Cease and desist letters for AI content stealing your blog posts / product descriptions
You spend years writing blog posts, crafting product descriptions, and building SEO authority. Then one day you:
- paste a sentence from your article into Google, and
- see it showing up almost word-for-word in an AI answer box, or
- on a knockoff site that looks like a machine-rewritten version of your own copy.
This article is about how to push back with targeted cease and desist letters in two common scenarios:
- 📌 Letter to the AI model/platform that is surfacing your content; and
- 📌 Letter to the infringing site that is using AI to rewrite and republish your content.
It’s not theory. Big publishers are already doing this. The New York Times, Dow Jones and others have sent cease-and-desist letters and filed lawsuits against AI companies for scraping and reusing paywalled and proprietary content without permission. (Reuters)
For smaller websites and ecommerce brands, a well-crafted letter is often step one.
How AI ends up copying your content
Most smaller publishers and stores see their content reused in one of two ways.
| Scenario | What it looks like | Who you’d write to | Main goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🔍 AI answer box / chatbot | User asks “What is X?” and the AI’s answer contains whole sentences or paragraphs from your post, often without clear citation – sometimes even behind your paywall. | The AI platform / model provider (and sometimes the app that embeds it). | Stop further use, demand removal of specific content, get clarification about training/use of your works. |
| 🧷 Knockoff “AI SEO” site | Another site publishes pages that are obviously AI-rewritten from your posts or product descriptions, keeping your structure, headings, examples, sometimes even your typos. | The infringing website operator, plus their hosting provider and ad or marketplace platforms if needed. | Take down the copies, stop further scraping, preserve evidence, cut off monetization. |
In both situations, your leverage comes from:
- your copyright in the original text;
- any contractual terms on your site (Terms of Use, “no AI training” clauses, API terms); and
- platform policies (DMCA, repeat infringer policies, marketplace rules, ad network rules).
What legal theories you’re actually invoking
You don’t need to cram every theory into a cease and desist letter, but you should know the main levers you’re pulling:
| Legal lever | How it applies in AI copying scenarios |
|---|---|
| 📚 Copyright infringement | Your posts and product descriptions are protected as original works. Copying substantial parts without permission for display or distribution can be infringing, whether or not AI was involved. |
| 📜 Breach of Terms of Use / ToS | If your site terms restrict scraping, automated copying, or AI training, then scraping in violation of those terms can support a contract-based claim. Many major sites now explicitly restrict AI training in their ToS. (quinnemanuel.com) |
| 🧾 DMCA takedown (17 U.S.C. §512) | If your content is reposted on a U.S.-hosted site, you can use DMCA notices to hosting providers, platforms, or search engines to get infringing copies removed or de-indexed. |
| 🛡️ Trademark / passing off | Where AI content is falsely attributed to you, or uses your brand in a way that suggests sponsorship/endorsement (e.g., “According to [Your Brand]…” when you never said it). |
| 🧪 Unfair competition / consumer protection | Knockoff sites monetizing AI-rewritten versions of your content may be engaging in false or misleading practices, especially if they hold themselves out as the original source. |
Your letter doesn’t have to read like a complaint. But referencing the right concepts shows the recipient (and their general counsel) that this is not just an “I’m annoyed” email.
Evidence checklist before you send anything
Before drafting, quietly assemble:
- URLs for your original posts / product pages.
- URLs and screenshots of the AI answers or infringing pages.
- Date-stamped proof that your content was published before the infringing use (Wayback, RSS, sitemap, etc.).
- Copies of your Terms of Use, especially any clauses about scraping, automated access, or AI training.
- If the infringing site is monetized: screenshots of ads, affiliate links, cart pages, or lead capture forms.
Think of it as building a mini-evidence packet you can attach or reference. If the other side forwards your letter to their lawyer, you want that lawyer’s first reaction to be, “Okay, they’ve actually got receipts.”
Strategy: who you send and in what order
For most smaller publishers and ecommerce stores:
- If you only see the content in AI answers, start with the AI platform letter.
- If you see a knockoff site, start with the site operator, and be ready to follow with:
- a DMCA notice to their host;
- a DMCA or policy complaint to search engines and platforms.
You can absolutely send both letters in parallel if both problems exist. Just keep your story consistent: same works, same evidence, same demands.
Template letter to an AI model / platform
This is a publisher→AI platform style cease and desist. Customize the tone to taste (this is written fairly firm but not yet “litigation mode”).
[Your Letterhead]
[Date]By Email and Certified Mail
Legal Department
[AI Platform, Inc.]
[Address]
[Email]
Re: Unauthorized use of [Your Site/Brand] content in [Platform]’s AI products
To Whom It May Concern:
I am the owner of the website [yourdomain.com] and the author (or rights holder) of the original content published there, including but not limited to:
- “[Title of Article 1]” (published [date]) – [URL]
- “[Title of Article 2]” (published [date]) – [URL]
- “[Collection of product descriptions for X line]” (published beginning [date]) – [URL]
Recently, I discovered that [Platform]’s AI products are copying and reproducing substantial portions of this content without authorization.
For example:
- On or about [date], when a user asked “[example prompt]”, your system generated an answer that reproduced the following passage from my article “[Title]” almost verbatim, without attribution or link to my site: “[short quoted passage from your article]”
This language appears at [URL] on my site and has been available there since at least [date].
In several other tests, your responses similarly copied or closely paraphrased my original blog posts and product descriptions, in a way that goes well beyond fair use or generic summarization.
Rights at issue
The above-referenced works are protected by copyright law. I have not granted [Platform] any license to:
- copy these works into training datasets;
- create derivative works based on them; or
- publicly display them in AI-generated responses to your users.
In addition, my website terms of use expressly prohibit automated scraping and use of my content for machine learning or AI training purposes. Any such activity by or on behalf of [Platform] is unauthorized and constitutes, at minimum, copyright infringement and breach of contract.
Demand
Accordingly, I demand that [Platform] do the following:
- Cease and desist from further copying, ingestion, training, or other use of my content from [yourdomain.com] in connection with [Platform]’s AI products, including but not limited to [list product names if applicable].
- Remove and prevent the use of my content in responses generated by your AI systems, including by:
- removing my works from any training, fine-tuning, or retrieval indices under your control; and
- implementing technical measures to prevent your systems from reproducing my text in whole or substantial part.
- Provide a written explanation within [10–14] days identifying:
- how my content was obtained (e.g., direct scraping, third-party dataset, partner feed);
- what uses have been made of it to date (training, evaluation, retrieval-augmented responses, etc.); and
- what steps you are taking to remove it and prevent future use.
- Confirm in writing that [Platform] will honor any “no-scraping/no-AI” directives in my site’s terms of use and technical controls (including robots.txt and related mechanisms) going forward.
Nothing in this letter should be interpreted as a complete statement of my rights, remedies, or factual contentions. I expressly reserve all rights, including the right to seek injunctive relief and monetary damages for past and ongoing unauthorized use of my works.
Please direct your response to:
[Your Name]
[Title / Business Name]
[Email]
[Phone]
[Postal address]
Sincerely,
[Signature]
[Your Name]
Template letter to an infringing site using AI-rewritten copies
This is aimed at the “AI SEO” knockoff site that has clearly chewed through your content.
[Your Letterhead]
[Date]By Email and Certified Mail
[Name of Site Operator or “Site Owner/Administrator”]
[Site Name / URL]
[Email]Re: Unauthorized copying and AI-rewriting of [Your Site/Brand] content – cease and desist
To Whom It May Concern:
I am the owner of the website [yourdomain.com] and the author (or rights holder) of the original content published there, including:
- “[Title of Article 1]” – [URL]
- “[Title of Article 2]” – [URL]
- Product descriptions for [Brand / Collection] – [URL or category link]
It has come to my attention that your website [infringingsite.com] is publishing pages that are substantially copied, AI-rewritten, or otherwise derived from my works without permission.
By way of example:
- Your page “[Infringing Page Title]” at [URL] closely tracks the structure, headings, and wording of my article “[Original Title]” at [URL]. Numerous sentences are identical or trivially paraphrased, including:
- My original text: “[short quoted passage]”
- Your page: “[AI-tweaked but obviously derived passage]”
- Your site’s [category or product] pages reuse distinctive language from my product descriptions, including [short example], which first appeared on [yourdomain.com] on [date].
These similarities are extensive and systematic. They cannot be explained by coincidence or by use of generic, commonly used phrases. It appears that you (or someone acting on your behalf) used automated tools, including AI content generators, to copy and machine-rewrite my articles and product descriptions for publication on your site.
You are not licensed or authorized to use my content in this manner.
Infringing activity
Your conduct constitutes, at minimum:
- Copyright infringement under applicable law;
- Creation and distribution of unauthorized derivative works; and
- Unfair competition to the extent you are using my content to attract search traffic and sales in competition with my business.
In addition, to the extent your site is monetized through advertising, affiliate links, or product sales, you are commercially benefiting from this unauthorized use of my works.
Demand
I hereby demand that you:
- Immediately remove all pages on [infringingsite.com] that contain copied or AI-rewritten versions of my content, including but not limited to:
- [List specific infringing URLs]
- Cease and desist from any further copying, scraping, AI-rewriting, or other use of content from [yourdomain.com], whether directly or through automated tools.
- Within [7–10] days of the date of this letter, provide written confirmation that:
- the above-referenced pages and any similar content have been removed;
- any cached copies in your control (including within your CMS or CDN) have been deleted; and
- no further use will be made of my content without my express written permission.
If you do not comply with these demands within this time frame, I will consider all appropriate further action, which may include:
- submitting DMCA notices to your hosting provider, search engines, and any relevant platforms;
- notifying your advertising, affiliate, or marketplace partners of your infringing conduct; and
- pursuing legal remedies, including injunctive relief and damages.
Nothing in this letter is a waiver of any rights or remedies, all of which are expressly reserved.
Sincerely,
[Signature]
[Your Name]
[Title / Business Name]
[Email]
[Phone]
When a letter isn’t enough
Sometimes a cease and desist letter resolves the problem quickly, especially with smaller sites that don’t want trouble.
Other times, you’ll need to escalate:
- 📌 DMCA notices to the host and CDN:
- Use WHOIS, hosting lookup tools, or IP lookups to identify the hosting provider.
- Send a compliant §512(c) notice listing each infringing URL and your originals.
- 📌 Search engine removal / de-indexing:
- Major search engines and AI answer providers have forms for copyright complaints and removal requests.
- 📌 Platform policy complaints:
- Marketplaces, ad networks, and affiliate programs usually have IP complaint channels. Losing monetization can be persuasive.
- 📌 Litigation:
- Larger publishers are already litigating over AI training and unauthorized copying (e.g., lawsuits by news organizations against AI startups for scraping millions of articles, including paywalled content). (Reuters)
For most smaller businesses, litigation is a last resort. But designing your letters as if a judge might read them later is still wise: clear facts, specific demands, reasonable deadlines, and preserved evidence.
How to future-proof your site against AI scraping
A cease and desist letter is reactive. You can also make yourself more enforceable proactively:
| Measure | Why it matters in AI disputes |
|---|---|
| 🧾 Tighten your Terms of Use | Explicitly prohibit scraping, automated copying, and using your content for AI or machine-learning training. Courts and scholars are increasingly treating “no AI training” clauses as a foundation for breach-of-contract claims where bots ignore them. (quinnemanuel.com) |
| 🤖 Robots.txt / technical controls | While not a magic shield, using robots.txt and similar controls helps show you did not consent to bulk crawling for AI training. (arXiv) |
| 🕵️ Monitor suspicious traffic | Log and review high-volume, bot-like traffic to content-rich pages. IPs, user agents, and access patterns can later support your factual narrative. |
| 📝 Content fingerprinting / versioning | Keeping clear version history and date-stamped archives (or using third-party archiving tools) makes it easier to prove you were the original source. |
| 🤝 Licensing where it makes sense | For some businesses, it may make sense to license content to specific AI providers on negotiated terms instead of fighting everyone. Clear contracts beat ambiguity. |
How to use these templates in practice
A practical workflow for a typical blog or ecommerce brand might look like this:
- Run periodic checks (manual or automated) to see whether AI answers or other sites are reproducing your highest-value content.
- When you find a problem:
- capture evidence;
- decide whether to target the AI platform, infringing site, or both;
- adapt the relevant template above;
- send it in a way that’s easy to prove later (email + certified mail, or platform intake form + email).
From there, either:
- you get voluntary compliance; or
- you escalate to DMCA, platform complaints, or – if the stakes justify it – formal litigation.
You can also turn these into interactive generators on your site:
- “AI Content Theft – Letter to Platform”
- “AI Content Theft – Letter to Knockoff Site”
Each driven by a simple form: original URLs, infringing URLs, examples of copied text, and your contact details. That lets you capture leads from exactly the people who are most likely to become paying clients when a simple letter doesn’t solve it.