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smattering
Joined:
01 May 2004
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36
Location:
Salt Lake City, Utah USA
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 1:07 pm
Post subject: content theft
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I have this happen all the time. When I discover it here is the email i send:
Dear So and So,
I noticed you have used an article of mine on your site. Normally I would be writing this email to thank you for the exposure. However I noticed the resource box was missing (or does not contain an active live link back to my site).
For the use of my work I require an active live link back to my site. Please place such a link or I must ask you to remove my article from your site. You may find the article at "http://www.offendingsite.com/12345.html".
Please inform me when this action has been taken. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.
I have never had a problem beyond this stage. However if I did, I would torch them.
David
[URL deleted - Moderator]
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:23 pm
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Hi David, Thanks for that!
By the way, if you wish to promote your site on this forum, please click on Profile, create a signature file and put you link there.
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Allan Gardyne
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Phil Tanny
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Gainesville Florida USA
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:24 am
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This isn't debate, just an observation.
I find it interesting that when someone takes our article word for word, we all vigorously agree that is forbidden.
If the same person rewrites each fact in our article in their own words, we call it research, and celebrate it.
I have no argument with this system, or anything better to offer.
I just think it's an interesting sociology experiment to watch how our human minds go about drawing various boundary lines.
I've found my own efforts both hurt and helped by seeing the somewhat arbitrary nature of these dividing lines.
On one hand, every time I try to write an article on a popular topic, I usually feel I am just recyling previously published info, and I wonder, who needs me?
On the other hand, this uncomfortable feeling pushes me to try harder to bring something at least somewhat original to the Net. Usually this leads me towards topics nobody is interested in though....
So I hear you advising me to be practical, and treat it like a business, and I'm nodding in reluctant agreement. It's possible to think too much about all of this.
Although I have no intention of stealing other people's content, I must admit some small admiration for the thief's clear mindedness, and their lack of illusions and pretensions.
They are certainly stealing, but in an honest way, if you know what I mean.
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:03 am
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I understand what you mean, but it's utterly ludicrous to use the word "honest" when referring to blatant, selfish theft.
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Allan Gardyne
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Bobby
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:06 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | If the same person rewrites each fact in our article in their own words, we call it research, and celebrate it. |
I don't know Phil. If I write an article and someone rewrites in their own words - either with their brain or by one of the automated means - I don't celebrate.
Bobby |
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Bobby
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:19 am
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Filing a DMCA complaint and then sending the documentation to Google as Google requests is the best advice in this thread IMO. Getting an attorney's assistance is even better.
Copying/theft of content is rampant on the Internet. Expect it. If you write original content based on your personal experience, testing, etc., expect it even more.
Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to start communicating with people who have stolen from you and making threats, pleadings, etc. From a legal perspective, things you say/write can be used against you later on.
I've corresponded with a couple of webmasters in the U.S. who have had an attorney draft a legal "terms" document to put on their site that establishes a value of $X thousand per page on a site. It establishes a value - a significant value to a site - and thus elevates a crime. I understand that process has been successful and I'm currently exploring it with an attorney.
If my vehicle were to be stolen today and next week I see it parked in someone's driveway across town, I'm not going to knock on their door and tell them everything will be fine if they will just give the keys back.
I treat my web pages the same.
Bobby |
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Bobby
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:33 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | On one hand, every time I try to write an article on a popular topic, I usually feel I am just recyling previously published info, and I wonder, who needs me? |
Phil,
I've seen some people try to rationalize "borrowing" text from other sites during "research", using automatic content generators, etc. - by claiming that nothing is original - that every idea or thought came from someone else prior. I disagree with that.
I think that comes from people who want desperately to make money online, but they don't think they have any interests, hobbies, experience, etc. worth writing about so they rationalize that no one else does either - therefore it's OK to just re-cycle content they find here and there.
Only Phil Tanny lived Phil Tanny's life yesterday. And if you write a journal of your activities or publish thoughts you had, that's original - as original as it gets.
If you are a brain surgeon, a tomato grower, a father, a carpenter or whatever, you have unique experiences every day - or you have original thoughts on experiences others have had.
There's plenty of original content to be created if people will just look for it and work.
There's a story that the head of the patent office in the U.S. reviewed all the requests for new inventions that were arriving on his desk and
remarked that everything that could be invented had been invented. That was sometime in the late 1800's.
Think of that whenever you are at a loss for original content.
Bobby |
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:59 am
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Content thieves come in different shapes.
1. The blatant thief who swipes your article and publishes it on a website without acknowledgement.
2. The thief who swipes it from an article directory and ignores the rules which say that an active link must be provided to the author's site.
3. The thief who very roughly and lazily rewrites a small part of your article, leaving most of it unchanged, and claims he's not a thief.
4. The fan who swipes your article the moment it is published in your newsletter, publishes it in his blog with favorable comments, mentions your website but doesn't link to it. He's using your material to build his site. Whether he knows it or not, he just swiped material which may have taken hours or days to produce.
5. The raving fan, similar to thief No.4, who swipes your article AND actually links to your site. In some cases, the item may be published on the thief's site before it's even published on your site, if you don't archive your newsletters before you send them out.
No.4 and No.5 are guilty of plagiarism and are breaking laws that exist all over the planet, because they're republishing material without permission, but they probably don't see themselves as thieves. They use all sorts of excuses to try to justify their theft.
There appear to be many people who believe that it's acceptable to pinch someone else's article and use it, as long as they say who wrote it and link to the site. They're wrong. It's theft.
What they could do instead is write a brief, fair summary and provide a link to the site for the rest.
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Phil Tanny
Joined:
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Location:
Gainesville Florida USA
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 12:53 pm
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| AllanGardyne wrote: | | I understand what you mean, but it's utterly ludicrous to use the word "honest" when referring to blatant, selfish theft. |
Fair enough, I admit to be struggling in finding a way to express this.
An "honest" thief breaks in to your house and steals your TV. They make no claim to be anything other than a thief.
A "dishonest" thief first tells themselves a bunch of lies and rationalizations, which they perhaps peddle to you, regarding how you'll be better off not watching so much TV anyway, so they are actually doing you a favor etc.
The honest thief steals only your TV, the dishonest thief wants your mind too.
There is a difference between these two types of people, I'm not sure what word best describes it.
I realize my comments might annoy some because these words are trying to escape the comfortable group consensus status quo illusion that there is a nice tidy line in between blatant theft and content recycling.
But getting outside the comfortable status quo is where you have to try to go if you want any chance of saying something that hasn't already been said a thousand times.
If somebody isn't calling your article ludicrous, you've probably dropped the ball as a writer. 
It would be nice and simple to say we should all strive mightily for originality, but that's a fuzzy line too, if we're talking about business.
On any topic, a group consensus exists for a reason. The consensus makes people comfortable, and relieves the group members of the need for too much thinking.
If you can be original around the edges, the group may find you entertaining, and you might earn a profitable following.
If you explore originality too earnestly, if you wander too far from the walls of town, you'll likely become more interesting, but will no longer be serving the needs of the group, so the business model falls apart.
Do you have pets? Notice how at the very moment you give them whatever it is they want, they turn and walk away without a word of thanks.
Does this offend you? No, it doesn't, because the sparkling directness and clarity of their honesty redeems the moment.
We all agree the blatant thief is a clueless clod who should be taken out and shot. I'd be happy to lead the lynching party.
But maybe there is some kind of useful original message to be absorbed from the very blatantness of his actions.
Exploring out loud, that's all...
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:47 pm
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Thanks for your input Bobby. You guys have wound me up.
| Bobby wrote: | | Only Phil Tanny lived Phil Tanny's life yesterday. And if you write a journal of your activities or publish thoughts you had, that's original - as original as it gets. |
OK, let's look at it.
As we type our blog, we'll probably select a sequence of words that no one has used in that exact order, so we could call that sequence original.
If we're clever word arrangers, and can create some music with the words, and our audience appreciates such things, then the choice of words could provide an entertainment value, which has a market value.
If someone steals that sequence, they are indeed a thief of real property.
As for the content itself, it seems much less likely that we will be able to transmit information or opinion that hasn't already been repeatedly transmitted. You know, the experience of billions of people over thousands of years is already on the Net, many multiple times. The longer the Net is around, the more that is true.
So we might theorize that it is expression, not content, that is king?
"Here's information you've read before elsewhere, but I say it again in a more entertaining way."
If we can be that frank about it, I can vote for it.
But suppose we do really have truly original content to offer?
In that unlikely event, a large audience is unlikely to connect, because they are looking for the comfortable repetition of what they already know and feel.
There are an unlimited number of ways we could dress, but billions of people all wear pretty much the same uniform. The defining ornaments of individuality are very minor, compared to the overall fashion scene.
So there seems to be sort an inverse relationship between content originality, on any topic, and profitability.
Maybe we should stop using phrases like "my content" when the Net has made information an asset of the global mind?
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Bobby
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 3:51 pm
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| AllanGardyne wrote: | 4. The fan who swipes your article the moment it is published in your newsletter, publishes it in his blog with favorable comments, mentions your website but doesn't link to it. He's using your material to build his site. Whether he knows it or not, he just swiped material which may have taken hours or days to produce.
5. The raving fan, similar to thief No.4, who swipes your article AND actually links to your site. In some cases, the item may be published on the thief's site before it's even published on your site, if you don't archive your newsletters before you send them out.
...There appear to be many people who believe that it's acceptable to pinch someone else's article and use it, as long as they say who wrote it and link to the site. They're wrong. It's theft.
What they could do instead is write a brief, fair summary and provide a link to the site for the rest. |
U.S copyright law provides for just that under the concept of "fair use". Although it's not explicitly defined, it's often easy to determine if "fair use" has been violated.
Some people try to stretch the concept of fair use to fit whatever they want to do. Those are the people who get a letter from my attorney.
P.S. I remember a few years ago I remarked that it will be ironic if some of the people who were so adamantly in favor of illegal music downloading later on become webmasters who are suffering from content theft. I still wonder how many people fit that description. It's amusing in a way.
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 11:03 pm
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Phil, if we misuse the English language to try to make a point, I think we start devaluing the language. That's the point I was trying to make.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:40 am
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| AllanGardyne wrote: | | Phil, if we misuse the English language to try to make a point, I think we start devaluing the language. That's the point I was trying to make. |
Right, I get it, and agree my usage was clumsy. Well, OK, deliberately clumsy, as in, use an outrageous headline to fuel a discussion. In any case, I plead guilty, and take your point.
What I'm trying to explore somehow is whether we are devaluing logic and morality if we loudly pretend there is a neat and tidy, morally satisfying line between blatant content theft and the content recycling procedures we call "research".
Maybe (just a hypothesis, nothing more) legit publishers aren't being as um, well, honest with ourselves as is the blatant thief who says, "I want this so I'm going to take it."
We might call the last 10 years "Phase One" of the Net where we dumped most human knowledge in to this new medium, and then organized and reorganized it a couple of times.
It _was_ an exciting process.
And the job is largely done.
Anything we want to know, including details related to extremely obscure topics such as farting armadillos, is now only a Google search or two away.
At this point, we really aren't making an information contribution to the Net by creating a new site whose function is primarily to reprint info that is already widely available elsewhere.
What is our role as web publishers in a post Phase One era when all information known to man is already easily available to all men?
Doesn't the future of Net publishing belong to those willing to wrestle with this question?
That's where I'm hoping to go, and apologize for abusing the language, and perhaps my forum mates, in my attempt to get there.
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AndyBeard
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 9:56 am
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"Fair Use" gets very complicated.
I have seen in general terms quotes about how much of a book you might be allowed to publish under "fair use".
What I have never seen anyone try to rationalise is whether a website classes as the whole publication, and individual pages are just part of the total publication.
Such a rationalisation might give a different slant on "fair use" especially when a webmaster places a copywrite statement relating to the whole website, rather than individual pages.
I do some blogging - I publish everything under a restricted creative commons agreement, and my RSS feeds do not contain complete articles.
Once in a while if I see an interesting point raised on another website, I might use "blog this" for a small section of text, and if it is possible, I use the trackback to notify the original author of my actions.
It is like walking a tight-rope trying to do things legitimately.
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