If you want to learn what you can do to protect your rights to the original content you post on your blog, Lorelle VanFossen has written an excellent guide on What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content:
Just because information is on the Internet does not mean it’s “free†to take and steal. Information, images, graphics, designs, and photographs, all are protected under copyright laws and are known as intellectual property. While it is nice to think that everything on the Internet is or should be free, for the most part it is. It is free to read, look at, wonder about, and even write about. It is not free to steal, make money from it, or use it as your own.
Related posts:
Quite right. Perhaps someone could tell the mainstream media too, as they seem to think that consumer-generated media is just another source of content with which they can fill their pages and look like they get it.
I offered some ideas about fighting scrapping in a post here.
http://www.scoutblogging.com/2006/03/idea_for_google_microsoft_r.html
And a commenter to my post left this link which is great.
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=166
Isn’t the media easier to track what they’re doing, though, Niall? And the risks are higher for the media if they get caught out?
Thanks for those links, Stephen.
I’m not sure it is easier, Neville. Without my Factiva subscription, I wouldn’t know whether a newspaper was using my content or not. At least I can track this using freely available tools online.
I guess what I meant was it’s easier to call out when the media make a mistake. Blogs, though, well, that’s a different kettle of fish. So many blogs out there with the sole purpose of stealing content, it’s hard to track them.
[…] 61 percent said they rarely or never get permission to use copyrighted material. [My emphasis. That’s not good and, if a trend, pretty alarming.] […]