Someone Copied My Website: What You Can Actually Do

You clicked through to a competitor's site and read your own sentences. Maybe it was the photographs you paid for, or the layout you spent weeks on, or all three. The first instinct is an email, a public post, or a call to a lawyer, and each of those can make the next month worse. The people who come out of this well do something slower in the first hour: they save the evidence before the page changes, they work out which of the copied things the law actually protects, and they check who owns those things before claiming them. After that, the process is mostly forms, and most of the forms are free. This is general information rather than legal advice, and where it says a lawyer is worth calling, it means it.

The copied page can change tonight, and once it does your comparison is a memory. Everything about the first hour is aimed at freezing what exists right now. Record the copied URL and your original URL. Take screenshots that show the full browser address bar and the page together, with the date visible. Save the page source or download the page where that is possible. Capture any search result that shows the copy appearing for your terms. Do not edit your own page to make the comparison neater, because the original as it stood is part of the evidence.

Then leave the copier alone for a moment. A public accusation, a threatening email or a review-site post creates a second dispute on top of the first, and the takedown process that comes later runs on good-faith, accurate statements rather than on anger. The calm, specific, private request comes after you know what you own and what is protected, and it works better for having waited an afternoon.

"They copied my whole site" turns into an itemised list once the law is applied to it, and the list is shorter than the feeling. The Copyright Office's overview puts it plainly: copyright protects original works once they are fixed, which on a website means the text you wrote, the photographs you took or commissioned, the illustrations, and the code. It does not protect an idea, a method, a fact, a title, a name, a short phrase, a slogan, or a familiar design treatment. A competitor who offers the same services in the same order, uses a hero image and three columns, and says "family owned and operated" has copied nothing the law recognises. A competitor who lifted your three paragraphs about drainage and your photograph of the finished patio has.

A few changed words do not decide it either way. The question is whether protected expression was copied, and the comparison table, one row per item, is how that question gets answered honestly.

With the screenshots taken, add the independent record. The Internet Archive's Save Page Now captures a single page and returns a permanent URL, and its help material says some pages cannot be saved and crawled pages can take three to ten hours to appear. Save the copied page and your original, and check for earlier Wayback captures of both, because a capture of your page from two years ago is the kind of publication evidence nobody can argue with. Keep the archive links beside the local captures.

Then gather what proves the work is yours: the CMS revision history, the original image files with their dates, the invoices, the contributor agreements, the dated drafts, the stock licences. Build the comparison table from all of it: one row per work, the original location, the copied location, what matches, who made it, what shows when it was made, and whether a licence, a stock agreement, an employee arrangement or a client contract might affect ownership. That last column is the one people skip and the one that matters most in the next section.

• Both URLs, recorded exactly.
• Screenshots with the address bar and date visible, of every affected page.
• Page source or downloaded files where relevant.
• Wayback captures of both pages, plus any earlier ones.
• Your originals: files, revisions, drafts, invoices, agreements, licences.
• The comparison table, one row per work.
• The host and its copyright contact, found from the copied domain.

Copyright initially belongs to the person who created the work, and the Copyright Office's work-for-hire circular is clear that paying for a commissioned work does not by itself make it yours. Employee work in the course of employment is generally the employer's. A commissioned work is work for hire only in specific categories with a signed written agreement saying so. Otherwise, what you own is whatever the contract assigned or licensed to you, and a photographer, a copywriter or a designer who reserved rights still holds them.

So, before a single notice goes out, find the paperwork for each row in the table. The freelancer's agreement. The photographer's licence. The stock-image terms, which may not permit enforcement by you at all. The web designer's contract and what it says about the copy, the images and the code. A notice sent over a work you do not own is not a strong notice. It is a risk, and the next section says why.

Google's legal removal process can take a search result down after a valid copyright complaint, and Google's transparency reporting gives an average processing time of about six hours for requests through its web form. What that removal does is delist the result. The copied page stays live at its host, reachable by its URL and by any other search engine. If the objective is the copy gone from the web, the target is the host, through its designated copyright agent, and the Google request runs alongside it rather than instead of it.

The search side has one more honest fact worth knowing, because the version that circulates is wrong in a way that costs people time. Google's canonicalisation documentation says it clusters pages with substantially similar content, picks one as canonical and crawls the others less often. Duplicate content is generally not a spam-policy violation. There is no automatic penalty on the copier, and no promise that your page is the one Google picks, which is one more reason removal at the host matters. Search Console will show you which URL Google selected as canonical for pages you control, and it is worth watching for your brand and your best-value queries while this plays out.

With the evidence saved, the table built and the ownership checked, the process is a sequence, and the order protects you.

• A calm private request first, where it is safe. Name the URLs and the specific material, ask for its removal, claim nothing beyond the evidence, and keep the message and any reply. Skip this step where there are threats, impersonation, fraud or a wider dispute.
• A compliant notice to the host, for works you own or are authorised to enforce. The Copyright Office's Section 512 guidance lists what it contains: identification of the protected work, identification of the copy and where it is, your contact details, a statement of good-faith belief that the use is not authorised, a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you are authorised, and a signature. Use the host's published form or its designated agent. The Copyright Office says plainly that you do not need a lawyer to send one.
• A Google removal request in parallel, for the search result.
• Separate tracking for each target. Host, Google, any social platform, any marketplace. Case numbers, dates, deadlines.
• Expect the counter-notice. The host may notify the uploader, who can send a counter-notice. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512, the host may then restore the material between 10 and 14 business days after receiving it, unless you have filed a court action seeking to restrain the infringement. A counter-notice is the moment a lawyer earns the call.
• Escalate selectively. A lawyer when ownership is disputed, when the copy keeps coming back, when a brand or impersonation issue sits under it, or when a court deadline is in play. The Copyright Claims Board is a voluntary, virtual small-claims forum: the respondent can opt out within 60 days of being served, and the Board cannot order anyone to stop unless they agree.

The part that makes the order matter is Section 512(f). A knowing material misrepresentation in a notice, that material is infringing when you knew it was not, or that you own something you do not, makes you liable for the other side's damages, costs and attorneys' fees. A notice over an unprotectable idea, a licensed template, or a photograph you licensed rather than own is a notice that can turn on you. The table and the paperwork are what keep it honest.

The out-of-pocket figures are few and public, checked on 3 September 2026. Sending your own takedown notice has no government fee, and the Copyright Office says an owner or authorised agent can send it without hiring anyone. Registration, which is ordinarily required before you can sue over a US work but not before you can send a notice, is $45 for the electronic single application where its strict conditions apply, $65 for the standard online application, and $125 on paper. A Copyright Claims Board claim costs $40 to file and $60 more if the respondent does not opt out, with recovery capped at $30,000 in total. A federal civil filing fee in the Eastern District of Texas is $405, which is a court fee and says nothing about what a case costs.

Attorney review, a demand letter, and litigation are priced case by case, because the number and type of works, the clarity of ownership, the number of hosts, whether the other side removes promptly, whether a counter-notice arrives, and whether trademark or impersonation is tangled up in it all move the figure. What the published fees make clear is proportion: the first several steps cost time rather than money, and a lawyer's value arrives at a specific moment, when facts, ownership or remedies become contested, rather than at the moment of discovery.

The evidence, the archive captures, the paperwork search, the comparison table, identifying the host, the calm first request, and the host's own form for material you own: all of it is yours to do, and doing it yourself keeps the facts straight.

Three lines are not. Do not send a notice when ownership is unclear, when a photograph is licensed rather than owned, when the designer or the contractor kept rights, when the copy might be a licensed template or a permitted quotation, or when a counter-notice has arrived. Do not describe a copied business name or logo as a copyright matter, because it is a different law. And do not say anything, in an email, a review, a social post or a notice, that you cannot support from the table. Section 512(f) is written for the person who overstates.

Federal copyright law is the law for copied original material wherever the copier sits, and no Arlington rule adds to it. The Texas question that surfaces most often in a local dispute is a copied business name or logo, and that is trademark and unfair-competition territory. The Texas Secretary of State's assumed-name FAQ says an assumed-name filing gives no right to use a name in violation of trademark or unfair-competition law, does not stop anyone else filing the same name, and creates no name rights in commerce. Its trademark FAQ points to Business and Commerce Code Sections 16.102 through 16.104 for infringement of a registered Texas mark, and tells owners with a same-or-similar name dispute to see a private attorney. A copied name is a lawyer's conversation from the start.

For everything else, the local resources are business rooms rather than tribunals. The Greater Arlington Chamber lists the Tarrant County Small Business Development Center, SCORE Fort Worth and the Arlington Economic Development Corporation among its partners, and when the copier is a fellow member, a quiet word through a shared network has resolved more than one of these before any form was filed.

Prevention is evidence hygiene rather than a wall around the site, because nothing stops copying and everything decides who can prove what. Keep dated source files and the CMS revision history. Keep original, high-resolution image files with their licences. Keep contributor agreements and every assignment or licence in one place. Keep a one-page rights inventory for the site's text, images, code, fonts and templates, saying who made each and what you hold. Decide, and write down, who controls the domain, the hosting, the CMS, the analytics and any code repository. Consider registration for the works whose value and ownership justify it, since copyright exists on creation and registration is what opens the courthouse door and, if it is timely, some of the remedies.

A copyright notice in the footer signals a claim and can matter to an innocent-infringement defence, and it is not a barrier. You know a response worked when the copied URL no longer serves the material, the host or platform confirms it, the search results update after your request, and a periodic exact-phrase search, an image search and a brand search turn up nothing new.

Someone copied my website content. Can I get it taken down?

Often, if you own the copied text or images and they are protected expression. Save the evidence, confirm ownership from your contracts, and send a compliant notice to the host's designated copyright agent. Request a Google removal for the search result in parallel.

Do I need to register my copyright before sending a DMCA takedown?

No. The Copyright Office says registration is not required to send a notice. It is ordinarily required before filing an infringement suit over a US work, and timely registration affects some remedies, so it is worth understanding early rather than a reason to wait.

Do I own my website's copy and photos if I paid a freelancer?

Not automatically. Copyright starts with the creator, and a commissioned work is work for hire only in specific categories with a signed agreement. What the contract assigned or licensed to you is what you own. Find the paperwork before claiming.

Will Google penalise the site that copied me?

Google says duplicate content is generally not a spam violation. It clusters similar pages, chooses one as canonical and crawls the others less. There is no automatic penalty, and no promise your page is the one chosen, which is why removal at the host matters.

What if they file a counter-notice?

The host may restore the material 10 to 14 business days after receiving it unless you file a court action seeking to restrain the infringement. That is the moment to talk to an intellectual-property lawyer rather than to the copier.

They copied my business name and logo. Is that copyright?

A name or logo is trademark and unfair-competition territory rather than copyright, and in Texas an assumed-name filing creates no name rights. See an attorney for that one from the start.

The copy on the competitor's site felt like a theft of everything, and the law treats it as a list of items, some protected and some not, some yours and some a photographer's. The afternoon spent making that list, with the evidence saved and the contracts found, is what turns an angry email into a notice that works.

Most of the process is forms and most of the forms are free. The lawyer's moment is a specific one, and you will recognise it when the counter-notice arrives or the name is involved.

If the copying has left you unsure which parts of your own site you actually hold the rights to, Arlington Website Designer helps owners in Arlington, TX build the rights inventory that answers that question before the next dispute. Send the list of who made what, as far as you know it, through the contact page, and you will get back the gaps in it and the paperwork worth chasing first.