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I used to have a travel blog - nothing fancy, but at https://www.marksmayo.com (please only visit with adblock to avoid giving them any ad revenue). I let it expire a couple of years ago, backed up everything and let it lapse. I'm sure they have every right to get the URL, that's fine, it's the copied content I have issues with.

enter image description here

They've changed the theme and some of the content and names, but even include verbatim text from a couple of my old posts, and my photos, and have the audacity to say 'copyright' at the bottom too(!).

enter image description here

I don't know who Mercedes is, but that's definitely one of my old photos and text.

How do I go about getting this removed? Does one have any recourse? If it matters legally, I'm based in New Zealand.

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  • Why the US tag? Is that where the content is currently hosted?
    – Greendrake
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 2:12
  • @Greendrake from my best research using whois etc, it looks like the new group running it is based in San Diego
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 2:37

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The only real recourse you have is to contact the webhost and try to convince them your content is really yours and file a DMCA Takedown request. How you convince them might be an issue; do you have any old screenshots? Original photos? Any proof that the content and photos are yours?

The webhost appears to be https://datacamp.co.uk/ , unless the DNS is being proxied, since DNS points to CloudDNS https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=dns:marksmayo.com

NZ and UK are members of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, so there don't appear to be any arguments about not applying copyright law.

You willingly gave up the domain, so you have no recourse or valid reason to try and regain ownership of the domain. You could try and contact the new owner of the domain by filing a complaint via the abuse email listed by the domain registar at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?&domain=marksmayo.com But they may not do anything, even if you can prove a copyright violation, since they only handle the domain registration and not the webhosting.

How they got the content is another question: who was your webhost when you owned the site? Datacamp? Did they not delete it when you closed your account? How did the new owner come to get it?

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  • Definitely have no recourse on the domain itself, not worried about that. It's the blatant use of my content I disapprove of. Thanks!
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 2:56
  • How did you establish it was datacamp?
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 3:07
  • also one of the images is literally a photo of me, which may go a long way to help prove :)
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 3:09
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    You don’t need to prove anything in a DCMA request. You only need proof if it’s challenged. I could claim the copyright and issue the takedown (it would be illegal because I would be stating that I owned it but it would probably work).
    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 6:38
  • Ah, finally worked that out. Ping domain, get IP, use hostingchecker.com to figure out who runs those IPs.
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 5:58

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