Once again yesterday I discovered that someone had pilfered one of my business blog’s posts from November and presented it as pretty much his own ideas. Well, maybe that’s not quite fair. After all, he did say he was reading a column that he had agreements with, then proceeded to write his post, using at least half of my words for his article. Kind of a rewrite, kind of a plagiarism that I still wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not.
I wrote a comment on the post saying I wasn’t sure whether to be mad because some of my content had been stolen, or happy that he had at least read the article. What I was thinking, however, is that I was upset that I hadn’t gotten any attribution for writing the article in the first place.
We all love having someone notice what we write. It’s pretty neat when people comment on our blog posts. It’s even neater when we find out that someone has written something based on an article of ours, and has linked to it in some fashion. Sometimes, even if they disagree with what we wrote, we love the fact that they’ve taken the time to talk about our stuff.
I like to think that I’m pretty good at linking to people whenever they write something that sparks a blog post to occur. I hope that whenever I do it that some of you follow the link back to the original article to read what that person had to say. I actually hope that sometimes you leave a comment there showing your appreciation for what they wrote, and mentioning where you might have seen the link to their post.
In retrospect, I might have been a bit harsh with the guy who wrote the post based on what I wrote back in November. After all, I found that same exact post on another site as well, and that site copied the entire post. That site has copied other total posts of mine as well; someone wrote me once saying it’s a foreign site that’s supposed to be similar to Digg, but I’ve never heard of Digg posting someone’s entire article. I could be wrong on that one.
I’m not giving these people a link, but if you want to see the site I’m talking about it’s here: luacheia.soup.io. And this is the direction to the latest post I know they took from me: luacheia.soup.io/post/33702719/Three-Syndromes-Consultants-Face. Part of me is wondering how many of my blog posts are on that site; I wonder if any of the posts from this blog are on that site. And in case you’re thinking about asking, I did write these people multiple times; no response. The hosting company is who told me they’re like Digg and that they can’t do anything about it; that just seems so wrong.
Blogging really is about community, in my opinion. When we can, we should open up our community to others whose stuff we read. Some folks do that once a week, like Kristi and her Fetching Fridays posts. But everyone doesn’t have to go quite this far. Think about how good you feel when you know someone has been inspired by you; do the same for others.
Thanks for including my Friday link. I have been dealing with lots of rip off artists – some that include the attribution simply because it is automatically pulled in from the author box. Regardless, it’s still frustrating that my whole posts are getting copied, although in the case of the Friday posts, at least other people are getting extra links. I have emailed these people privately and asked my posts be removed, and so far only one out of many has actually done it. It’s kind of sad. The best bet you have for the auto scrapers is to make sure you have lots of links back to your website in your posts, so hopefully you get the credit for those.
.-= Kikolani´s last blog ..Fetching Friday – Resources Mashup & Internet Marketing Internship =-.
Always glad to include you, Kristi. I’m really getting close to thinking about adding some kind of copyright notice in some of my posts so people will always know it wasn’t originally someone else’s. Scraping; I really do hate that part of technology.
Sadly its going to be part and parcel on online life as its so easy to do. I have noticed with other Internet Marketers the vast majority of them go for the easy option more often than not.
The question is what can one do about it?
.-= Peter Davies´s last blog ..Internet Marketing Or Internet Selling? =-.
That really is the question, Peter. You can respond to it, which I did in another case, and the guy removed the stuff, blaming it on a WP plugin. You can contact the hosting company, who’s supposed to do something about it, but I don’t think that policy works in every country unfortunately. You can add stuff to the end of the post letting folks know it’s copywritten elsewhere, which I might end up doing.
I have no idea how to find people who may have borrowed photos off my site. I allow and ask for a link back and credit. A couple of blogs have done so and one after I asked them to.
Really, it is not hard to place a link back if you are referencing somebody else’s work. Stealing an article, word for works, is just wrong. No matter how easy it is to do.
.-= Scott Thomas´s last blog ..Weeping Willow =-.
Pictures are much harder, I’d agree, and I’ll admit that I’m guilty of that one from time to time, though I’m stealing from the big boys when I write about news stories and I’m actually marketing the other images I put into posts (just a reminder to everyone, mind you). I doubt many people think any of us took those pictures, especially if we’re not saying we’re photographers. But someone representing that they wrote your stuff; man, that’s just irksome as sin.
Did you get a reply to your comment?
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..New Updated Long Detailed Comment Policy Coming very SOON! Among Others… =-.
Nope, never. Just stuck, unfortunately.
I don’t think you were being harsh at all Mitch, especially seeing as how he didn’t acknowledge you as the original author. If a student did something like that it would have meant an instant fail.
.-= Sire´s last blog ..Reality TV And How It Is Corrupting Society =-.
Good point, Sire. And even now, still no response or anything; I wonder if he just deleted what I wrote. Oh well…
I really think that at a certain point in time, it will be more difficult to deal with content scrapers. Either they are so many of them, using autopost software, or simply because the providers won’t do anything with the fear to loose another client.
.-= DiTesco´s last blog ..Make Money Online With Sponsored Comments: TalkAhead =-.
DiTesco, in the U.S. there are laws that protect us. It’s when things get into other countries that suddenly the rules seem to be different.
Thanks for the kind words, Jodi. It’s just frustrating sometimes not getting attribution; we all want our moments in the sun.
I had that happen with ad copy online-= a new broker (in my network marketing biz) copied my ad (that I created)and posted it with her info.
I was somewhat upset, but then almost felt honored.
And being new, she may have assumed it was one of our teams ads that were created for all to use.