Comments on: I Love Having My Content Stolen

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:39:33 +0000

Scott, and all,

Eric, the owner of networkvirtualization.com, has professionally responded in a comment on my post.

http://vmetc.com/2009/06/27/if-it%e2%80%99s-not-blog-syndication-or-aggregation-then-it%e2%80%99s-stealing-and-aggravating/#comment-11876584

I’m glad to see his positive reaction, and it appears our efforts have resulted in a desirable outcome for all.

By: dhylton

dhylton — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:34:46 +0000

looks like someone might have taken action; here is what i get when attempting to view the first link you posted:

Access denied
You are not authorized to access this page.

By: slowe

slowe — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:44:42 +0000

I would suggest you follow the same guidelines laid out by Rich Brambley in this post:

http://vmetc.com/2009/06/27/if-it%e2%80%99s-not-blog-syndication-or-aggregation-then-it%e2%80%99s-stealing-and-aggravating/

Based on my review of your site, you do identify the author underneath the title, but the title links back to the RSS feed, not the original item. Deep links to the original site are preserved, which is a positive. I would say it’s not stealing, but you could do a better job of republishing content by making sure the title links back to the original content, not the RSS feed.

By: Blips

Blips — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:52:28 +0000

Your site is being syndicated on mydesknews.com like many other visualization sites. All links are kept original, clicking on the header or comments link will direct back to the syndicated site.

In my opinion it is not stealing content, what do you think?

By: Brenden Bryan

Brenden Bryan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:55:15 +0000

Keep up the awesome work Scott. Don’t let the bad people get you down. Karma is a bi***.

By: Vinf

Vinf — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:30:00 +0000

Mmm, yeah I’m on there too

not cricket.

By: David Davis

David Davis — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:52:23 +0000

Hi Scott,

I have helped to manage a large content site and part of my job was tracking down all the copied articles and getting them removed. It is a real PITA so I know what you are going through.

Any reputable ISP will take disable their whole site based on just a handful of complaints so that is what I hope will happen here.

The right thing to do is to use the DMCA, as Dimitry pointed out, and contact their ISP. I didn’t usually waste any time with the site owner.
Sometimes you will get an obscure ISP in somewhere like North Korea (I guess they have ISP’s there), as an example, who just plain doesn’t care. Hopefully that isn’t the case here.

It’s incredible how some of these site operators are so dumb that they think they can copy entire articles and they won’t be noticed - like they have never heard of google alerts or copyscape.com.

Don’t let it ruin your day - it is rampant on the Internet and, likely, google will just penalize them for copied content anyway so they are just hurting themselves.

-David

By: slowe

slowe — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:51:31 +0000

It is the responsibility of the publisher to ensure that the material he or she is publishing does not infringe upon someone else’s rights. Even if the people behind NetworkVirtualization.com see the content only through a reader, it is still their responsibility to ensure they have the right to syndicate content.

Just to be clear–I have no problem with syndicating my content, as long as proper attribution is provided. A small, easily overlooked link is not proper attribution.

By: Derek Morr

Derek Morr — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:05:21 +0000

Scott,

Have you considered putting a Creative Commons license banner on your sidebar? That would clearly tell other your intentions.

-derek

By: Brett

Brett — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:58:46 +0000

I agree, from a moral/ethical standpoint, you should be credited with your work. My first thought however was that if you put content out then you have to expect someone else is going to use it. I mean that’s kind of what you want right, for many people to read it. But I now see that you have the copyright links setup on your site and although the guy provides a link back to you, he doesn’t mention your name, which should be pretty easy to do.

I didn’t notice the creative commons stuff on your site originally because I consume all your content through google reader. Which brings up another question, if you agree that without the copyright someone can legally, however immoral it might be, use your content and I consume and redistribute your content from a reader that doesn’t show me it’s copyrighted material, is it still copyright infringement?

I did find this post, which I hope is the original author or I’ll look really foolish for including it, that might help others.

http://mohitaneja.com/blogging/how-to-copyright-and-protect-your-blog-content.htm

Oh and Scott, thanks for all your insight, I enjoy reading your blog.