pixelshopinfo splog
Readers, today I discovered several of my posts from this blog have been stolen from it. There’s no one I detest more than a content thief.
You are a content thief! I am a paralegal. You have stolen my content from my blog ie. these entire posts:
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/21/select-a-wordpress-com-theme-2/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/19/how-to-select-a-wordpress-com-theme-part-1/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/19/optimize-for-perfection-optimize-for-speed/
http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/05/20/google-wave-goes-wide/
and breached my copyright which states:
Copyright © 2007 – 2010 All Rights Reserved
For copyright purposes, onecoolsitebloggingtips.com is not in the public domain. The fact that this blog owner publishes an RSS feed does not grant any rights for republication or re-use of the material except in the manner described below.
All content in this blog created by the blog owner and her guest authors is the property of the blog owner and her guest authors and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below.
A brief excerpt of content (up to 50 words) may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and the authorship is correctly attributed.”
Remove all of my content from this site and every other splog you own at once. I’m following up with a DMCA removal notice to your web host.
Update May 23, 2010
My content has been removed from this splog however, the site does bear watching. Any blog with a tagline like the one on this site: “Technology is like fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes.” bears watching. The free theme studded with footer links to bad neighborhoods is gone and has been replaced with another theme. The remaining content on the site all looks as if it’s also been stolen.
Related posts found in this blog:
What is copyright?
Splog Off! Dealing with content theft
Spotting a splog
Trackback and Pingback spam: What to do?
ileaneb
May 23, 2010
I hope they take this down asap! How did you track them down?
timethief
May 23, 2010
@Ileane
I found out the posts had been stolen by using copyscape and doing other searches. I then did whois searches on the site. The entire site is a splog.
Please excuse me for being so short in my answer to you. I am very angry and I need to log out and go for a long walk with my dog.
Zeenat{Positive Provocations}
May 23, 2010
OMG! This happened to me a few months back. Two of my posts were totally copied…word for word on another site. And one of my readers pointed me in their direction. I sent them a notice and a very angry email. No reply. I did it again and again and again…till they replied. I got them to take my posts down…and if they wanted to use the content…they could publish an excerpt with a link to my blog. That too only if i give them permission.
Finally they got it down…cause well…they rather have the whole thing than an excerpt!
I have the same question as Ileane…how did you find out???
timethief
May 23, 2010
@Zeenat
Every time I open my RSS feeds to full this is what happens. I am now shutting them down to “summary”. I am too angry to discuss this right now. Please excuse me.
joer223
May 23, 2010
@TiTi
I just read two sad facts after a Google search on “splogs” 56% of all blogs are spam, and there are over 575 thousands splogs reported. I hope the comply and relinquish your work.
Best To You…..
timethief
May 23, 2010
@joer223
Yes, the facts are alarming. The majority of so-called “blogs” are splogs filled filled stolen content and pimped out for Adsense pennies. Yet every week we get people in the forums crying the blues because they can’t run advertising on their blogs here at wordpress.com.
In addition we have those who leave the wordpress.com community and get a wordpress.org install so the can run advertising on their blogs. Some still want to post to the wordpress.com Showcase and Off-Topic forums to promote their blogs even though they have left the community.
joer223
May 23, 2010
@TiTi
As I’m not able to afford a proper copyright like yours. There are some free copyright sources available to us. I just signed up with Copyscape using the free Copysentry tool. They have a useful link that can be added to the Firefox toolbar, so you can just click and protect any of your pages. Only took me 10 minutes to do this.
Best,
timethief
May 23, 2010
@Joer223
Thanks for sharing the info as it may benefit other readers. None of it is news to me. :) I have blogged extensively on these topics and I’m also aware of the tools. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/category/copyright/
There are three copyright alternatives (creative commons, myfreecopyright, iCopyright ©reator ) in this post: How to copyright your digital works.
As well as copyscape you can check out copygator and also splogspot.
sonsothunder
May 23, 2010
Thank you joer,
I went and added a few of those copyscape codes on to a few of my post as well…thanks to you and tmethief’s enlightenment’s. As an old song writer, though, I know that they are only …deterrent Billboards @ best, as, when it comes down to holding up in a court of Law…they are no better than the ( WordPress Blog Entry Itself) We called them (Poorman’s Copyrights) back in the day. One could write a song, put the dates, times, and usual name rank and serials on the page…lick a stamp…and send it off to….one’s self…thereby… allowing the United States Post Office to stamp their good house taxing approval across the stamp…and as long as the sticky glue which sealed the envelope lasted..Presto…a Sealed Document!!! Of course now that the U.S. postal service, is …well, as always was really, a Privately owned business, and NOT really a Government business, and uncle Sam, and the Library of Congress wants Their $59.99 worth of the proceeds…
Anyway, to be honest, how could there be any more (Documenting evidence) That You Wrote what You Wrote …on the internet, than a WordPress.com stamp of approval stipulating that your Publishing date…precedes the date of any copy? I still like, appreciate, and now am utilizing the warning labels that you and timethief have introduced me to… Thanks a Million…
Susan Wright-Boucher
May 23, 2010
Hi Timethief
I know how long it takes to write a blog post — I feel for you. You should send them an invoice for 20 hours of consulting for each of the posts they stole.
timethief
May 23, 2010
@Susan
I hope you are doing well. The invoice idea is a funny one. I expect the web host will be informing the thief to take the content down. Also if the web host takes a close look at the site they will find the entire site is full of stolen posts.
pienbiscuits
May 23, 2010
These people are scum, Timethief, scum. There are so many other words I could use, but I won’t do it here.
I’m mighty hacked off on your behalf. A lot of work has gone into your site, which helps a lot of people and these ‘people’ who are working from a low life state and lack of belief in their own abilities, go and steal stuff to make an extra shilling. Shut ‘em down, Timethief and make sure they’re very, very dead.
timethief
May 23, 2010
@pienbiscuits
We share the same POV about pond scum. :)
Sandra Lee
May 23, 2010
TimeThief, Sorry you are having to deal with this again. I really want to thank you to the link to your previous post called Splog Off! on how to deal with theft content. This is exactly what I needed since I’ve had two articles stolen and I’ve only set up my blog 2 months ago. Gosh, I’m stunned there are so many splogs. Thanks again for all your excellent articles.
timethief
May 23, 2010
Hi Sandra,
It’s so disturbing that as soon as I open my RSS feeds to “full” I have this happening again and again. I’m sad to say I’m not stunned by the numbers. The number make me sad. :( And you have experienced this too — arrragghhh!
webmistress
May 23, 2010
wow TT sorryo hear this, it would seem that foolishness like this happens to the best of them, you have put alot of time and effort into your blog and way to much time offering info to help other bloggers. They could’ve at least asked for permission or better yet offer to paid you for a post for them (if that was an option), but stealing other peoples work is a no no.
David
May 24, 2010
Sorry to hear about your problems. Timethief,
It begs the question though of why you have your RSS feed set to ‘full’?
I also have my feeds set to full and wonder what you think the pros and cons are apart from the thievery risks?
timethief
May 24, 2010
@David
My subscribers requested that I set my RSS feeds to “full”. Doing so causes more work fro me when it comes to locating who has stolen my content but I also want more subscribers so it’s a “catch 22″ situation.
timethief
May 24, 2010
@Readers:
Please note the “update” I have added to the post above.
Lisa
May 24, 2010
Yay! You rock! Thanks for the example and (although you may seem to feel otherwise) professional model.
timethief
May 24, 2010
The Internet is a powerful tool and I intend to use it. I will continue to publish posts featuring all the personal details of any content thieves who ever choose to disrespect my copyright and help themselves to my posts.
I also feed all the personal data including email addresses and IPs, domains, etc. I can track on any content thief to both the Akimset spam filter and to Defensio.
When I receive any suspicious comments, trackbacks, etc. I also feed all the data, domain URL and IP into the same spam filters too.
When I hit a splog with my purloined content on it that has advertising, usually Adsense, I click the crap out of all the ads first and then I report the splogs to the advertisers and include copies of my DMCA complaints in my complaint to the advertisers.
As sploggers are money motivated I hit them back where it counts over and over until they quit the content theft and cannot find advertisers for their domains. This means they are compelled to find another way to make a living, hopefully, a more honorable one.
webmistress
May 24, 2010
Well that will teach them that’s for certain, you hit them not just hard, but several times let them know that this is bit a game and stealing content is pathetic. Good luck keeping the thieves at bay…you seem to handle things pretty well.
timethief
May 25, 2010
@webmistress
Thanks for your encouragement and support. :)
phoxis
May 26, 2010
OmG! thats very bad. The people seems to be from India. Here in India the cyber laws are very loose, and a very few common people is aware of it. But this is unethical to copy one’s content. They must have got into real tension after getting this notice. Well done.
mkreddy
June 1, 2010
Hello Timethief, I am the owner of pixelshop.info and shocked to see this post when I was searching on google. Let me clarify what happened. I have given my hosting details to a designer for installing wordpress and was not following up with him from last one month. He was using some plugins to get rss feed content displayed on this website. He thought the feeds were free to use. Now I asked him to clean up the website and he did. This is a learning experience and I can understand your pain if somebody robs you of your hard earned content. I strongly oppose such kinds of acts. I would request you to remove all my personal details and website information from this post. Please let me know if you have any concerns. Thanks.
timethief
June 1, 2010
Your personal data is public information and I am not under any obligation whatsoever or legal compulsion to remove it so lets’ get that straight right here and right now.
Please note the update in the post above. I freely chose to remove your personal information at this point in time. I did not choose to remove it from Google’s cache and will not be doing that. If this content theft ever happens again, and if I find my content on any of your many sites then I will post your details again and spread it throughout the internet with vigor.
I experienced no pain. I was angry and remain angry.
I strongly suggest that you find reputable people to work on your site or shut it down. There does not appear to be any original content created by yourself on that site and stealing content is unacceptable. Those who wish to experiment are free to use Lorem Ipsum http://www.lipsum.com/ like reputable, professional web designers do.
Cooking in Mexico
June 1, 2010
When pixel shop stole from you, they obviously didn’t know who they were tangling with!
Thanks for letting us know about this — words to the wise for the rest of us.
timethief
June 1, 2010
@cooking in mexico
I will publish a post and expose each and every content thief who dares to steal from me. This blog owner is very lucky that I did not also choose to promote my post above exposing the theft throughout social media and social networks. The next content thief will not be that fortunate. The gloves are off.
Cherry
June 1, 2010
What a great thread, so glad I read it.
I’m a bare knuckle kind of girl too.
I have two new wordpress.com blogs (2 weeks old) that I have been putting copyright lines on each post but see that I need to do more.
Would you take a peek and recommend which of those you mention would be most appropriate?
I don’t even know what RSS feeds are, so back to the dashboard to do more studying.
Thanks for all you do !