Do you care if someone takes what you write on your blog and:
a) puts it on another site without accreditation?
b) takes your posts or pieces of posts and uses them to make money?
It doesn’t matter if you are one of the big fish in the blogosphere, stealing content from RSS feeds is becoming commonplace. A blog post, or design can be taken at will and re-produced (scraped), but now RSS feeds are being used.
I became aware of this debate last week. Robert Scoble, who is paid by Microsoft to blog, announced he was no longer going to read a feed if it didn’t offer ‘full text’. The discussion begins here at The Blog Herald in Scoble versus the average blogger.
As Duncan Riley points out Scoble is paid to keep up with what is going on,
and has over 1000 blogs on his RSS feed. Riley gives three reasons why he thinks bloggers don’t get a fair shake with that decision.
The discussion has now turned to how easy it is for anyone to steal content from an RSS feed and pass it off as their own.
It isn’t just happening to the big guys.
We know that comment spam is generated by scripts and programs that pump it out across the blogosphere automatically and with little effort. But how many people realise that content stealing through harnessing full RSS feeds is just as simple.
ION RSS highlights three sites that promise exactly this: Super Feed System, RSS Equalizer and RSS Content Builder. How about this for a choice quote from one site:
Never hire another writer again and always have fresh up to the minute news and articles from your industry on your web pages. Add one line of code to your website and your pages will update themselves forever.
That’s right folks, its not even hard to steal content, more and more people are doing it, and its only going to get worse. If you are being paid to write for someone else, like Robert Scoble is, then you don’t really need to worry. If you enjoy bringing in some pocket money, or even a bit more from your blog, enough to cover your hosting costs and occasionally buy some toys, or even more, then your revenue is potentially threatened by scum who are multiplying by the day using scripts and tools such as these.
The only solution that I can see: limited RSS feeds.
I’ll be up front. I don’t use an RSS feed. I have no use for one. I’m not interested in making money, I don’t feel a need to know everything that goes on ‘out there’ and I’m lazy. It’s like a phone. Most of the time mine is off. I’m not going to let technology dictate to me what I’m supposed to be paying attention to and become accustomed or programmed into jumping when something rings or something dings.
The questions raised are very valid. I like what a commenter at The Blog Herald has to say. John leBlanc says he isn’t a high profile blogger, but he found someone stealing (reblogging) his content.
The Reader’s Digest version of the story is I was called a luddite for not embracing reblogging. “Why would I not want my content republished?” Uh, maybe because I’d rather visitors to my web site to read my content there? Maybe I have something of a problem with someone republishing my work — insignificant as it is, it’s still my work — and not even bother to credit me or provide a link back to my web site, let alone ask my permission?
Yes, I know it’s a bit like two ants fighting for a crumb of bread. But to the ant, it’s a pretty big thing.
I applaud those who publish under the Creative Commons license, or those who lay no claim at all to their words. I happen to not do so.
As far as I know BDBO is part of one aggregator, and I’ve never looked at it to see if it provides partial or full content. I thought long and hard about a Creative Commons licence. As far as I know, nothing (including the design) has ever been ‘taken.’ It’s a false form of pride to assume it wouldn’t be. There is profit to be made in the blogosphere, and there will always be people willing to take the short cuts or gamble on the possibility smaller bloggers won’t make a fuss.
If the design was lifted, yes, I would notify Cre8d-design and let them make their decision. If content was lifted - I’d make an approach. But at the end of the day, if someone is that ignorant, that economically motivated, that stupid frankly, it’s no skin of my nose. I have nothing to lose. This is not modesty or low self-esteem, it’s merely a choice I’ve made.
I understand others have to make different choices.
What would you do if you found your blog content being used without your permission?
Published 3 years, 5 months ago
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Hi, Bene…
I do use a creative commons “Attribution/Noncommercial/Share Alike” license… mostly because I’m writing for my own benefit. Its interesting. I don’t mind people posting blurbs from my blog without attribution… but whole posts - especially my attempts at creative writing - I definitely want acknowledgement.
There has only been one time that I had to do more than a simple email saying, “Thanks so much for sharing my work on your blog. I’d appreciate it if you’d link it back to my site, just in case people have questions or comments.”
That might simply be because I’m not a particularly prolific (or great) writer. *chuckle*
Blessings and peace - Richard B.
I don’t worry about it too much. I suspect, as I’m more of a link blogger, there’s not a lot of content on my site, that hasn’t originated somewhere else. :^
Of course, on a couple of occasions, that has put me on the other side of the issue, with unattributed content. I appreciated a courteous e-mail asking me to correct the oversight/lack of attribution.
This morning (Australian time) Darren pointed to a little mod for WordPress users that places a copyright notice in a blog’s RSS feed. As it’s fairly easy to scrape rss content into a web page, there are sites that are doing little more that republishing someone else’s content.
B~
I have long been of the opinion that if I cared about attribution for my work, I wouldn’t make it available on the web. I don’t mind if someone nabs a bit of my work, in whole or in part. I set up my Creative Commons license to place all my online published stuff into the public domain. This includes all ove my designwork as well. I personally think its cheesey to swipe from others’ creativity and have no need to do so - but I realize that not everybody is creative so I kinda like the idea that perhaps something I’ve done can be used by someone else. I even have allowed people to claim attribution for my work without whining or screaming bloody murder or anything. Actually, whenever I find my stuff somewhere else under a different name, I feel a bit gratified: “I was worth stealing.”
In fact, its a dream of mine to be teaching and have one of my own essays turned in to me as a term paper by one of my students. How cool would that be!
“What would you do if you found your blog content being used without your permission?”
I would flip. Maybe it’s because my job involves writing so that makes me more possessive about my writing even when it isn’t connected to my work. I don’t know.
I would write to the person and ask him/her to credit/attribute the content to me. If that didn’t work… I’m not quite sure what I’d do!
It hasn’t happened to me on my blog, but I did find a section of an essay that I had posted on a now defunct site had been used without attribution in an academic paper. Reaction? I swelled with pride! When I thought about it later I felt a bit aggrieved, but decided to go with my initial reaction. Life’s too short as it is.
I’d feel differently if writing were my living.
I don’t mind if people use my work, but attribution is key — if I take the time to attribute everything I “copy” from others, then I expect them to have the same courtesy.
Of course, I have yet to find anything of mine that’s not attributed, so when I do, we’ll see how I feel.
Creative Commons is important. I Lessig, et al, has really done a good job to allow us a Commons license that reserves the right to appropriate/copy/steal/etc. While it may not seem utterly important now, in the years to come, I think it will be detrimental not to use CC.