Your blog has been copied?
Written by ED on November 10, 2007 – 1:09 pm - Posted in Blogosphere |Yet, another blog has fallen prey to copyright infringement - what some referred to as “plagiarism”. The latest victim in my circle, happened to be Trinity whose contents have been copied into toysrours. Unfortunately, I feel there is little we can do to plagiarism.
You don’t see a Copyscape banner in my blog because I don’t see how that can prevent unscrupulous individuals from copying my posts. However, what Copyscape can only do is to make life a little easier for you to identify the copied contents and their respective sites. The rest, is on your own. Frankly, that disclaimer or “warning message” is non-existent to a determined plagiarist. That’s for a few reasons like;
- Copyscape is in no position to shut down these sites, or negotiate with the webhost responsible to shut it down.
- Copyscape can’t conduct legal action on your behalf.
- Copyscape is not going to do checks and furnish you the information of the responsible party. That’s your own responsibility.
So if I am a plagiarist, do you think I care about the Copyscape’s banner you put up? The answer is no. Having said so, Copyscape does provide a guide in Responding to Plagiarism. How successful? I have no idea.
What about the webhost? I found that toysrours domain is registered through GoDaddy, but there is little GoDaddy can do too. The domain has been registered through GoDaddy, but it can’t do anything when the contents are hosted on another webhost assumingly. The registrant is listed as NR Publishing Pty Ltd in Western Australia, but I found no further information or website online that can shed some light on the identity of this company. Perhaps, it is one of those fly-by-night companies.
All in all, what is there to protect bloggers from having their contents copied? Little! Not unless one seriously feel like spending a fortune on legal fees to hunt down the culprit, but how many people will? I know it does not feel good, because I have people copying my contents too. But what can I do? I guess I have grown to “tolerate” it. As long as my readers know this is the real site, that is good enough. It’s not as if, my readers will hop over to that blog (with comment function disabled) because my contents are also available there.
Meanwhile, no matter how mad we are… Plagiarism is here to stay. Unfortunately.
November 10th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
ha…. this is so common. Not only foreign sites copy my posts but local Singaporean blogs too! And they have the cheek to post it without giving me the credit.
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November 10th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
@ECL
I have mine copied too. So angry. But there’s not much I can do. I know that some hotlink pictures from your site to leech your bandwidth. Not much to do but I read the there’s a script to leech the picture URL to be replaced with your designated “Wanna see more? <insert your URL” image.
As for text contents, I have absolutely no idea how to teach those leechers. Oh, I curse them
I’ve removed Copyscape and tried Creative Commons. I wonder if it’s doing anything though. I still got my posts leeched in excerpts and linked from sites that do excerpts.
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November 10th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
[...] starting to be more popular. With splogs, that is. I’ve my posts plagiarised yet again. What’s new? My posts on hotel reviews, sponsored posts and whatever seems to have [...]
November 10th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
ECL: It seems to be increasing rather quickly doesn’t it?
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November 10th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
More and more of these copycats are appearing. Some use robots to do it… MFA websites.
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November 10th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
To balance the opinions here a bit: I personally don’t mind others ‘copying’ content. The reason I set out to blog is to let information flow, and not to expect anything in return (with the exception to misrepresenting modifications).
[BTW: Creative Common intend to encourage author to share informations -- thats how it was started. Pardon me for finding it a bit absurd to see people using it without having the original intention in mind; though I'm still fine with it. Maybe thats because I am coming from the other side of the copyright-politics.]
Of course, it is a fact that plagiarism is at bad. If anybody is really that disturbed, the copyright law is at your (the author’s) side. Else, I guess everyone is still able to live with this bit of plagiarism. Don’t let this -way of life- ruin your blogging passion =)
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November 10th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
KitKat: Wow, there’s even a robot to do that? Goodness…
Lam: Oh, you are right. I have so much of them in my spambox, with the name changed, presented in a totally unrelated manner. Nothing I can do, just leave them in spambox and not appear in the trackback.
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November 11th, 2007 at 2:18 am
[...] Endoh, “Your Blog has been copied.“ Trinity, “I Quit.“ toysrours, “Market research. I Quit. [...]
November 11th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Plagiarism is the greatest form of flattery.
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November 11th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Reading the comments here.. I feel I’m the loser. I’ve not earned my rights to rant. Nobody has yet copied my stuff.
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April 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
my opinion maybe sounds weird, but why do you all write so serious comments? I mean, do you REALLY think it’s true? Why? What makes you think so? Please share your opinion.
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