describe is true, then I am somewhat surprised by the arrogance and self-confidence of the said person. Steal someone else's work, and even sell it. Hmm... It's likely that he thinks he has the rights to this material, which is why he does it.
4. I see no point in following the SEO path. Firstly, the result is quite unpredictable, and secondly, nothing will prevent this person from continuing to harm you. You need to find a legal way to stop him. You can indeed try to file a complaint with the domain administrator, but this will be a temporary solution.
Try to follow the path of the shortest, but most effective. Don't waste time on half measures. Time today is money.

Answer 13

You can also complain to those places through which he receives payment, or sells advertising.

Answer 14

Also upload new video tutorials, call the address of the new site out loud in them. Periodically write on specialized forums which site is real and which is not.

Answer 15

Try to contact a lawyer but ask him to write a competent letter to this bad person. Do not start a trial and nothing like that - just a letter (... until 10:00, May 20, 2013, otherwise the application to the court will be sent). It is highly likely that when he sees such a text, he will understand that everything is serious.

Answer 16

“Lowering it in the search results” is a stupid idea, by such actions you can get yourself more headaches. For black SEO, any search engine will want to ban you and will certainly not cooperate with you. For an outside observer, you still need to find out who is who - maybe you are the author of a fake and give idiotic advice on the original site in the comments - we both know that this is not so, but no one will take your word for any attempts "black SEO" will first be banned, and then, maybe, if someone wants to listen to the "banned" in a good mood, you will get a couple of answers "nothing can be undone".
Look at things pragmatically: what is your problem with this third-party site and how can you solve it?
1) Disputes about intellectual property rights must be resolved in court. Find a lawyer with a reasonable price tag and spend a couple of days. If it doesn’t work, you will lose 2 days maximum.
2) The mere fact of having a third-party site does not prohibit you from developing your site. Well, there is someone in the search results above - life has not ended. There are enough resources on the planet for everyone - there are billions of people, you won’t serve them all with all your desire, so just find your customers, don’t worry about strangers. Buy advertising, after all - any business requires investment.
3) Your time is money. In this case, the more of your time you spend on someone else's site, the less you spend on your own, thus helping to defeat yourself in the competition. You can spend the most optimal time with lawyers in court, the rest is fussing to your own detriment.

Answer 17

write an abuse to the registrar, hoster for a start. Then to court.

Answer 18

Article 1269 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Right of withdrawal
The author has the right to revoke a previously adopted decision on the publication of the work (right of withdrawal), subject to compensation to the person who has been alienated the exclusive right to the work or granted the right to use the work for the losses caused by such a decision. If the work has already been published, the author is also obliged to publicly announce its withdrawal. In this case, the author has the right to withdraw from circulation previously issued copies of the work, indemnifying the losses caused by this.
The rules of this article shall not apply to computer programs, to service works, and to works included in a complex object (Article 1240).