WordPress.com

1. mosaik
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 12:05 AM

   I have a mosaics themed blog at http://mosaik.wordpress.com.
   Yesterday I was checking out a comment that had been left on it and went to the website http://mosaic.kdblogs.com/ to find the entire blog had ripped off MY posts and nothing else.
   I left a few terse comments and this blog [which is a wordpress.org blog] seems to have been put out of action by some wonderful moderating force.
   I just checked my blog comments again this morning and there is another blog http://objets-dart.girlblogs.biz/ doing exactly the same, same format just with a different name. Nothing but my blog posts. I had a look at the blogs they put on the blogroll and all of those blog rip off posts based on someones tags:
   http://mosaic-supplies.jsblogs.biz/
   http://central-and-south-america.edublogs.biz/
   http://street-art.girlblogs.biz/
   http://stepping-stones.jsblogs.biz
   http://laugh.fixedblogging.com/
   http://shughal.fixedblogging.net/
   http://montres.tryblogs.net/
   http://welfare-and-globalization.ktblogs.com/

   and there are more... :(

   The first four in that list have ripped off posts directly related to one of my categories.
   Is this the latest form of spam?
   It certainly is enough to annoy the heck out of me.
   Is there any way of shutting this unethical behaviour down?

   Donna

2. timethief
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 12:20 AM

   You might like to type "bitacle" into the forum search box because the threads it will turn up contain information and links to articles that you may be able to use to answer to your "what can be done?" question. I reported a very similar blog today to POdz by way of feedback. It's truly appalling that the footer states the same thing the one I reported:
   "This site takes no responsobility on content which may appear on pages. All content belongs to their owners. 'Common European Policy - opinions Blog Digest' is proudly powered by WordPress
   Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).es "

3. nosysnoop
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 2:15 AM

   If those types of blogs are breaking any WordPress rules, wouldn't my blog have been shut down a long time ago?

4. raincoaster
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 4:14 AM

   nosy, I think you do snippet the content, and your blog is NOT a device to provide a home for ads. You also bring an editorial conscience and sensibility to what you post. These blogs don't do any of that; they basically just subscribe to the feeds for the tags and auto-post everything.

   Snippeting and linking to the original post are considered allowable, and have been upheld in court numerous times. The legality of what these blogs are doing, in contrast, has not been established, and they will, in all likelihood, lose lawsuits once the suits start getting filed.

   If you want to do an end run around the lengthy judicial process (although it only costs a hundred bucks to file a suit) you can complain directly to the blog's ISP. That will often get them reviewed and taken down for TOS violations.

   Short form: is it criminal? Not likely. Is it a violation of civil law? Probably. Can you stop them, if you're willing to do a lot of emailing and letter-writing and maybe lay a couple of hundred bucks on the line? Yes.

5. drmike
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 5:52 PM

   A quick lookup shows that the first four blogs listed are hosted in keymachine.de/ keyweb.de space. Best bet would be to contact their abuse address but chances are, you're not going to get a reply. We've discussed this previously here in the forums and no one has posted any follow up after contacting them. keyweb is prospam anyway.

6. mosaik
   Member
   Oct 24, 2006, 5:59 PM

   I've noticed that all the accounts where I left feedback telling them to stop ripping off my posts have been inactivated and the others have had my posts removed. I especially went to town with polite criticism on posts that were definitely my own with no reference to other peoples work.
   And nosysnoop, most of us reference other people's work now and then. I don't however rip off all of their work under certain tags. I was really peeved to see posts that I had blogged from flickr and changed the publishing dates to schedule for the future show up. They don't even both bother to edit out the flickr coding that tends to come up that has to be edited out.
   Timethief, I also was really peeved by the disclaimer.
   I'm glad to see that someone seems to have the ability to pull this persons accounts and has been doing so.

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