How To Deal With Content Theft!
Posted by Ching Ya | Posted in Blogger Tips |
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Imagine this, you’re busting your butt to work on something, not necessarily grand or incredible, but you’ve poured out your time and effort to do research, and make sure it’s detailed, for the sake of providing good information or knowledge to others. Finally, it’s done, you read it, satisfied, and hit ‘Published’! Days later, you learnt from somebody,
Don’t You Know that is STEALING??
Copying somebody’s work, no matter articles or designs from scratch all the way till the end, without asking permission from the author, even named it as your own work? That’s stealing! So what if you changed 1 or 2 words in between? How about the same typo or grammar mistakes that go along with the original? No where to hide now, isn’t it? Putting off with the lame excuses, You know what’s the worst part? The scraper who is making money from all your hard work and takes all the credit for it. Selfish and irresponsible!
That happens. When a blogger friend of mine told me about her experience with content theft, I was so mad on her behalf. She wrote a perfect, informative article, obviously spent quite some times for research and writing, ended up in another weird-looking site. The most annoying thing is the person who did it, put a deaf ear to her plead of taking down her article! What a nuisance, but what to do next??
How You Should Deal With Scrappers?
So when the other day I was browsing through the forum, and I came across a thread regarding this matter, I just can’t hold it anymore. Thanks to Authority blogger forum and some of the experts who shared their ideas and info, I’ve decided to list few of their useful solutions regarding content theft. Perhaps if you have similar experiences in future, do something about it.
1. Email the person and ask him/her to bring down the article immediately before more serious measures would be taken.
2. IF step 1 failed, try to find out his service providers, contact them and ask for their assistance in this matter. (Including hosting provider & advertising partners, such as Google Adsense, Bidvertiser etc.)
**Thanks to tallen42, he provided a link to a list of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) contacts for hosts.
**Also, if you need further updates about content theft or any related matters, kindly visit Plagiarismtoday which was suggested by Sue C.
3. Now the victims could file a notice of infringement with Google using an online form. By doing so, hoping Google could take quick measures into handling & processing your requests. –UPDATED on 15/04/09
**Thanks to Sue C (the PI that we addressed as ‘Scoop Sue’ from now on) for providing this valuable info
Ways To Detect Scrappers??
**Another great tip, if you wish to find out irresponsible scrapers who steal your contents, Jen suggested:
- Check the ‘Uncommon Uses’ under your Feedburner account to find out sites that are showing your feeds.
- Using Copyscape to find duplicates.
- Using Google Blog search to find scraped contents. (Suggested by Rose DesRochers from BloggerTalk)
- Using Google Alert as email updates about the latest, relevant Google results depending on your topic/keyword choice. Configure according to your preference. (Suggested by Kathie M. Thomas) –UPDATED on 15/04/09
Also, thanks to mintblogger who brought up this matter in the forum, and gave us a clear scenario that led to all of the useful ideas above. Congrats to him, as in the end, after all the efforts, he managed to solve this problem with the scraper.
*** Extra Articles I find relevant regarding DMCA issues***
How To Knock Out a Scrapper In 2 Easy Steps (by Mintblogger himself)
Filling a DMCA Complaint to Google Gets Easy – added on 15/04/09
Copyright © 2009 by Wong Ching Ya, All Rights Reserved, “How To Deal With Content Theft!“
Thanks for the link love wchingya. This article is excellent. I hope your friend has given a left jab right under the chin of the scrapper
I use blogger blog search to find scraped content. It happen to me all the time.
The pleasure is mine, Rajeev. You’ve made a great example, and hopefully all of us could learn something from you, by taking actions against them.
That’s a great idea too, Rose! I’ll include that in the post as well. ^^
Ching Ya, great article! Hope to be able to help those in this situation (content stollen by the bad guys)….
Thanks Yan, it’s a good lesson for me too. May we all share the knowledge. Take care always.
Thanks for reminding me of this issue and providing solutions. I suppose it is a sad but true fact of the Internet and life.
I went to Copyscape and picked a banner to put on my site. It was easy and hopefully, if a Scrapper visits, they will move right along.
That’s a fantastic idea, Luci! Use that as a pre-warning. If he/she is looking for trouble, you’ll know what to do. *wink*
(hopefully that’ll never happen too)
Yes it is very unfortunate that there are often people looking to steal anytime and anywhere.
I think that after the fact it is important not to pour too much energy into revenge and once you have done your best to protect yourself then you must let it go for you own peace of mind.
How lucky you can feel to have something that another feels is of so much worth that they have to have it.
Best wishes
PS that’s a great post and I didn’t know that there’s a name for article theft until reading this
Hi Ribbon!
Thanks so much for your comments, and you have made a very good point ~ ‘Letting Go’! True, after the frustration and anger, it’s better to move on after proper measures had been taken.
ha.. maybe you’re right. Another kind of ‘compliment’ by saying “Gosh! You’re good!” But that won’t be very beneficial for the fan a.k.a the copycat, wouldn’t it? The author is gonna dislike him/her instead of feeling appreciated. At least should ask the permission first. It’s all about ethics. ^^
Good post, Ching Ya – you’ve pulled together a lot of information into a good solid resource for people who have had their copyright violated by content scrapers. When money gets tight, ethics do seem to go out the window, so I’m afraid we’re just going to keep on seeing more of this sort of thing… Every blogger needs to know how to fight back!
Thank you so much Jen for your comment.^^ Just hoping to convey the message as much as I could, especially when I get to learn a lot from you guys and sharing so many valuable informations. Hopefully it’ll help me and others to be more alert when it comes to Content Theft.
Great post! As a new blogger it is good to get this ‘heads-up’ at such an early stage. I will certainly be checking out Copyscape and Bloggers Blog to see if anyone is “scraping” my good stuff.
Hi Rosey, glad you had picked up something useful during your visit. That’s the whole purpose of it. Hope to see you here often. Take care. =)
Wow! Thanks for sharing the tips..
I seriously wouldn’t know what to do. lol! Btw, how did the scrapper of yours react?
Hi Cashmere,
I hope I won’t ever have to ‘deal’ with scrappers at all! I haven’t met one yet, but I’ll stay close and observe if there’s any. Just the thought of ‘stealing’ pisses me off. lol..
It’s good to know how to protect our contents before it actually happens.
I can relate to this topic. Right now, even though its only a line or 2 from my blog which is used by a website, I already felt the boil steaming up….
Thanks for sharing this tips
rae
Hi Rae, so nice to see you dropping by.
Yes, even just a little keyword splogging could really spoil the mood and fun out of blogging. Hope you’ll able to solve the problem soon, would love to follow up the progress about it.
Best wishes.
I have filled up the google quality form sent to me by Vin
(this world will never run out of wonderful helpful people)
We never know how long this is gonna take for google to investigate the case but I shall follow up with whatever else.
That’s a good step!
Notify the big G is always advisable. Hopefully they’ll investigate the matter asap, then feedback to you the soonest.
You’ve been a good example, Rae. Stand up for your Rights!
If you have regular words or phrases you write about then Google Alert would be another ideal tool to use to help keep track of what belongs to you.
Thank you so much Kathie, how could I miss that one out! My bad.. ^^ I’ll include that in right away.
Thanks for this great article about content theft. I have included it in a round up of articles about blog scraping for Blogspot Bloggers
Protect Your Blogger Blog from Scraping
Thank you Best Blogger Tutorials for the mention. ^^
thats very helpful for bloggers doing hard work and writing content after lots of research.
You’re absolutely right, Car Review. We need to protect our work and do whatever we can to stop them, at least we have to try.
Thank you for visiting.