Has another therapist (or other entity) copied your website content? You’re not alone. Every couple of months, we hear from therapists who’ve discovered their carefully crafted website copy—especially their specialty pages—have been found, word-for-word, on another practice’s website.
Today, I want to address this unfortunate situation and provide you with clear steps to protect your hard work (or your investment if we wrote the copy for you).
First, Know Your Rights
If you wrote the content on your website (or had it professionally written for you), you automatically own the intellectual property rights to that copy. No formal copyright registration is required. This means other practitioners cannot legally use your content without your permission.
How Website Copy Theft Affects Your Practice
Beyond the ethical concerns, having your content duplicated on another site can actually harm your practice’s online presence. Duplicate content, especially for competitive terms in your same market, can negatively impact your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). And this can make it harder for potential clients to find your practice online.
What To Do If You Find Your Content on Another Site
- Document the Situation: Take screenshots of both your original content and the copied version, including timestamps, if possible.
- Contact the Other Practice: Send a professional but firm email and make a phone call if your email goes unanswered. Many therapists are simply unaware that copying content is inappropriate and will quickly correct their mistakes when notified.
- Set Clear Expectations: In your communication, include:
- A specific deadline for content removal
- A clear statement that you own the intellectual property rights
- Let them know that if the content isn’t removed by the deadline, they will be hearing from your attorney
The Good News
In our experience, most situations are resolved quickly and professionally. Most therapists are embarrassed when caught and will immediately remove the copied content. This straightforward approach has worked successfully for numerous practices we work with.
Prevention Tips
Consider regularly monitoring your content. You can do this by using Google searches of unique phrases from your website or running your pages through a tool called Copyscape. This can help you catch any unauthorized use early.
I hope this helps!
