22 Comments

  1. Great research and analysis – very informative! Thanks so much for putting some wonderful karma and value back into the digital world. You rock……….

  2. Thanks so much for this wonderful enlightening post and for spreading some digital sunshine. It’s a great example of the power of Social Media and how people do step up at times to be counted.

  3. How timely! I just found a new scraper tonight. Douche-bag immediately scraped, stole, posted and tweeted my own article right after I published it – didn’t even hit the RSS feed yet like most lazy scraper rely on. Dumb enough to leave all my internal links in so it’s obvious it’s mine. But I’m pissed because their Alexa’s under 100K PR3, etc. so he just beats me out; Google will likely rank him higher. Sent note, tweeted, but no reply. Will have to go through DMCA, host, etc. Total douche.
    Shame @macroaxis for blatantly ripping off 20-30 bloggers without permission.

  4. The apology that isn’t actually an apology from Paperchase:

    ‘It is worrying that such an allegation can create such reaction and again, Paperchase apologises for any ill-feeling caused.’

    1. yeah I picked that up as well. It goes along with the typical corporate response of “all detractors are nutjobs”. They don’t understand that the community checks the qualifications of HiddenEloise first, then back her. We don’t go on the warpath for drama queens. Well, not often. πŸ˜›

  5. I got an unpleasant x-mas present – on 24.12.09 I found out that two online news companies used my cropped photo and had their names on it.
    I sent several emails, posted about the case on my blog and I got support from my readers. Finally they removed my picture.
    Maybe they thought I could never find out…but google and my intuition helped…
    For me it wasn’t a money or my talent issue/quality of my photo – as a matter of principle was more important. All online news know the rules…

  6. Great post Laurel πŸ™‚

    One concern though, is that in naming and shaming we’re committing defamation, and if someone’s nasty enough to rip you off they might just soccer punch you with a lawsuit. Defamation has nothing to do with whether you told the truth or lied, but whether what you said damages their reputation (which the above does). There are one or two people I would love to name and shame but not with the potential of being sued for it.

    I really like your idea of an “unIndustry” association to protect the little guys – especially as we see the rise of more and more crowdsourcing. When done from a non-profit/community/art perspective, fantastic, but there are also a lot of instances where it amounts to pure exploitation.

  7. I enjoyed reading this post, especially the examples. It is interesting how social media is now giving voice to the little person. Up until now, the little person was being silenced by the big corporations because they were considered nobodies. Now everyone is someone again.

  8. hough I’m not sure how I just now saw this, I am glad I did.

    While I largely agree with you that social media can be a great tool for resolving plagiarism issues, I also have to caution against it. There are two very good reasons.

    First, by naming and shaming, you expose yourself to libel issues. Without knowing the full story about something, you risk saying something that is seen as libelous and you may find yourself on the wrong end of the suit.

    Second, crowds have a tendency to go too far. I’ve seen plagiarism cases where death threats were hurled and people were harassed online and off. Many take these issues seriously and go overboard with them. That can lead to significantly worse legal issues than infringement.

    The other problem is that, with DMCA takedowns and other levers to remove infringing material without the aid of lawyers, there isn’t much reason to do it. If all else fails, it may be worth the risks but not until all other options are exhausted.

    Just my take but it is a system that has served me well, over 700 times.

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