What to do when someone plagiarizes your conent

[Ellen C Braun]

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

And I assumed it was innocent- I must be terribly naive. What kind of person has a personal blog about their journey with autism and scrapes content?

[wade_watson]

Yes, you're a little naive, Ellen. If you look around that site, you'll see that it sells ads. It could be operated by a marketer. I've read threads at Warrior Forum by people who do this. There are WordPress plugins that will pull an RSS feed (complete with image addresses) and place them into a blog where it looks just like it was theirs. There are ways to pull a full article even if your feed isn't set up that way. Using a post emailing plugin, they can feed a Blogger site like that. Sometimes they use a single non-public WP install to feed several other blog sites. Some will set up several sites like that in a week. But, yes, it is content scraping. A lot of people don't realize or care that RSS feeds are intended for end readers and generally require permission to publish publicly.

I just checked a bit and found a couple of other lifted articles, but some of the content may be original, so they might not be just scaping content for that site.

[Ellen C Braun]

Should I try to track down the host and contact them? What would you do?

Thanks!

[Ellen C Braun]

on second thought, How can I replace the image with an affiliate banner which links to my aff link? It's just a jpg image that was scraped!

[wade_watson]

Yes, if they ever look at their past entries, they should see your graphic. You can say anything you want to them or their readers in it. BTW, there are ways to set up your blog so that images can't be used on other servers. It involves a .htaccess entry. There are also WP plugins that can do it. Check out these if you wish:

How to deter thieves from stealing your images and server bandwidth

WordPress Automatic Image Hotlink Protection (WP Plugin)

PictPocket (WP Plugin)

[cindybidar]

I just came across this great post from @Remarkablogger on this very issue, and thought I would share his perspective on scraped content.

http://remarkablogger.com/2008/01/21...ers-are-funny/

[Kayla Fay]

If someone is linking to your image, isn't that a backlink? If so, why isn't that good?

[wade_watson]

If someone uses your images directly I don't believe it's a backlink. You are just serving the image, which means they are drawing off your paid server space. It's like when you host an image on your blog at Photobucket.

That said, I suppose if someone scrapes your content, but leaves in your internal links, those would be backlinks, I suppose. So if you think your stuff is getting lifted, make sure and link to plenty of internal pages.

[Tiffani]

This thread was brought to my attention today. I immediately e-mailed Ellen at 12p today the following e-mail:

"Ellen,

I read this post and was really disheartened by it. http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.co...ead.php?t=3049

1) it defames the blog you linked to. You will note upon clicking this link: xxx There is no image used in this post. So to claim that the poster stole an image was not fair.
2) plagiarism is when someone takes your whole and complete content and claims it as their own. This poster did not claim it as their own, but offered a teaser to their readers and linked to your full article giving you increased exposure to all that blogger's followers/readers. When clicked on the full link to read the full content, the image used popped up on your page. This is NOT plagiarism.
3) the cost of the image of $2 from iStock vs the cost of the additional exposure to you and your services..the cost to have someone spread the good word about you would be far more than $2 especially when reaching an entire community that you may never have tapped into with that article??
4) so, perhaps this person was trying to scratch your back, do a good deed, give you increased exposure for free, put you up on a pedestal for the day on their blog...and then, in return, they get defamed in a post on another site? as a plagiarizer? as a thief?

Is this what your Raising Small Souls is all about? Is this what you are really about?

Because I was that poster...and really would have preferred you contacted me instead of defaming me and my blog which is accessible to many more readers than just your forum. That post reached thousands of my readers and contacts...perhaps you got some new sign ups as a result...??

If you continue to remain offended, please let me know..."


Very upset by this, I sent another e-mail at 12:46pm:

"Ellen,

I researched this a bit further..and confirmed that as long as full credit is given to the original source as I had done, it is not considered plagiarism.

Here is what I am willing to do..

1) send me your paypal address, I will send you $10 to cover the cost of the image used AND for your use in the acquisition of future images.
2) I will remove this post from the blog if you wish, please advise.
3) send me your button, and I will post your button on my blog for free for 3 months

At the end of three months, I will remove the button.
If you so desire,
feel free to remove me from your e-mail list xxxx@msn.com

I ask that you remove that thread claiming that I am thief...defamation of one's character is far worse than the potential unsolicited exposure that I generated for you."

It is now 2:15pm and I have spent the entire afternoon looking for the e-mail that I must have requested permission to share content. I post articles from a variety of e-newsletters with permission and I have found those e-mails but unfortunately could not find the correspondence between Ellen and I. I became a subscriber of Ellen's newsletter in July, 2009 so the search is extending to archives.

I have seen myself called a content scraper, thief, plagiarizer, marketing scam since I sell ads on my site...and more.

"Why would one want to post articles that take the readers away from the author's site?" Because this blog is a resource blog...my goal is not to steal or scam or any other horrific topic of discussion but to pass on awesome resources to my readership, the autism community. No where did I claim that this article was mine.

After I sent the first e-mail, I visited the past post..back in November. I looked at the html coding because I did not see an image. I noted that I did use the image from her post...BUT, when the link was clicked to read the the entire article...the images were credited to the author.

Another thing, you can "share" anything on facebook. If you or I am browsing the web, find a great article and want to share it on our profile, we can. A teaser is included. An image from the site is included. A link to the article is included.

So, based on this thread and discussion, I guess Facebook is also a plagiarizing thief who violates copy right laws on a daily basis.

You want to know HOW I learned about this post? Through my analytics program. I browse to see who are my referring sites. Not to then blast them for sharing anything I had posted, but to thank them for liking my content so much that they wanted to share...and then see if there is a way we can work together in a collaborative fashion.

Not this...this is not what I expected.

I am on an undying quest to find that e-mail. I do recall my friend who introduced me to Ellen's newsletter by sharing an issue with me...I think I will contact her. Six months have passed since I subscribed..that is a lot of archived e-mails that my Outlook has to weed through. See attached image.

The purpose of e-mail marketing is the viral nature of it. You send to 100 people, they send to their friends and the word gets out. The advantage of RSS feeds is to stay in the loop about content going out to the web. Online marketing is viral in nature and anything that is posted on it is designed to spread like wild fire...is that not why you are marketing online? Do you not want my nearly 1000 facebook contacts, 200 + twitter followers, 800 blog subscribers, autism feed readers, blog readers across the world to see what you are posting on your website and then like it and share it with their friends? If not, then don't post it.

It is not like I copied, pasted and said I wrote this. It linked back to the true author...taking the reader away from my site and onto Ellen's...what do I have to gain for this? Nothing but being defamed.

Not one piece of this would hold water under copy right violation, however, consider your liability before defaming one's character publicly.

Overall, this particular post in question only had 19 unique views and 17 of them came from this forum. So I did not even gain increased readership on that post.

I think that I am being more than reasonable by offering what I have offered. I will continue to try and find the original e-mail...my sincerest apologies for offending...and I sincerely hope that you understand my truest of intentions.

Tiffani

[wade_watson]

Tiffani, I'm not sure how you came into this, but I've got some news for you. That post at that link has changed since Ellen first posted the link this thread. The only reason I suggested she modify her images is because I went to that page, saw an image, right-clicked on that image and checked the image properties. That image was hosted at Ellen's site. I saw that clearly and was not mistaken. If you are the operator of the site, you would know this, of course. If not, you've been misled. There's obviously something fishy going on here.

Wade Watson