Copied Content

[Andrew]

I don't know why, but in the last two months I have run across more instances of the website's content being copied to another site than I have over a period of years.  I think that it is the growth of blogs and also the small online business model of advertising that is made possible by Google Adwords and affiliate programs.  People want to make the money. They do not want to (or cannot) make the content to attract visitors, so they copy.

Anyway, I keep finding these and keep sending out DMCA takedown notices when possible (US or other countries with decent copyright protection).  I have the template, so it only takes a few minutes to write the letter, verify it twice, and then scan and email or fax it.

By copied content, I mean somebody takes an entire review (or the characters, plot, lessons, and stuff to watch for) and posts the article onto their own site/blog.  It is very rare that they provide any credit to Badmovies.org.  Like this guy, who just copied a number of my reviews and posted them as his own IMDB reader comments:
http://imdb.com/user/ur10220319/comments

[asimpson2006]

It's truely shameful that people have to copy stuff, then claim it as their own and not give credit to the source material. 

If I do write a review and use text that someone else wrote, I will cite the source material. Though I rarely pull something from another review unless I feel that it is either good to my cause or will be able to explain something better then I could.
 

[ulthar]

Just out of curiosity, are you sending these letters to IMDB in this case, or the wolf_man guy?  If IMDB has this info, they should pull his account and preferably ban by IP.

[Allhallowsday]

What an ASS!!!  the_wolf_man07 is a plagiarizing turd with no self esteem!  He did not even try to cover his tracks, just lifted your reviews, Andrew, whole!  What an ASS!!!   

[Andrew]

asimpson - Heck, if they were only using snippets there wouldn't be any issue at all.  I never see any snippets, or if I do I disregard.  Interestingly, sites or posters who use snippets also provide proper attribution. 

Allhallowsday - That is pretty much what all of them do.  I'd say 95% of the time they just copy the whole review, word for word.  If I could meet them in person, I'd probably get myself in trouble.  The world is a more civilized place now.

Ulthar - Most often, I send the DMCA notice to the provider, like Google (for Blogger) and Amazon for the IMDB.  They usually only ban users in the case of habitual offenders.

[Allhallowsday]

Allhallowsday - That is pretty much what all of them do.  I'd say 95% of the time they just copy the whole review, word for word.  If I could meet them in person, I'd probably get myself in trouble.  The world is a more civilized place now.

I can say my mind is not often boggled, but the blatant theft of intellectual property does it.  And, for... what?  Trotting out someone else's work as one's own on IMDB?  If I met some ASS in person who stole my writing I'd get myself in trouble too.  Here's to putting up with it, keeping cool, and running a great website.   

[CheezeFlixz]

How hard is it to say ...

"To quote badmovies.org ..." or "According to badmovies.org ..." etc etc.

I mean if you can't have an original thought, then just don't have one.

[Trevor]

  This wolf_man *beep* deserves to have a silver bullet right up his arse and I will pull the trigger.  I will report him as soon as I get on to the IMDB.

This reminds me of two SA government sponsored organizations who got wind of my thesis on the SA film industry's history and asked if they could use this 400 page colume for research purposes.

Being a nice guy, I said OK: the next thing you know, they have the entire thing on their sites. Now the kicker: I can't sue them as they are funded by my Department and I would have to resign and then sue them.

You just can't bloody win, can you? 

[RCMerchant]

Whatta sorry piece of sh!t. Obviously the shmuck has no shame,or even the brains to think that he wouldn't be caught . Whatta peter head!   

At least he has good taste....if he had copied something I wrote...it would have shown he was a total idiot!   

[asimpson2006]

asimpson - Heck, if they were only using snippets there wouldn't be any issue at all.  I never see any snippets, or if I do I disregard.  Interestingly, sites or posters who use snippets also provide proper attribution. 

I know some people can be anal about snippets that are used from other sites without citing sources.

[Ash]

On one hand, you could look at it as the sincerest form of flattery.
But to do that would be wrong.

They're stealing from you...plain & simple.

What about reader reviews?
Several of us here (myself included) have reviews on this site.
Do you also check to see that none of our writings have been plagarized?

[Andrew]

What about reader reviews?
Several of us here (myself included) have reviews on this site.
Do you also check to see that none of our writings have been plagarized?

I do not.  Two real reasons. 

One (and this is the main reason) is that there is nothing I can do if I discover such - I am not the creator of the work, so I have no standing in copyright law or the DMCA.  Actually, the writer of the review is extending me authorization to post their review on the site.  They are the creator of the review and still own the rights.

Two is that the writer might publish the review or submit it to another site (or use it on their own or a friend's site).  There is too much a possibility that I would be finding duplicates and alerting on false positives.  For my reviews, they are all on this site.  I know that any copies are illegal copies.

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

Be glad you aren't using wordpress or a similarly super-popular front end program, there are millions of sites that do nothing but steal content based on search strings that constantly run through technorati and other blog search engines.  I have a blog attached that is just a throwaway thing and it even gets snatched up from time to time (the most recent being a blog that grabbed all articles with the word "giganto" in it.  Is Giganto suddenly a big Google adsense keyword?)  There are specialized terms for these thief blogs, and for the blognets used for fraudulent adclicking which sometimes runs hand in hand with the former but I don't remember them offhand.

[Andrew]

Be glad you aren't using wordpress or a similarly super-popular front end program, there are millions of sites that do nothing but steal content based on search strings that constantly run through technorati and other blog search engines.  I have a blog attached that is just a throwaway thing and it even gets snatched up from time to time (the most recent being a blog that grabbed all articles with the word "giganto" in it.  Is Giganto suddenly a big Google adsense keyword?)  There are specialized terms for these thief blogs, and for the blognets used for fraudulent adclicking which sometimes runs hand in hand with the former but I don't remember them offhand.

Except for the forum, pretty much everything here is code I wrote.  That is something I am proud of.  Scrapers hit this site too, but Google and most search engines seem to weed them out quickly. 

[odinn7]

Two words: People Suck