[UPDATE: As of 11:00 am CDT here in Chicago, the GenealogyGen.com site has been taken offline.  Thanks to all of you who left comments on the site and submitted DMCA complaints to HostGator!]

Well I’ve tried to play nice with the owner of The Genealogy Place at genealogyplace.info (see my post here from a few months ago).  Now he’s gone ahead and started a new site called Genealogygen.com which is also stealing content.  The sites are almost identical in their look, content and their spamminess.

Thanks to Google Alerts and the use of pingbacks on all my blogs, I realized my content was being stolen.  Here’s the story:

Offender: Genealogygen.com

The latest violator – a site called Genealogygen.com  (http://genealogygen.com) which is registered to a Yam Kean Boon.  Here is the email I just sent to him last week:

Hello Yam Kean Boon

I am the owner of GeneaBloggers.com and via Google Alerts this morning I found that my recent blog posts have been used at the Genealogygen.com website which, according to the WHOIS record, is owned by you, Yam Kean Boon:

Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
Contact: 
Visit: http://namecheap.com

Domain name: genealogygen.com

Registrant Contact:

Yam Kean Boon ()

Fax:
Blk 65,Commonwealth Drive, #07-307
SG, Singapore 140065
SG

Administrative Contact:

Yam Kean Boon ()
+65.85222207
Fax: +1.5555555555
Blk 65,Commonwealth Drive, #07-307
SG, Singapore 140065
SG

Technical Contact:

Yam Kean Boon ()
+65.85222207
Fax: +1.5555555555
Blk 65,Commonwealth Drive, #07-307
SG, Singapore 140065
SG

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns1559.websitewelcome.com
ns1560.websitewelcome.com

Creation date: 19 Nov 2011 15:13:00
Expiration date: 19 Nov 2012 07:13:00

The post in question is: http://www.geneabloggers.com/genealogy-blogging-beat-monday-august-13-2012/

I am formally requesting that you immediately remove these posts from your site on the basis that they violate the copyright on my intellectual property. You have stolen my content without my permission. Your use of GeneaBloggers content does not fall within the Fair Use doctrine of US Copyright laws. In addition, you are using your own name as author on all of these articles giving the impression that this is your content.

Please remove all GeneaBloggers content immediately and no later than 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time, Friday, Monday, August 20, 2012 and email confirmation to me at geneabloggers@gmail.com once content is removed. You may also reimburse me at the rate of $500 per article if you choose. Either way, please let me know which option you choose.

If content is not removed by 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time, Monday, August 20, 2012, I will pursue all legal remedies including filing a DMCA complaint with Google and with your Internet service provider, Host Gator.

Finally, I am notifying many of my colleagues in the genealogy industry from whom you’ve also misappropriated content.  Since such theft on your site is so pervasive, I will most likely need to alert my community of over 2,800 genealogy bloggers via blog post at GeneaBloggers and have them check your site for their own content. GeneaBloggers has a long history of representing its members in the fight against splogs and content theft – please see http://www.geneabloggers.com/tag/content-theft/ for past occasions where we have successfully won each and every case of content theft.

Please email me if you have any questions.

The Offense

Genealogygen.com is stealing content from genealogy bloggers.  It is copying entire posts and it not linking back to the original post.  In addition, the site appears to be making a profit from affiliate advertising, Google AdSense, links, etc.

What Can You Do?

Contact  Yam Kean Boon at kbyam@yahoo.com using the WHOIS information listed above. Use a cease and desist notice and tell him that your original content is being used and your copyright violated.

Insist that he remove your content or you will contact Genealogygen.com’s web hosting company (Host Gator) and file a DMCA complaint. Click here to access Host Gator’s hard-to-find online complaint form.

I also recommend, if possible, that you post at the comments for each post using your content and link back to this post.  At the very least, they’ve been “called out” here at GeneaBloggers and this info will show up in Google search results.

Conclusion

All readers of GeneaBloggers know – as do our members – that it isn’t playing fair when you have to steal content from others who have worked so hard to document their genealogy journey.

Don’t forget our resource page on Blog Copyright and Content Theft!

GeneaBloggers will always fight the good fight against opportunists who want to ride the current wave of popularity surrounding family history and only take from our community without giving back.

© 2012, copyright Thomas MacEntee