Conversation With a Content Theft Artist

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Blog Content TheftI don’t like having my stuff stolen or abused. Unlike most folks though that just roll over and take it - I like to do my best to fight back.

If nobody fights back against these guys, they win and we all have to pay the price for it. I recently found one web site that will go un-named (no reason to give these guys free press) stealing content from my podcast, WebHostingShow.com. Here is the un-edited version of his responses. I sent the first e-mail asking for the content to removed and for him to respond within five days or less.

Not totally out of the question - right? Here is his reply:

Hello Mr. Keller, we are not using site webhostingshow.com for these news, than using rss feeds from domaintools.com. And under every message there is your name and your email - notice to people that YOU have written those texts. So, please see with domaintools.com are using their rss feeds are legal or not.

Oh so they are saying it’s DomainTools.com that is stealing my content - not them. Hu? Yeah didn’t make much sense to me either - the DomainTools.com folks are a great team of people, not like this idiot who can’t even spell my name correctly. I replied trying to clarify, here is the next response:

Mr Keeler, we are using material that domaintools.com provides via rss feeds for free. So I do not see any copyright abuse. If you think this material is copyrighted, please contact domaintools.com first. If they remove your blogs from their site, they will be automatically removed from our site, too.

Oh so all content published via RSS feeds are free for the taking, happy I got that cleared up.. no wait, it is still my copyrighted material I did not give him permission to post. That is the fact plain and simple - so yet again I try to explain the situation and ask for some clarification.

Wish I could say this story had a happy ending, but afraid thus far it is not looking that way.

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Filed Under: Hot Web Topics, Web Development on July 24, 2007 at 5:56 am

Comments and Feedback

clickfire said on July 24, 2007 @ 9:40 am

If all else fails, maybe you could get domaintools to block him from accessing your feeds on their site? Just a thought.

Jonathan Bailey said on July 24, 2007 @ 7:28 pm

I wish that I could say this kind of idiocy ws unheard of or rare. Sadly though, it is neither.

I’ve done a lot of research on this matter and there is no implied license when it comes to RSS feeds. Several lawyers agree with me. Thus, they are not free for the taking and, even if there is an implied license, any stated license would override it so saying no means that he has to remove the content.

If you want, I can look at the case for you. Just send me an email with the details and I’ll see what I can do.

I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with this, please let me know if I can help.

Kyle Eslick said on July 24, 2007 @ 7:39 pm

Have you tried adding a copyright message with a link to your site on your feed? I had this problem but it stopped after I added that to my feed.

Mitch said on July 25, 2007 @ 6:26 am

Thanks to all three of you for your thoughts and suggestions. Yeah right now I am looking at RSS signature plugins for WordPress so I could do some sort of copyright or annoying self promotion that would keep the feed scrapers at bay.

Also surprised to see you here Jonathan - heck, spent some of my off time at work yesterday reading through your blog for advice. :)

Jonathan Bailey said on July 26, 2007 @ 9:34 am

I try to keep up on what’s going on with content theft :). Glad that my searches took me here.

Please though, let me know if I can help! I’ll gladly do what I can.

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