How to Handle Content Theft
With the discovery that some $#@!&*** is displaying the RSS feeds of my entire posts, including the copyright notices, the following resource caught my attention: The 6 Steps to Stop Content Theft : The Blog Herald. Jonathan Bailey expounds on the process to catch and punish copy crooks. Let's see how my project to rid the Internet of a scummy scoundrel stacks up:
Detection (I got mine in a Google Alert)
Preserve Evidence (oops! missed that)
Contact Plagiarist (could find no id)
Contact Advertisers (check)
Contact Host (double check)
Contact Search Engine (oy, too much effort!)
Bailey offers links to resources to help you in every stage. Of course, first you have to be aware if someone uses your content. Hint: I use Google Alerts with all forms of my name, the blog name, and its URL, including those with and without the "http://" and the "www." Women have an advantage in that their names are more varied than men's. Yet another good reason to use a real name or pseudonym you want recognized on the Internet, rather than use a silly screen name.
The procedure for notifying Microsoft (the offending site is on Window Live Spaces or whatever it's called--very confusing) was so precise and complex that I'm still not sure I performed it correctly. Problem is, the person who owns the space is scraping many others' feeds, using a feed feeder service. I contacted that company, too, because redisplaying that content without permission is a violation of a term of service.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your search engines!
Detection (I got mine in a Google Alert)
Preserve Evidence (oops! missed that)
Contact Plagiarist (could find no id)
Contact Advertisers (check)
Contact Host (double check)
Contact Search Engine (oy, too much effort!)
Bailey offers links to resources to help you in every stage. Of course, first you have to be aware if someone uses your content. Hint: I use Google Alerts with all forms of my name, the blog name, and its URL, including those with and without the "http://" and the "www." Women have an advantage in that their names are more varied than men's. Yet another good reason to use a real name or pseudonym you want recognized on the Internet, rather than use a silly screen name.
The procedure for notifying Microsoft (the offending site is on Window Live Spaces or whatever it's called--very confusing) was so precise and complex that I'm still not sure I performed it correctly. Problem is, the person who owns the space is scraping many others' feeds, using a feed feeder service. I contacted that company, too, because redisplaying that content without permission is a violation of a term of service.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your search engines!
posted by Georganna Hancock M.S. | 8:43 AM
5 Comments:
Off topic question my very grammatical friend. Do you know of good specific hints for college application essays?
Thanks. :)
Well, Janice ... I guess the best hint I can give you is to hire a professional editor for the best results. It doesn't cost much, and if you're weak in spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, and/or capitalization departments, it could pay off. I've edited several of these this year.
That's a lot of stuff to do, but it's worth it if it helps curb theft. Thanks to your post, I just put a copyright notice at the top of my blog. Couldn't hurt, right?
Hi Georganna, Yours is the second case I've heard where this has happened. I'll try to contact the person and see if I can find anything out as to how the matter was handled.
Best wishes, Mark.
Followup: I received two confusing messages from the RSS feeder company. Turns out it is owned by NBC-Universal. Better yet, the last time I checked the offending posts were gone from Spaces--and so was the offensive Space member! Yay! Creative complaining works.
Now Blogger is up to some kind of tricks with images in posts. It removed the image of Larson's book, which was linked to my account at Amazon. I put it back. Let's see if it stays put this time.
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