Monday, May 19, 2008

My Blog Content - Stolen

There's a total w****** out there stealing my blog content everyday and posting it to his own blog. I'm not sure if it is a human being or a bot doing the swiping. I suspect the later as I saw this line in his page code:
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW"/>
It looks as if stuff has been lifted from other blogs too.

The main purpose is to attract advertising revenue ... the page is stuff full of ads. There is of course no identity of the "blogger" or contact details and I will have to work backwards from his IP.

I have given no permission, of course for the use of my material and my work is protected by a Creative Commons license. I am prepared to take action against this person, particularly as money is involved. Google Adsense incidentally make it very difficult for complaints to brought against rogue advertisers - I've tried before.

I feel very used and cheated, especially as I do not blog for my own profit.

Maybe this is the answer?

Postscript :

Well, with some help from Chet, we've tracked the guy down.

His name is Aubrey Hall and he lives in Dublin. This is the crap he's posted on another blog about stealing content:
Technophobiac.com is part of Technophobiac Networks aggregation network. Technophobiac.com is intended to be a resource for techies. We do not claim any copyright over syndicated contributed content and although the content has being retrieved via xml & rss feeds the authors always have the right to request removal by e-mailing aubhall [at] yahoo [dot] com.
"Syndicated contributed content"? Oh I'm laughing at the sheer squalid cheek And why isn't his email on his blogs if "authors have the right to request"?

Okay, let's make this clear, Aubrey Hall. Before you take anything at all from my blog that's longer than a single quotation, you must ask me.

Postscript 2

Yeah, that's they guy. He admits it. Believes my creative Commons License gives him the freedom just to take my stuff. (That little tag on my blog is my attempt at signaling that I care about who swipes my content, but it clearly doesn't protect me much.)

Postscript 3 :

My material has been taken off his blog. I feel much better.

But I am still confused about how best to protect from this happening again.

17 comments:

Syar said...

This has been happening to me more and more lately, but I haven't thought much of it because of the sheer absurdity of whatever they're trying to sell and what I post but it really is annoying.

I have a feeling they are bots, so yeah, I don't quite know what you can do in this situation. I hope other readers who know more can help you out. I think your blog being more of a public forum, it is more affected by this, and the annoying plagiarizer (sp?) bots should be stopped.

Anonymous said...

Yikes! That's just plain scary X-(

Anonymous said...

The html tag <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> on that page does not indicate whether it's a human being or a bot doing the swiping.

It merely tells search engine spiders to index (i.e. archive) the page which has this tag, and follow any links found on the page.

http://searchengineland.com/070305-204850.php

Anonymous said...

Hey, Shar. I feel sorry that you have to be victimized by that creep. Your blog is one of the most informative, and entertaining source for all things literary, and I drop by here everyday because of your generous spirit in sharing not just information, but your insights as well.

I blogged about copy+pasted blogs a few weeks ago, and instead of support, I got some pretty nasty flamers all over my blog. It's crazy, really.

Anyway, I hope you take actions against that thief. Your victory will be one solid testament for us bloggers who take the time to actually write something to share to the world.

As I always say, keep the words coming, and the writing going!

Yours,
Siege.

p.s.
I got me my own domain now. hehehe... Please update your links! Thanks!

ikanbilis said...

aiyo, not another plagiarizer. its annoying when your masterpieces gets copied down like xerox machines.

boo him. shame, shame, shame.

bibliobibuli said...

thanks, thanks. i'm actually feeling pretty upset now, esp. at this guy's attitude. (he really doesn't think that he's doing anything wrong!!)

siege - oh yes, i see what you mean by flamers. i would never do paid posts either, but it's honest work. i do have just one ad space(nuffnang) though and am fond of it! i've made a few hundred ringgit this year

Anonymous said...

what a douche-bag. i've had my work stolen even before the net ever existed, and i've had my work and my writers' work copy-pasted too a few years back.

on a positive note: hey you're good! this is flattery (warped and wrong it may be)

Kak Teh said...

sharon, it happened to me as well - twice!

Anonymous said...

I can fully sympathise Sharon, cos as you know my work is often stolen and reprinted without my permission. Sometimes when I make a fuss the person apolologises, others keep quiet.

One big culprit is
http://sini-sana.blogspot.com/
His entire blog is made of stories from Star, NST etc. The guy ignores my emails and comments, but is still posting.

Msian govt www are also at fault. See
http://mdlg.perak.gov.my/lata_kekabu_lenggong.htm
This Perak govt site has stolen the entire waterfall page from my friend's waterfall www , but luckily my friend is a techno guy and was able to add the red violation notice! Needless to say the gov't dept ignore all the emails sent to them about this.

Anonymous said...

Sharon, I'll talk to you tonight. I'm not sure how Creative Commons works -please enlighten me. Does it adversely affect your copyright in any way?

Anonymous said...

Caving Liz, now that the Perak Govt is under new administration, ask your friend to try again and take it up with the State Exco.

Specifically ask what Pakatan Rakyat's position is on respecting people's intellectual property.

Anonymous said...

Animah :

I'm guessing they care just about as much as the BN, which is to say nothing at all. I'd be surrpised if they even knew what "intellectual property" meant :)

Hey, you're a lawyer, how about some pro bono intellectual property defence ? :)

Anonymous said...

Another thing Animah :

The "Creative Commons License" does not have any legal scope and is totally unenforceable. It does not affect anything in any way. It's just as if I wrote in this comment "if you are reading this you have to pay me whatever. Your reading this constitutes agreement."

I've yet to see anyone launch a case against someone who stole intellectual property off the net and sold it for money.

Ellen Whyte said...

The department of Veterinary Services scanned in my Star column Katz Tales and put it on their site. They ignored email but removed them pronto when I phoned. And they haven't done it since.

Ellen Whyte said...

My star article today has been ripped off and my byline taken away too at:

http://mustwearmascara.blogspot.com/2008/06/silly-geese-and-golden-eggs.html

bibliobibuli said...

these incidents are horrible. liz price aka cavingliz drops by this blog often and has had her star articles put up on other blogs and sites.

(heck - even i don't usually put up my OWN articles unless with my editor's permission!)

this person yus-z who has stolen your work seems more stupid that malicious though. anyway, it gives you more to write in your article!

Ellen Whyte said...

#@#@! Vets in Perak have nicked 10 more of my pieces!

http://tinyurl.com/6ko48m

Furious. They've also robbed Liz Price and Erik Fearn.