10.09.06
No Longer Safe
When I opened one of my daily blogs today and saw the skull and crossbones badge the writer is now assigning to every post, I was confused. It appeared someone was pirating her blog content and making money on it. Who would do such a thing? I read further, unease filling me, making my tongue itch like it does when I’m experiencing something that makes me feel deeply, something that I’m about to get all emotional about. I read some more from Blog Antagonist, and from there, I followed link after link after link. Apparently a website, Bitacle.org is stealing content, surrounding that content (without credit to the author until a couple weekends ago) with ads, and passing the content off as its own, including comments by that site’s participants who have no idea of the real authors, and even pictures. This article is probably the most comprehensive, including the directions for finding out of your content is being stolen. Because if you just do a regular search using Bitacle’s search engine in the middle of their home page, you’ll be run in circles like nobody’s business.
I was curious. I looked. And I found my ENTIRE blogger blog on that wretched website. Just in the last few hours, they have changed the most recent posts from showing the entire post to showing only a snippet at the beginning, but that doesn’t change the fact that they didn’t get my permission to reproduce any of my content. Going back a few posts, I find the entire content of each post, pictures included, reposted in their entirety.
I saw red. They stole TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY posts from me.
And I began to dig, which is when I found more of those links in the first paragraph. More information on fighting sploggers (spam blogger scrapers) can be found here. I even went so far as to check the fifty or so links on my blog roll to see who is on it. Here is a list of what I could find:
Finding Yourself Despite Yourself
Stephanie Klein’s Greek Tragedy
Ruminations of a Misspent Youth
Where Am I Going… and Why Am I In This Handbasket?
This violation literally makes me sick to my stomach. They’re making money on pictures of Gabe… But even if I never posted pictures and had chosen a pseudonym by which to write, it’s still thievery. These people only put links on their (your) content under pressure from those already violated who have had the opportunity to take action. But regardless of how much information they put about us as the authors, the fact remains that they did not get permission to reproduce the content they’ve used. Honestly, I’m so mad I can hardly form a coherent sentence. They’ve stolen words I’ve sweated over, pored over and reread a hundred times. They’ve taken my memories and cheapened them by turning them for their own profit. And I’m not even a popular blog by any stretch of the definition. I don’t make a penny off this site. I had one Google Adsense ad on my Blogger blog, and only on the off chance that I might make a few bucks to help with diaper costs, especially since Gabe was most of my blog fodder to begin with. The total? $5.60 that I made. And I think with Adsense, you have to make at least $100 before they’ll even pay you. Money isn’t why I do this (obviously), and it’s sickening to me that what I do because I love to write, because I love to share with my family and friends, and because I love the community that I unexpectedly found in the blogosphere, someone else has pimped out to their own profit.
But I’m not going to sit back. I’m not going to just let them take something about which I care so much and twist it, prostituting it to line their wallets without even giving me the credit for writing it. Nope. I don’t exactly know what my next steps are, but I have an idea. A relative of mine is both a lawyer and a journalist, and they have given me some direction on where I can go for help with this. I will NOT sit idly by.
I’ve emailed those of you who I know are on the above list in my blogroll, at least those of you whose email I could find. If you really don’t care to be included in this attempt to take back our content from what amounts to a bunch of con artists ~ and I’m not implying by not wanting to be involved that you don’t care or are flippant, only that you don’t want any involvement ~ please say so. But my goal is to get Bitacle.org shut down. I can’t do it by myself. I can try, but mine is only one of only 14,000 blogs being pirated. 14,000 voices are louder than one.
*edited to add that even just overnight, since I wrote this post, Bitacle.org has made changes to their site in an attempt to back their way into legally displaying our words they’ve been pirating for months, but the only way to really do that is get our permission. They aren’t bloody likely to get mine, that’s for damn sure. But they now more resemble sites like Bloglines and other feed sites. There is still much I don’t understand about them but what I do know is that they are still stealing my stuff, putting ads on the page to make money off the content, and I’m still mad as hell.
Another update:
whois provides the following information:
Domain ID:D107134988-LROR
Domain Name:BITACLE.ORG
Created On:09-Aug-2005 11:08:59 UTC
Last Updated On:11-Aug-2006 01:22:58 UTC
Expiration Date:09-Aug-2007 11:08:59 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom401, Incorporated (R21-LROR)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:JA7268-BR
Registrant Name:Jesus Angelo Glez.
Registrant Organization:Jesus Angelo Glez.
Registrant Street1:Plaza Espana, n2 - 2B
Registrant City:Burgos
Registrant State/Province:Burgos
Registrant Postal Code:09005
Registrant Country:ES
Registrant Phone:+3.4628644317
Registrant Email:info@bitacle.com
info@bitacle.com This is where you can email to request they take your content off their site if you’re unfortunate enough to have been caught up in this.
*update: 10/13/06
Registrar ID: R21-LROR
Registrar Organization: eNom401, Incorporated
Street Address: 15801 NE 24th Street, Bellevue, WA 98008
Phone: (425)274-4500 ext 4605
Email: paul.stahura@enom.com
This is the information on the host with whom bitacle.org is registered (eNom401, Inc.) and there is another email address for a guy located in Bellevue, WA. It’s also got the phone number (425)274-4500, ext 4605. If you want to see if there’s anything this company can do on our behalf, send an email to them or pick up the phone and start asking questions. However, and I probably don’t have to say this, these aren’t the people we’re after so let’s try to keep our tones as respectful as possible. Starting off hateful (as easy as it can be given how upset a lot of us are) will not do well to further our cause.
Lorelle VanFossen said,
October 10, 2006 at 6:40 am
First of all, slow down. Yes, this is frustrating, but it’s not personal. They don’t care about who they hurt, but we need to act properly to respond to them hurting us.
Second, check those posts of yours they have again and you should see that they are “old”. There should be no new ones on bitacle over the past two weeks. WordPress.com is working hard to put a stop to their access to WordPress.com blogs. For those hosting their own WordPress blogs, there are also solutions, as outlined here.
Third, check your own site to make sure every post and your entire blog is labeled as copyrighted. Put the Creative Commons or just a copyright statement in your sidebar or at the bottom of every post. This let’s the world know what your policy is on copying your material. Without it, they are only guessing, so stealing doesn’t bother them if you didn’t bother to be clear about what usage is acceptable.
Fourth, write emails to the contact information found all over the web (from sources you have listed) and translate it into Spanish and email it to the contact information. Use Google’s Bablefish or some other online translation program if necessary. State that they are in violation of your copyright (whatever that is) and that you will not allow them to use your content for commercial use, which is what they are doing. Ask them to stop and to remove all links and content to your blog.
Fifth - you’ve done this one. Let the world know. Help others understand that while this is something to worry about, this is not something to take revenge against, only action. If they are flooded with email, letters, phone calls, and incoming posts to their site include the Stop Bitacle or Stop Stealing Content buttons, logos, or posts, people reading bitacle will get a clue that they are using stolen content. And the more the bitacle folks have to deal with the crap, the less enthusiasm they may have to fight the tide against them. Join the voices of protest and things will change. Which is why WordPress.com put a stop to their posts being scraped.
Thanks for spreading the word. We all have a voice when we blog. Let’s use it for good and to put a stop to evil.
(Which means that next on your list should be comment spammers.
)
Meredith said,
October 10, 2006 at 9:17 am
I am so sorry for you. I don’t keep a blog of my own, but I cherish the blogs that I read and I always feel so priviledged that you all share your lives, your thoughts and your wonderful writing. Fight the good fight to protect yourselves and let us readers know if there are steps that we can take to help you.
Meredith
Pendullum said,
October 10, 2006 at 9:18 am
What do I do???
Andrea…Tell me what you want us to do and I will do it…
I can not beleive it…
How could they steal our work???
Andrea said,
October 10, 2006 at 9:31 am
Pendullum and anyone else who wants to do something: go here: http://stopbitacleorg.wordpress.com/ They can help with where to voice your complaints. The first comment to this post gives some helpful information on the steps to take.
Put at the front of every post something like this: Bitacle.org STEALS CONTENT. If you are reading this on Bitacle.org’s site, you are reading someone else’s work who has NOT given permission for the reproduction. If you’d like to read the site LEGALLY, click here [insert your URL]. Do not continue to pad Bitacle’s pockets by clicking on their ad driven pages. Help put a stop to Copyright Infringement.
Do this on EVERY post, first thing. Then, send emails to everyone you can find who will listen. Spread the word to other bloggers to watch out for this, to check their own content. If Bitacle gets enough email and enough scraped posts talking about what thieves and liars they are, a mountain of them, then maybe the pressure will be too great for them to fight, and they’ll take down what they’ve stolen.
Linlee said,
October 10, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Your first commenter was incorrect my post today showed up on their site. NICE! Jerks. I think I might just delete my whole blog.
Where am I going...and why am I in this handbasket? said,
October 10, 2006 at 6:42 pm
[...] No doubt some of you might think that by stopping blogging, I’m letting the ‘sploggers’, as they’re called, win. I don't feel that way. I’m not going to just lie down and take this – I may stop blogging but I’m going to fight to help ensure that this bullshit stops. I’ve already started doing what I can to make my voice heard and you can too, even if you aren’t personally affected by this. Andrea over at Little Bald Doctors has written a very informative post about this subject and has gotten some great advice in her comments section on how you can go about protecting your blog content and what you can do to make your voice heard. Blog Antagonist has also written excellent, informative posts on the subject and you can find even more information here and here. [...]
Lotta said,
October 10, 2006 at 9:40 pm
oooh that chaps me! How frustrating!!!!
katie said,
October 10, 2006 at 9:46 pm
My entire blog is also on their site. I’m not sure what to do with this and it scares me. I don’t want photos of my baby on there.
TB said,
October 11, 2006 at 8:38 am
They’ve been posting my feeds for months and I don’t know what else to do to stop them. It’s clearly copyright infringment but they aren’t listening to any of the ceace and desist orders. The best they’ve done thus far it to start putting our urls on the feeds that they’re posting. Gee thanks for giving me credit for content you stole from me. Assholes.
Dana said,
October 11, 2006 at 9:25 am
People don’t listen to cease-and-desists 50% of the time. You almost always have to proceed to legal action.
Those peckermittens stole from two of the three sites I do. Andrea - I put that disclaimer up on the posts that they stole.
Amber said,
October 11, 2006 at 9:50 am
They swipe my blog almost every post, too. I had asked my computer-geek husband to look into it, but he said that now that they are adding my link on the bottom, it is legal. Pft! I am still going to do what you say, and try to see what I can do. I didn’t know it was so bad.
thanks.
scout said,
October 11, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I am confused! How do I find out if I am on there? I searched blogs and I see my blog.
Mommy off the Record said,
October 11, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Crap. Crap. Crap! Ugh, I am so pissed. Thank you for posting about this. I will be following up on trying to get my site removed. What are the chances of that happening? Has anyone been succesful?
Applaud Those Who Warn You: Your Blog’s Content Is Being Stolen « Lorelle on WordPress said,
October 12, 2006 at 12:03 am
[...] Little Bald Doctors [...]
Dana said,
October 13, 2006 at 8:42 am
I never heard of this until today and I’m just sick. The funny thing is that someone was searching for my blog on Google and told me that my name and a few sentences appeared on a generic site about blogging and when she clicked there it was all advertisements for sales and service for autos. So it looks like people are stealing certain phrases and putting them into the meta tags on their html pages.
How nuts!
Cheaper Than Therapy said,
October 13, 2006 at 11:39 am
[...] if you want to read more about it, visit Little Bald Doctors. [...]
raincoaster said,
October 14, 2006 at 3:15 am
Someone in the WordPress forums suggested that you go to Bitacle and click on their ad links without buying anything. As Podz says, a lot of clicks will get their Google account suspended (and thus their income!).
http://wordpress.com/forums/topic.php?id=4367
raincoaster said,
October 14, 2006 at 3:17 am
Oh, and Linlee is incorrect when she says Lorelle is incorrect; Linlee’s blog is not on WordPress, so it’s not protected the way Lorelle was talking about.
Anne Nahm » Wow. Feels Like Cat Puke in My Shoes Too said,
October 14, 2006 at 11:36 am
[...] Many fine bloggers are writing all about it this morning. Here are some lovely links to get your blood pressure thrumming in your ears. Because like I said, you are probably over there too, being ripped off. I suggest reading some of the links before running right over to bitacle.org and looking for yourself, as you will want to spend as little time flipping through that ass cavity of a web site as you can so as to minimize their profits. Profits they are making on stolen blog entries. Did I mention that? [...]
julia said,
October 14, 2006 at 8:26 pm
I’m hugely confused. I’ll put a copyright thing on my blog, but most of the other advice is confusing. Or maybe I’m just an idiot. It’s entirely possible.
Fidget said,
October 16, 2006 at 8:57 am
Ok, I am LOST. Can you email me and baby steps me through this? I dont understand how to search their site for my content. You listed me specifically… does that mean you spotted my content on their site?? AAACCCKKK! I’m freaking out!
Plagiarism on an Astonishing Scale « It’s Not All Mary Poppins said,
February 7, 2007 at 6:43 pm
[...] people have taken steps to stop Bitacle. This post, for example, is clear, helpful, and informative, and [...]