Dealing with Content Theft: A Pretty Good Idea

"One tactic for dealing with content theft"
BlogCatalog Discussion Thread (started July 6, 2008)

"Many months ago, Dane Morgan offered some seemingly unorthodox advice about dealing with content theft. We should build internal links into our posts that lead back to our blogs should the content be stolen.

"I don't like how someone stole my guest post on the BlogCatalog blog, but the fact that the links lead...."

I think anyone who puts original content on the Web would profit from reading this thread. Eight hours after it started, there's been a pretty good discussion about the link idea, and related topics.

(If you've been following "Apathetic Lemming of the North" for a while, you already know this, but: I'm part of the BlogCatalog online community - and like it there. You'll find quite a wide variety of people and ideas.

This Reeks: Blog Thief Rips Off Content for Profit

"90 blogs of stolen content"
BlogCatalog discussion thread (started May 12, 2008)

"I was just looking through my technorati pages, and found quite a few of my posts had been stolen. Upon tracing this site owner, I found that he has 90 blogs listed (every subject you can imagine), all with stolen content, and for the purpose of earning from Adsense.

"If anyone would like to take a look to see if they find their content on one of his sites, his technorati "name" is, ximplix
technorati.com/people/technorati/ximplix"

The discussion thread has a growing collection of useful advice, and links to more detailed advice for dealing with data thieves like this.

One of the links is to
"Splog Off! Dealing with content theft"
one cool site: wordpress blogging tips (May 10, 2008)

" Splogs, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of ...."

Related posts, on Intellectual Property Rights

Dealing With Content Thieves: A Good Idea

"Hit Scrapers Where It Hurts: AdSense" gives a sensible, practical, way of dealing with people who steal your online content.

The author even gives a step-by-step how-2 for how you report content thieves to Google's Adsense. Since the crooks are almost certainly out to make money from your work, cutting off their supply of cash should be an effective way of dealing with them.

Digital Pirates in Cyberspace! It's No Joke

"Piracy of Your Blog Content?" is another discussion thread from www.blogcatalog.com that deals with intellectual property theft.

Maybe, considering the word "piracy," I should say intellectual piracy on the digital seas.

I've been away from the BlogCatalog community for a couple of days, and apparently missed quite a bit. Theft of intellectual property isn't anything new, of course, but the Internet has speeded the process up enormously.

On the up side, our new information technology makes catching the thieves easier, too. For example, there are pirate-finding services. I talked about one in "Plagiarism-Finder Site: Copyscape" (August 9, 2007).

Related posts, on Intellectual Property Rights

More Theft of Intellectual Property

Here we go again. This isn't my favorite topic, but I'll post something like when someone steals another's intellectual property.

The creative agent in this case is a blogger who maintains these blogs:

• "Cookies to Caviar"
• "Cooking With Anne"
  - the blog which the author says has been ripped off
• "The Rest of Me"

Some of her content seems to have been copied and republished as "Cooking Tips" at http://cooking-tips.googlelinks.net/.

---

UPDATE 1:30 am September 17, 2007.

It looks like http://cooking-tips.googlelinks.net/ is shut down. Here's what I found, when I checked the URL a few minutes ago:

"Cooking Tips

"Sorry, no posts matched your criteria."

---

There's a discussion thread at BlogCatalog.com, following this situation: "Calling out a loser...."

I appreciate that there are people out there who believe that as long as they steal something, it's okay, since everything's free on the Web. Or, they believe,it ought to be.

I don't agree.

It should be simple commons sense. A writer works to produce a blog post, an article, or anything else that someone might want to read. Another person comes along, copies the post, displays it, either as his or her own work, or (occasionally) with some sort of attribution. Without the author's knowledge or permission.

At best,it's tacky behavior, something like copying test answers.

At worst, it's robbing the writer of income. Quit a few writers, myself included, write with hopes of making money. Often, the money comes through advertising on the writer's website or blog.

When someone else copies the writer's work and posts it elsewhere, that deflects traffic from the writer, to the thief.

Related posts, on Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright Material Ripped Off? You're not alone.

And, more to the point, there's something to be done about it.

Instead of rambling on myself, here's a link to Content Theft - How I Recently Had To Deal With That, a detailed and practical account of how a smart non-expert handled unauthorized use of his copyrighted material.

He lists tools and services he found useful. That post is a valuable resource.

Copyright is important, and there things you can do. Besides cry and bang your head on the table, that is.

Related posts on Apathetic Lemming of the North:

• Plagiarism-Finder Site: Copyscape (August 9, 2007)
• Another Abuse of Copyright: If This Isn't Illegal, it Should Be! (August 9, 2007)
• Copyright: a List You Shouldn't Myth (August 8, 2007)
• Copy, Steal, Rob, Whatever: Another Violation of Intellectual Property Rights (August 3, 2007)
• Copyright Infringement, YouTube, and Video Sharing (July 28, 2007)
• Sploggers: Intellectual Property Thieves (July 28, 2007)