BleepingComputer.com: Copyright Issues

I am having problems with someone online who keeps copying stuff off my website and putting it on their own myspace accounts/youtube accounts. They are all videos/photos that I have taken myself.

It states on each page of my website that I hold the copyright to everything on there but that hasn't stopped them.

I've contacted the company who hosts my website to see if I can block them by ip address but they do not offer that service.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this or what legal options do I have.

One of the videos was on my youtube account but I did take the embed code off to try and prevent it from being used elsewhere but it didn't work as they still found a way to copy it.

Thanks

This article explains some basic concepts and remedies about copyright on the WWW

Remedies for Web Site Copyright Infringement

Do you have permission to the .htaccess? If so you can just ban there I.P. and no images will show for them.. I think. Or you can threaten to hack them.. but that's just what I would do.

Thanks for the link.

Sorry Verify - could you explain .htaccess as do not know what you mean

.. mm well it is what it says, it's the access file for your site, mostly all paid hosts allow you to have control over this file. If your not on a paid host and on a free host ask if your able to have control over this file. You can manually Ban I.P.'s and restrict certain pages, etc.. Any way if you use a CMS most have a ban option.

I'll stay posted if you need more info.

-EDIT-

Oh ya, forgot the .htaccess is in your public_html folder, the main root for all of your default files.

I am on a free host at the moment and I do not have access to the .htaccess.

I am considering paying for hosting to get over this problem and to give myself more storage space as I've still got quite a few things I want to add to my site and have nearly run out of space on my current host.

I don't go here anymore but x10hosting .com is probably one of the best free hosters out there..
luckily for me I have a friend at dreamhost.com and he gave me some free webspace.

thanks for the link - I'll take a look at that.

Also, freehostia.com offers a very good free plan. If I recall correctly, the free plan has hotlinking disabled by default. You also have access to htaccess.

I use host monster, they give you alot of space and features for little $$$ and they are great