Note: If you are reading this post on any blog other than WritingThoughts, it has been plagiarized.
Question: I really liked your post, can I cut and paste it into my blog?
Answer: No, unless otherwise noted the contents of this blog are the intellectual property of the blog’s owner, Laura Spencer. As such, they remain under her copyright and may not be reproduced in their entirety without express permission from the author.
Question: Is there any way that I can use the posts on this blog?
Answer: You may quote a small portion (no more than several sentences) of a post if you attribute the quote to Laura Spencer and/or to WritingThoughts AND include a link back to this blog.
Alternatively, if you like the writing on this blog you can hire Laura Spencer to write a unique post for your blog. Refer to this page for details.
Question: Can I cut and paste a photograph or graphic from this blog onto my blog.
Answer: In many cases the photographs and graphics that appear here are also copyrighted. If you need photographs or images it is best to go to a stock image site such as iStockPhoto or stock.xchng.
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved
18 responses so far ↓
1 Laura // Nov 29, 2007 at
To my regular readers: I apologize for having to publish this. I know that most of you would never consider republishing posts without permission.
2 Phil // Nov 30, 2007 at
Wow Laura, that is a great FAQ, do you mind if I use it on my blog too?
😉
3 Matt Keegan // Nov 30, 2007 at
Laura, I think that it is terrific that you published your reprint policy. Sure, it is obvious to most of us that your material is uniquely your own, but to others it may not be.
A typical way people scrape content is through your feeds. There isn’t a whole lot you can do about that unless you want to contact the web host, threaten legal action, etc.
Sometimes it is necessary to take a hard stance.
4 Laura // Nov 30, 2007 at
Matt,
You’ve guessed the reason for my post. This blog has been scraped on a fairly regular basis for the past week, or so. I hope to discourage that by posting this article. We’ll see if they scrape it too.
5 Laura // Nov 30, 2007 at
Phil,
I think you can probably come up with something more unique.
6 Lisa Gates // Nov 30, 2007 at
Laura, how do you monitor scraping? Saved Google searches with phrases and keywords? I mean, how do you find your content “out there” and by what mechanisms?
7 Laura // Dec 1, 2007 at
Hi Lisa,
I really haven’t been actively monitoring. However, I do sometimes link to older material on this blog. When a post with that kind of link is scraped it appears as a reaction to this blog in Technorati. That was how I learned that every post that I’ve done for the past week was appearing, word-for-word, on another blog.
You could do a Google search on phrases used, I suppose. I think that would be time-consuming. There are also sites that will help you find out if your content exists somewhere else on the web. I think that you have to pay a small fee. If I find the link to one of those sites, I’ll post it.
8 Mig // Dec 1, 2007 at
Laura, you must be living a real nightmare. I am sorry that this happens to you and I hope you will find a way to stop the scrappers.
9 Laura // Dec 1, 2007 at
Thanks Mig!
It was sort of a shock. It’s not like this is a high profile site, or anything.
10 Wayne // Dec 2, 2007 at
Laura, if they’re scraping, they’re scraping your links as well. I’m sure that can be turned around and used to your benefit instead of getting ulcers about it. Just my 2 cents (European) worth.
11 Shantanu // Dec 2, 2007 at
Now-a-days there are services/products that can monitor copying of content but mostly for use by sites with very high traffic (e.g, Attributor: http://attributor.com).
But doesn’t surprise me that this is happening.
12 Mig // Dec 3, 2007 at
Well Wayne, links from bad neighbors bear no value. Scrapper sites don’t even have visitors, so what’s the point? The scrapers want to make money with AdSense, or to inflate artificially some rankings for the main websites (when we deal with blogs on subdomains or sub folders) – so there is really nothing that can come good out of a scrapper site – not even the link. Oh, sure, a little technorati boost. But what’s a technorati boost valued anyway?
13 Laura // Dec 4, 2007 at
Hi Wayne, Shantanu, and Mig!
Welcome to WritingThoughts Wayne! As Mig points out, it’s not always to your advantage to be linked to. Not all links are of equal value to search engines. Another problem with scraper sites is that potential clients and customers might believe that you are associated with the site. Since such sites are usually of low quality this is something that you should want to avoid.
Shantanu, thank for the link to the program. I’ll definitely consider it if it doesn’t cost too much.
14 Nikki // Dec 11, 2007 at
Hey Laura – I think that I may need to come up with something similar because I believe I was just scraped yesterday. I found a recent (like Monday’s) on a portal directory. It had part of my original post and then to read more a link to my blog and post… but no attribution and permission from me and it’s listed as being by someone else! Now I have to figure out what to do!
15 Laura // Dec 12, 2007 at
Hi Nikki!
I hope that your situation works out. Let me know if you have any questions.
16 Five Easy Ways to Piss a Blogger Off… For Good! : Top Hosting Center // Jan 4, 2008 at
[…] still just out of the starting gate, but every experienced blogger has had to contend with certain irreconcilable aggravations. Most of you know where I am going with this but it is important that we air out such insufferable […]
17 Arevik Dumikian // May 10, 2010 at
Dear Laura,
Finally I found a way to address to you! I’ve been reading your post among other on Freelance Folder and I find them really very helpful for freelancers of any kind and area of specializing.
We don’t have such good place in Russian-language Web as FF, but I wrote them twice and nave no answer, so I though of possibility to address to writers themselves.
I would like to ask you if you permit me to translate your articles and put onto a blog for Russian language freelancers? This will be free for you, will give me possibility to show my translation and help my colleagues. Naming the writer (you) and giving links to a source article is a must of course.
What would you say?
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Arevik
18 Laura Spencer // May 10, 2010 at
Arevik Dumikian–I sent you an email.