I am pretty new to this Forum, but I have been promoting my businesses for quite a while. I recently discovered that a local woman has stolen my copyright protected information off of my website. She used it for her own website and marketing brochure. I am so mad! I have just discovered that she goes to several local networking groups, and I don't know how to act around her in person. Although I know who she is, I have not met her before. I am dealing with the legalities of this separately, but does anyone have any advice on how to interact with her in person? Thank you.

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~ Jennifer ~

Should you run into her be polite but let her know you do bot take her copyright infrigment lightly. If you sent her a cease and desist letter chances are she will avoid you at all cost anyway.

You are right and she is wrong so just take it from there. Hopefully you are getting to leads before she does.

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Lee Drozak
My Office Assistant

My goodness! that's shocking, I agree with what Lee has suggested. I think she will probably be most embarrassed that she's got caught, but she shouldn't be in this business if she can't find the passion to put her own content together.

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Kels

www.kellycairns.co.uk

Civil, polite, but cold is my advice. I would avoid speaking to her, if possible...

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

Hi Jennifer, I can understand how frustrating that must be for you.

Totally agree with the others that a cease & desist email would be most effective. If she ignores it, you could perhaps follow up and say that you will have no hesitation in exposing her if she doesn't change her content within X number of days.

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"Instead of looking for things that have gone wrong and trying to fix them...Look for things that went right and try to build on them" Tom Peters

Thank you for you valuable suggestions. I am still in the process of dealing with this matter and hope to resolve it in a few weeks (at most).

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~ Jennifer ~

Wow Jennifer, I just would be furious if someone pulled that on me! It would be best not to speak with her directly, let your lawyer do that for you. You may want to alert the other members of the local groups to check on their content to see if she has been stealing theirs too - you may be able to do something legally as a group?

In the meantime, do you have a way to report her to the site she uses to host her website - maybe they would remove the content or her site altogetherwith? I don't know the logisitics of this - just a thought.

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http://www.TaylorResourcesWriting.com

If you happen to be a member of the same networking group, it may be a good idea for you to ask the group moderator if you can do a small presentation. Do a 15 minute presentation about the negative affects of stealing someone elses website ideas. In addition it might not be a bad idea to make sure you make direct eye contact with her a few times during the presentation and speak about how dishonest it is and a huge offense to the honest VA's out there. Good luck!

Wow, Jennifer, I can imagine how hard it will be to see this person face to face. I agree that you should start by sending the cease and desist letter.

It is a sad, sad fact that many people believe that if something is on the internet, is public domain and they can use it however they see fit. For some reason, they don't consider it plagerism, copyright infringement or stealing.

Whatever you do, remain calm and professional, and you will triumph in the end.

Heather