What to do when someone plagiarizes your conent

[Ellen C Braun]

So, what do you do when someone plagiarizes your content?

I made a deal with the lady that wrote this for me: http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/selfesteem/

Then, I see this link in my inbound links within WP: http://eamonsjourney.blogspot.com/20...lf-esteem.html

It appears that this was done innocently, not be a dishonest marketer. I see this often.

I see this type of content-scraping VERY OFTEN. I haven't had time to deal with it, though- however, perhaps I should make time to address it........

What really BUGS ME is that I paid $1 or $2 for that istockphoto for my article, and he/she just grabbed it!

How would you handle it? It's nice to get inbound links, and good to know people appreciate my content, but plagiarism is bad!!

[wade_watson]

As far as the graphic snatching goes, you can fix that very easily. Just change the name of the image you host, both the file name and in the HTML of the post. The thief will have no image, then. Even better, come up with a new image and give it the name of the old one. Don't post it on your site, but just have it on your server. It might be a graphic of some text saying something like "this is a stolen image". You might even add a cartoon thief or something.

[wade_watson]

Even better, you could make the graphic say "this article was stolen by this website operator without permission from the author." That would get the point across.

[Ellen C Braun]

Really great ideas, Wade!

I just deleted it and renamed the image for myself. I don't want to be mean today!

[NicoleDean]

I'd replace the image with an advertisement.

Are your RSS feeds full content or only teasers?

[Ellen C Braun]

Hi Nicole- what a great idea

I never properly set up my RSS feeds (I imagine many in the parenting niche don't know how to set up a reader, like me!) so I'm thinking they'd be the full content- why?

[NicoleDean]

If you just have an excerpt, then if they are using a RSS scraper, they would only pull in part of your posts -- I think?

Someone with more info will hopefully step in, but I think that's how they do it...
N

[cindybidar]

These kinds of scrapers do only post a part of your article with a link back to your site to "read more." I think that's how they keep from getting nailed for copyright infringement. What I don't understand though, is what good it does them to send a reader off site.

[Ellen C Braun]

How can you tell if my stuff has been SCRAPED by a bot or was just copied by a naive blogger?

[cindybidar]

Good question. I just assumed they're all scraped. It never occurred to me that someone would copy and paste.