Comments on: Copyright violation & blogging: a tricky subject

By: Almostgotit.com | 2008 | August | 20

Almostgotit.com | 2008 | August | 20 — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:49:41 +0000

[...] who should own the rights to your comments: you or the blog where you’ve left them? ( Copyright protocols and blogging continue to [...]

By: Almostgotit.com | DISQUS & CommentLuv

Almostgotit.com | DISQUS & CommentLuv — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:46:47 +0000

[...] who should own the rights to your comments: you or the blog where you’ve left them? ( Copyright protocols and blogging continue to [...]

By: almostgotit

almostgotit — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:30:07 +0000

I wasn’t clear, sorry: the spam is unrelated to the other incident. The spam is the “Viagra & nude hotties” type of stuff, and it is being submitted to my blog, by spam robots, as comments on my posts. It really only started to appear a few days ago — probably because my blog is still relatively new. I was told to expect it eventually, though… like termites, spam is not an “if” but a “when.” Fortunately, the Akismet feature (a default on Wordpress.com!!) has intercepted them all so far, and the fact that I must approve comments before they appear is the final fail-safe.
Some blogs collect ad revenue legitimately, using the blogger’s own content. (though many free blog hosts, including this one, don’t allow ads.) The BAD blogs are those set up with random chunks of “scraped” (stolen) content just to support the ads. Scams, in other words. Note: GoogleAds is on to these folks, and they patrol the sites using their ads. They also have a system for reporting violations. I am impressed at how fast they pulled their ads off this one! The site is still up, however, and seems to be soliciting.

Anyone more experienced than I want to weigh in with more insight on any of this?

By: rockyroadoflove

rockyroadoflove — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:01:32 +0000

Goodness! I’m such a novice still. What’s a spam comment count? Do you mean the website traced you from your complaints about them? I want readers to copy my recipes for themselves. That’s the whole point of a cooking blog. Should I add a line to my copyright blurb saying copying for personal use is encouraged? It’s the re-publication rights I want to control.

By: almostgotit

almostgotit — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:05:54 +0000

This happens, too:
I just wrote a post and found it a few minutes later posted on a site called http://thatsthenewthing.com/, which is clearly set up to scrape other people’s content and profit from associated GoogleAds revenue. My stats counter clued me in with a link from their site. I reported it to GoogleAds using their “violations” form, and also posted a comment to the blog itself informing them it was copyrighted material and was to be removed immediately. I imagine this site will be gone by morning and they’ll set up a new one…

(next morning update): The site’s still up, but both my content AND GoogleAds are now gone. A giant Blockbuster ad is still there, but I clicked through and reported the violation to Blockbuster, also (and they are liable, too, so long as they continue sponsoring the site.) Finally, I found the owner of the content CURRENTLY posted (where mine was yesterday) and gave them a head’s up.

Meanwhile, my own blog’s spam comment count has just shot up, too… they’ve FOUND me.
Welcome to the Blogosphere, folks.

By: almostgotit

almostgotit — Tue, 22 May 2007 21:18:31 +0000

Thank you both so much for these comments. Mcory1 has hit upon a prudent way of largely avoiding the issue, I think, and also provided the insight of “if it were my material…” which is perhaps the most helpful perspective of all when thinking through these things. “Do unto others,” etc.
And rockyroadoflove, you continue to be such an inspiration (not to mention knowledge-source!) for me. (I should add that Rocky is a fellow refugee from The Institution Which Shall Not be Named… and may never know how inspirational she has been on that front, as well!)

By: rockyroadoflove

rockyroadoflove — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:26:38 +0000

Plagiarism, no matter where you find it, is stealing someone else’s work and presenting it as your own. Quoting from or paraphrasing other writers, with attribution and links, is, to my way of thinking, what makes the Web so rich and interconnected. Printing a line you can’t remember the source of and asking if anyone else knows where it came from is not plagiarism—it’s a query. I would be very pleased if someone quoted from my blog with credit and a link, of course. I print my own recipes on my blog, and the only copyrightable part of a recipe is the form in which it’s written. You can’t sue someone because they, too, put celery seeds in pimiento cheese. Maida Heatter’s famous brownie recipe from the 1980s is nothing more than Irma Rombauer’s 1930s recipe doubled.

Images, though, are different from words. It’s not just that you rarely use part of an image. The problem of using a copyrighted image without permission is that you might reprint it incorrectly—minus some layers, with a skewed color palette or pixels—so that it’s not at all what the photographer or artist intended. The photographer who takes the food shots for my blog taught me how to prepare originals for the Web so that all the layers are included and the color is right and the cropping. We even made a template with a copyright line that’s a permanent part of the image. Someone could lift a photo and pretend it’s theirs. But a public record with a copyright line is all the legal protection you need—or can get.

All that said, I do hope that if someone steals my words my Copyscape protection will spot them on the Web. Computerized tracing works with music. iTunes is what brought down Joyce Hatto, the plagiarizing British pianist.

By: mcory1

mcory1 — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:19:38 +0000

My personal opinion: plagiarism and copyright are really “in the eye of the beholder”, unless you’re dealing with stuff that’s exclusively and overtly protected. When I can (and it hasn’t been an issue yet on my blog), I try to cite a source for a quote and at least give a link; if I can’t remember who it is, I forgo the quote — that’s why it hasn’t been an issue for me yet. Just easier to figure something else out than to worry about getting it right.

If it were my material, I’d prefer just a link and an attribution — the link mainly because I can always use the extra traffic. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who don’t care at all, and a lot of people who’d jump at the chance to sue someone for using a couple of sentences from a blog or a picture that everyone else seems to be downloading too.