With the associated costs of holiday home ownership rising, there is an increasing number of holiday home owners turning to holiday lettings as a means to generate income. Whilst the majority of property owners will market their rentals professionally, there are some ‘accidental holiday rental landlords’ who will steal your photos or website copy and pass them off as their own.

Although it’s claimed that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, when it comes to a competitor stealing your content, it’s not flattering, it’s theft. Ultimately, it could be costing you bookings and it needs to be addressed.

There is every possibility that the culprit owns a property in the same village or on the same holiday complex and that you might well bump into each other at some point. With this in mind how should you address the situation?

Sending a friendly email asking the culprit to remove the photo/content will generally work – usually followed by an apology over the ‘misunderstanding’. However, if your requests are ignored, matters need to be taken further.

Steps to stop and remove content theft

How to find stolen images

Browsing competing advertisements on holiday rental websites can be a simple, but effective way to identify copyright infringement. For example, if your apartment is on a complex with a communal pool then someone may be using your skilfully taken photo of the pool, the same applies to photos of local tourist attractions.

Also try a Google image search (select image tab at the top of the search page) to find copies of your photos. Search for keywords relating to your property, area, complex/property name, title of your photo or filename.

A useful tool to detect image misuse is Tineye a reverse image search engine. You can either upload an image or URL. Tineye will then report on where an image is being used.

Tip: watermarking your images can deter image theft. http://www.picmarkr.com lets you add a logo, text or URL to a photo.

How to find stolen content

Finding stolen copy can be more difficult, as generally speaking your copy will be slightly edited in an attempt to disguise the theft. However, you will instantly recognise content you creatively created even if it isn’t an exact match.

To track down stolen content search for a unique section of your copy (a few sentences or a paragraph) on Google within quotes “”. For example “enter your text here”

You can also use a tool called Copyscape. Simply enter the URL of the content you want to check and Copyscape searches for copies of your work.

Finally, use Google Alerts to automate your plagiarism detection searching. Set up search phrases relating to your property, your location, complex/property name and website url and Google Alerts will email you when it finds new sites containing the phrases.

If you identify improper use of your content, gather evidence then move onto the next step – contacting the offender.

Contacting a plagiarist

If your images are being used on a holiday rental portal, contact the site explaining the copyright infringement. Although it may take a few days for the images to be removed (because for some strange reason the sites generally contact the offender to remove the images?) the professional paid for listing sites tend to cooperate based on the evidence.

As mentioned previously, if your holiday home is on a complex or in small village, you may know the offender or you may well bump into each other at some point. With this in mind, sending a friendly e-mail to the website owner asking them to remove the copyrighted material should be the first step.

Usually the content/photo will be removed with an apology, an explanation that they underestimated the severity of the theft, or the blame will be passed to a designer, family member, pa etc. Problem solved, move on but check back every so often to see if the ‘misunderstanding’ re-papers.

What if you don’t get a response?

If you don’t get a response then you may wish to proceed to a more formal approach. Send a formal Cease & Desist letter to the site owner highlighting the infringing content and your original source. Dictate a strict deadline for removal of the copyrighted material and inform them of the consequences if they don’t comply. A threat of possible legal action, monetary damages and contacting their website host should get a reply and the content removed.

There should be obvious contact details on the website as this is where they receive holiday rental enquiries. If there are no contact details displayed visit http://www.domaintools.com to lookup the domain owner.

Some sites also have a link to the website designer at the bottom of the page. You could also contact them. Any professional designer will be aware of the consequences of copyright infringement.

Further steps

By this stage, 90% of the time the offending material will be removed. If you don’t have any success then you can either stop wasting time pursuing the offender or take things to the next level.

  • Alert the host (look up the host at http://www.whoishostingthis.com) of the infringement and ask them to remove the material.
  • File a notice of Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) infringement with search engines to have the offending site removed from their search results.

Although it may seem trivial to go to such lengths to remove misuse of your photos/content, for many it’s a matter of principal. Many holiday home owners go to great lengths and expense to stage professional photos and promote their rentals. Why should a competitor use your content without permission.

Hopefully the advice above will assist you in getting the improper use of your material removed.

Further reading: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com is an excellent resource where you can find Cease & Desist letter templates and further advice.

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