Making A Difference
Die Phillistines! was a small group of writers, film makers and artists, some of whom were also part of Nine Hearts Publishing. Their careers were impacted or ended as a result of the actions of uninvolved 'others'. They decided to work together "to fight the forces working against creativity and self-expression." As a result of several forced retirements and several more bereavements; the project has ended, but all completed research will be displayed here, in memoriam. We may update from time to time, so people may still contribute and subscribe, but this won't be our main focus.
Approaching the Thieves
This page explains how to approach copyright thieves, or those who misrepresent you and/or your career.
*** If you are dealing with any of the companies we list, you would be advised to skip straight ahead to action number 8 ***
*** You may wish to check this site -
Type in the infringing sites URL and you will have access to how many people/companies have made complaints against them. You can add this information as you wish eg; covering letters to hosts, information for your Lawyer ***
1) Assuming the site has a contact button, you are best advised to send a polite email in the first instance, as immediate legal demands often bring forth a very uncouth response. It would laughably seem that manners are of the utmost importance among the criminal elements.
2) If after seven days, you have received no response, you may wish to move onto stage two. I would caution you not to wait too long, because you will find that this is an insurmountable problem, for which most laws are mere 'lip service'. Send them a Cease and Desist Notice and/or a DMCA for any form of intellectual property; books, art, films etc. You are probably better to send both, along with your initial contact, as a covering letter:
Example DMCA (copyright notice):
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2009/07/06/sample-dmca-take-down-letter/id=4501
Example Cease and Desist Notice:
https://nppa.org/sites/default/files/cease_and_desist_sample.pdf
You will need to send this email to ALL KNOWN contacts, because while a site may not respond, their host very often does.
a) Copy and paste the web site address here:
and then copy and paste all the contacts to your email
b) Copy and paste the web site address here:
http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php
and then copy the IP you are given
c) IF the site is associated with Ripe, copy the IP into the box marked 'How to Find Abuse Contacts' and it will reveal a contact to you:
https://www.ripe.net/support/abuse
and/or copy the IP into the box and search and then copy and paste all the contacts to your email from this site:
d) Purely to be thorough, check the infringing site for a contact email and if there is one, add that too
3) Meanwhile - you can have the sites delisted from search engines -
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-dashboard
https://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyrtInfrg.aspx
https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/ip/index.htm
4) If the matter is one of misrepresentation and you live in Europe, you might have the link removed from listings under the 'European Right to be Forgotten':
https://www.bing.com/webmaster/tools/eu-privacy-request
5) Many sites, whose business is spam or malware, will simply use your name for erroneous, ridiculous purposes. If this is the case, you might consider registering your name as a trademark, whereupon you can follow the same steps but with the argument being 'trademark infringement', rather than 'copyright infringement':
https://www.gov.uk/how-to-register-a-trade-mark/what-you-can-and-cant-register
6) If you get something removed by the site, or the host, send it here, to be removed from the listings:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
https://www.bing.com/webmaster/tools/content-removal
If the Bing form won't accept your link, you can try here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/concern/bing
7) If after the date you have given, which should be no less than a week and no more than a month, your situation is not resolved, you could leave reviews about their site, in some cases at:
8) If you still have no resolution to your issue you might consider hiring a hacker:
or a Lawyer:
http://www.mayowynnebaxter.co.uk/sectors/media-and-creative-industries
or bring the case yourself:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/take-a-case-to-the-intellectual-property-enterprise-court