Copyright infringement. What can you do if your work is illegally copied to furnish another website

I’ve recently discovered that a website in Belgium has illegally copied my plant descriptions and plant care advice for of over 3,800 plants, to furninsh their website.

I think it’s an absolute disgrace.  It cost tens of thousands of pounds to pay Authors and years of work to gather this data.

They have not been very subtle in the way they have copied my work. They have copied the plant description (including spelling mistakes and typos), Latin names explained, aspect , height etc including the source codes and simply put the data on their site so people to sign up for their website and Apps. The Apps have my data as well.

Fortunately I have Copyright transfer contracts with the Authors going back to 2001, so there is no doubt the text belongs to me.

The website in Belgium knew it was going to take them years to gather enough useful data to get their sites up and running so they decided to copy it for free instead. I’ve instructed a specialist Copyright Solicitor to write to them and have my data and images removed.

I’m interested to know does anyone else have silmilar situations where people steal your work?

Some people might suggest it’s a compliment to have ones work copied, but I don’t agree. It’s just greed. They are earning money from my work and saved years of work in doing so.

The site in Belgium also make out that they are a .org company in the attempt to make out they are an organisation. They are just three computer programmers who want to make a quik buck / Euro.

My specialist Copyright Solicitor is in contact the Company so I will be more than happy to share my experience with others in the same situation and with luck we can make it expensive and difficult for lazy people from doing this to others.

UPDATE:- The Belgium company have now removed the data and images from their sites. No apology though.

If you want to see my geniune site with in-depth plant descriptions, height, spread, aspect, etc please visit www.rightplants4me.co.uk  The site has over 3,800+ plants, mainly garden plants but also many other types such as weeds, trees, shrubs. Each plant has images to help with plant identification.

More plants are being added daily.

It’s free to browse but you can subscribe if you wan to be able to make plant lists and printable notes. I hope you find it useful.

The screen shot showing how you can search for plants.

Thank you

Best wishes

Neil