Adventures in Copyright.

By Alexloves on 17 May 2010 in Me Me Me with 16 Comments.

One of the offending posts

My fellow bloggers, do you sometimes google your own name, blog name, web address? No? Well, maybe you should.

As a lot of you who follow me on Twitter may already know, I did this very thing on Saturday, and shockingly found one of my posts, word for word, complete with pictures, on www.luuux.com. A few clicks later, I found a second one. (Original here)
Completely uncredited, except for a barely visible link at the bottom of the page, to me this was just blatant plagiarism. Luuux.com is a platform for bloggers and members to promote their own content and by doing so, they can earn Luuux $, which they can then trade in for gifts.

So, not only did someone steal my posts, she seemed to be earning money off it – FYI, I am currently earning around £0 from doing this blog. I tweeted about this quite angrily, and within minutes I got an overwhelming outpouring of support from my fellow bloggers, which I’m really so grateful for. We all work hard on our blogs, a massive amount of time and effort goes into them and we take a lot of pride in the result, whether this is as a hobby or a full time job. Through twitter, events and other media, bloggers have become a real community and although I’m still relatively new to this world, I’m happy to call a lot of these girls (and boys) my friends and colleagues. What happened to me could have happened to any of us, which is why so many offered me their support in having this situation fixed.

In the end, the Twitter rants reached the people at Luuux, who contacted me directly to resolve this. I was ready for a full-on war, for a battle, me against The System and whatnot, but in the end, there’s a lot to be said about having a sensible conversation to solve a problem. My posts were taken down, the offender was contacted, but that didn’t fix the core of the problem.

I have no issues in having my content shared, as long as the right person is clearly credited and it drives people to your site. Have a look on the image above – can you see the link? Not quite. Luuux have ensured me that by tonight this will change, all their members will be contacted about stricter regulations, amongst other actions they’re taking. This is a pretty new website and they’re learning from their mistakes. As upset as I am about this happening, I’m happy that something positive has come out of it. Hopefully the members will stick to posting their own blogs, or if they don’t they will at least credit the right person properly. I’m happy with the progress and am still in touch with them, so if any of you have other suggestions, please let me know.

The whole situation has taught me two valuable lessons though:
1: Do NOT mess with bloggers. They will kick up a shitstorm and then eat you alive. They are also possibly the nicest people around. FACT.
2: Blogging and copyright is a tricky situation. It’s still a reasonably new medium, so a lot of people don’t know the rules. Our stuff is out there for everyone to see, to copy and use for themselves. In the past I’ve found my personal pictures on other blogs, but this was the worst breach of my copyright so far. Although it has been sorted this time round, I’m just wondering – how do I protect myself from having this happen again?

So, bloggers, experts, whatnots, what’s your opinion? How do you guys protect your blogs and content? Because after this, I’m intrigued, worried, terrified.

http://www.liraleirner.com/blog/blog.html Lira Leirner

Wow – this is terrifying! I’m glad it turned out OK.

I think that a big confusion happens for people who don’t understand the difference between content sharing, which is then fully referenced, such as on facebook, and social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon etc. The action is very similar but the reference and final outcome is completely different. It really blurs the line of what less honest people think they can get away with or simply ignorant people don’t understand.

Something that I have done, which seems to help avoid plagiarism, is incorporate my blog into my own website rather than use an external provider such as blogger. You can do that with word press easily. It seems that people respect websites more than blogs – quite unfairly, as us bloggers put so much sweat, tears and fears into our posts!

Until the next generation of bloggers will have profoundly have hammered this from us, the only way is to keep a tight leash on copy thieves a la neighborhood watch! Us nice bloggers have to stick together, right?

I check my name as well, which is not being vain but simply protecting ourselves and keeping track of what is happening in the blogsphere – our sphere, after all! Nobody would blame a gardener for checking on his/ her plants, would they?
http://www.liraleirner.com/blog/blog.html Lira Leirner

Wow – this is terrifying! I’m glad it turned out OK.

I think that a big confusion happens for people who don’t understand the difference between content sharing, which is then fully referenced, such as on facebook, and social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon etc. The action is very similar but the reference and final outcome is completely different. It really blurs the line of what less honest people think they can get away with or simply ignorant people don’t understand.

Something that I have done, which seems to help avoid plagiarism, is incorporate my blog into my own website rather than use an external provider such as blogger. You can do that with word press easily. It seems that people respect websites more than blogs – quite unfairly, as us bloggers put so much sweat, tears and fears into our posts!

Until the next generation of bloggers will have profoundly have hammered this from us, the only way is to keep a tight leash on copy thieves a la neighborhood watch! Us nice bloggers have to stick together, right?

I check my name as well, which is not being vain but simply protecting ourselves and keeping track of what is happening in the blogsphere – our sphere, after all! Nobody would blame a gardener for checking on his/ her plants, would they?
http://salutetostyle.com/ Esme Benjamin

So glad you managed to resolve this with the Luuux.com people. It really is a sickening thought that somebody could be making money off the back of your hard work.

Sounds like things will change as a result of your fierce Twitter campaign though! A victory for bloggers everywhere! x
http://salutetostyle.com/ Esme Benjamin

So glad you managed to resolve this with the Luuux.com people. It really is a sickening thought that somebody could be making money off the back of your hard work.

Sounds like things will change as a result of your fierce Twitter campaign though! A victory for bloggers everywhere! x
http://www.luuux.com Dave Openshaw

Hi,

I hope it’s ok for me to jump in here without a whack on the head!

We are going to do every thing we can to stomp on this as well, and “all” the bloggers we have spoken to have been really helpful.

Tonight or tomorrow morning we’ll add lots of warnings and a new feature to make it one click to report a copyright problem with a “big” button, next to a “big” source link.

But as Alex says, this does not really eradicate the problem.

What has come out of this which I think is really quite interesting was a quick google on “copyright plagiarism” which has thrown up a number of sites and companies, both free and commercial offering different services.

I think that we are going to look into how we can use this type of technology on our site, and I hope that mentioning it here can help some other bloggers as well, or throw into the arena a dialog and discussion on how to best fix these issues.

Thx,
Dave.
http://www.luuux.com Dave Openshaw

Hi,

I hope it’s ok for me to jump in here without a whack on the head!

We are going to do every thing we can to stomp on this as well, and “all” the bloggers we have spoken to have been really helpful.

Tonight or tomorrow morning we’ll add lots of warnings and a new feature to make it one click to report a copyright problem with a “big” button, next to a “big” source link.

But as Alex says, this does not really eradicate the problem.

What has come out of this which I think is really quite interesting was a quick google on “copyright plagiarism” which has thrown up a number of sites and companies, both free and commercial offering different services.

I think that we are going to look into how we can use this type of technology on our site, and I hope that mentioning it here can help some other bloggers as well, or throw into the arena a dialog and discussion on how to best fix these issues.

Thx,
Dave.
http://thestylecrusader.com the style crusader

oh wow. i was wondering what was going down on twitter the other day… i somehow missed the beginning. that is really pretty impressive that they responded to you so quickly and took it down – i’ve heard way more nasty horror stories about bloggers going through a big and nasty showdown to get sites to take down their stolen posts. i don’t do anything currently to protect my blog. i am going to start popping up water marks on my photos so that if people re-use them there will always be a logo on there to link it back to me. i’m glad the situation for you didn’t escalate into a big ordeal for you. xx
http://thestylecrusader.com the style crusader

oh wow. i was wondering what was going down on twitter the other day… i somehow missed the beginning. that is really pretty impressive that they responded to you so quickly and took it down – i’ve heard way more nasty horror stories about bloggers going through a big and nasty showdown to get sites to take down their stolen posts. i don’t do anything currently to protect my blog. i am going to start popping up water marks on my photos so that if people re-use them there will always be a logo on there to link it back to me. i’m glad the situation for you didn’t escalate into a big ordeal for you. xx
http://www.mademoisellerobot.com Mademoiselle Robot

It is hard to protect your content online. As well as human plagiarism, you also have to be weary of feed aggregators that reproduce your content willy nilly on nasty looking sites, just to make money from your writing.

I was becoming increasingly sick of people using my photos, and reproducing my posts etc, so I recently added a creative commons licence on my blog (it doesn’t really have the legal value of copyright, but it will deter people at best) and also you can add something to your feed stating that the content is copyrighted to you (link to your blog) and that if it appears somewhere else, it is without your permission.

I know Luuux and I think they are so desperate to get their company off the ground that they probably don’t check the submitted content as thoroughly as they should for stolen content etc.

There is one last thing, but this can’t be fought unfortunately – copycats… I know the blogosphere normally sticks together, but there are a few people out there who strive off taking ideas here and there. Against this, there is nothing.

I am glad your issue got resolved though! x

http://www.luuux.com Dave Openshaw

@Mademoiselle Robot

Hi,

Regarding copycats comment. Have you tried a Google on “protect plagiarism”. It throws up a few companies both free & commercial that can protect for straight forward cut+paste copying.

Even a search on the first 2 sentences of a post can give you some results.

We are currently looking into this as it could be a useful service for Luuux content and also protect us and non-Luuux Bloggers.

Any chance we can change the “desperate” to “eager” or “keen” ;-)

Cheers,
Dave

http://www.mademoisellerobot.com Mademoiselle Robot

It is hard to protect your content online. As well as human plagiarism, you also have to be weary of feed aggregators that reproduce your content willy nilly on nasty looking sites, just to make money from your writing.

I was becoming increasingly sick of people using my photos, and reproducing my posts etc, so I recently added a creative commons licence on my blog (it doesn’t really have the legal value of copyright, but it will deter people at best) and also you can add something to your feed stating that the content is copyrighted to you (link to your blog) and that if it appears somewhere else, it is without your permission.

I know Luuux and I think they are so desperate to get their company off the ground that they probably don’t check the submitted content as thoroughly as they should for stolen content etc.

There is one last thing, but this can’t be fought unfortunately – copycats… I know the blogosphere normally sticks together, but there are a few people out there who strive off taking ideas here and there. Against this, there is nothing.

I am glad your issue got resolved though! x

http://www.mademoisellerobot.com mademoiselle robot

@david

Yes, pardon my French! “Keen” is probably a better term… although you won’t always be able to get people to change the wording of their comments/posts, so maybe next time try and go with it ;)
http://www.mademoisellerobot.com mademoiselle robot

@david

Yes, pardon my French! “Keen” is probably a better term… although you won’t always be able to get people to change the wording of their comments/posts, so maybe next time try and go with it ;)
http://www.greatworksofstyle.co.uk/ Katie

@mademoiselle robot

Sorry if I’m being really dim but doesn’t a creative commons licence mean that you will let people use your content – as long as they credit you properly and don’t profit from it?
http://www.greatworksofstyle.co.uk/ Katie

@mademoiselle robot

Sorry if I’m being really dim but doesn’t a creative commons licence mean that you will let people use your content – as long as they credit you properly and don’t profit from it?