Blog stealing other blogs’ content

  • anapires · Member ·

    I found a post of mine posted on another blog. It had a link to my blog named ARTICLE SOURCE, but I am still not happy about it and would like it was taken off the site.

    Then I looked around that blog some more, and found various other posts stolen from other blogs, several from WordPress.

    I emailed WordPress Support, read the FAQ and browsed the forums, reported the site to Google (since it was using AdSense), and I tried using Whois (sp?) to find out what the host is, but I couldn’t really understand the information it gave me.

    So that’s what I’m asking help for: finding the right site to report the blog to.

    The blog is: http://www.lolcat.us/

    Thank you in advance.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    If you do a forum search for Blog Scraper you’ll find it’s a common occurrence. It’s theft of intellectual property. Your options are:

    1 Contact the site owner and assert your copyright, demanding they take the article down. Remember that while most of these people are criminals, some are just really, really stupid or misinformed and think it’s fair to do this. Educate them otherwise. The email on their About page is (email visible only to moderators and staff) so use it.
    2 Contact the hosting company and assert your copyright and ask if this behaviour violates their terms of service.
    3 Report to Google. Good job, that’s the way to get them where it hurts. You may have to repeat this a few times, but it often works. This is likely to be the most successful route.

    WordPress.com does not take on the task of asserting the rights of the people using this blogging platform, any more than the manufacturers of computers do. It’s up to us independents.

  • morris108 · Member ·

    What address does one use to report to Google,
    Thank You

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    You click on “Ads by Google” and follow the “report abuse” instructions there.

  • anapires · Member ·

    I didn’t think it was such a big deal. I didn’t even know there was a name for it.

    I left them a comment asking to remove the post. They deleted it. Left leaving another comment saying I would do something about it:
    “The page you were looking for doesn’t seem to be here anymore! We may have moved or renamed it, or it might not have ever existed. Who knows? Certainly not us.”

    I know the post is still there, because on the comments area you can see “Ana Pires on Private: LOLCat Bible” – it’s there, it’s just private and non visible now.

    And again, there are plenty of other posts – not just lolcat images – well written and worked on posts from plenty of other blogs there so I guess I’ll keep an eye on it.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    Email them. I posted their email in the forum, so they’re getting whacked by spam as well. Two can play dirty.

  • raincoaster · Member ·

    And keep an eye out. There was a scraper around last year who’d take things private but then put them back up in a week or so. Hit him every time. Doesn’t hurt to get a DMCA notice and send it to him. There should be a form you can just fill out:
    http://www.google.ca/search?q=dmca+notice+and+takedown&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

  • peanutmaster · Member ·

    What does the DMCA do if the blogger ignores their notice?

  • peanutmaster · Member ·

    Is there a certain place that will ban the blogger or do something to stop them copying our work!

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