I was doing a search and came upon this. Kalinara came upon this. Further searching found this and this.
Does anyone know why my stuff would appear on random Bravenet pages?
And what I can do to stop it?
Edit: Thanks guys, I reported them through Bravenet's abuse page. We'll see what happens.
Well, there is also this.
ReplyDeleteGo to the mainpage of the last blog you linked to for comparison.
My guess? Bravenet is trying to make it look as though tons of people use our site! Come get a Bravenet blog - they're the coolest - you can tell because everyon'e got one. A theory which is supported by the fact that A) I've never heard of them before and B) all the blogs are named [insert name here]'s Blog.
Needless to say, whoever is responsible gets plenty of extra eyerolling - and worse - for creating a bunch of blogs written only by fake men (as far as I can tell) and filling them with stolen blog posts written by women (as far as I can tell).
As for what to do about it - spread the news, google bomb Bravenet, and start a wikipedia war. Very soon all the people worth caring about will shun Bravenet and thus Bravenet will die a slow, painful, humiliating death.
Technically, you could also sue who ever is responsible for this for copyright infingement, but that's expensive and takes time. You're only real chance there is a class action lawsuit or getting Newsrama to foot the bill.
Considering the links show up as empty lines, I'd say it was filler or spam blogs. I found something similar in a Wolverine post I did. The entire post was lifted and used for several splogs and had to have been done automatically.
ReplyDeleteContacting the webmaster did nothing as the they were splogs, but in your case if it the post and links are being used as filler they may respond.
It just keeps getting better.
ReplyDeleteAll three blogs have random letters as their blog name and yahoo email account.
Plus, if you look at their profiles, their last names are women's first names, and they are all from overseas.
I've only seen the three so far though.
Pull a Meeley. Post that you want them to CEASE AND DESIST.
ReplyDeleteThough here, I think you might have some more legitmate claim, as this is more plagerism than just linking.
phillip - there are no links, and the blog "authors" are taking credit for the work - which makes it just plain copyright infringement.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be all technical (it's in the genes) plagerism is an academic no-no, not a legal one. I can fill my blog with Walt Whitman poems and call them mine and it's still legal (they're in the public domain), but I'd get a F and possibly expulsion if I turned them in for homework. It's not legal, however, to post Shel Silverstein poems on my blog and call them mine
Not being Shel Silverstein, Ragnell and Kalinara may have a harder time prosecuting, but who ever is responsible is still legally in the wrong, not just morally or academically.
Since Ragnell gets paid for some of what she writes, it's also a bit more serious than just "hey! some spambot is stealing my stuff! (grumble grumble)"
First, I had a Bravenet blog (well, I probably still have it, if it was one of the ones I've littered across the blogosphere cuz I couldn't find a delete option) and it didn't look anything like those. Nor have any of the other Bravenet blogs I've known, tho perhaps they've changed their design. But it looks like one, barely customized if at all template is being used for some quicking blogging.
ReplyDeleteSecond, see if contacting someone at Bravenet would help. They might be as annoyed as you are. Many blogging services do have a way to report copyright violations and if you can prove your case, tell the blogger to remove the material or they'll take down the blog. Then again, they might not care. Worth trying, tho.
This sort of thing has been going on for the 2 1/2 years I've been blogging, with some folks lifting entire posts and presenting them as their own. They want to blog but can't manage to write their own stuff.
There are ways to prevent theft of graphics, or at least slow down that theft, but I don't know a way to prevent theft of text. If short enough, people could simply retype the text.
hmmm.... That wasn't all that clear. I meant that Bravenet might tell the blogger(s) to pull the posts or if the blogs are spamblogs or similar, might pull the blogs.
ReplyDeleteI recomend breaking the internet.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletemickle - You are obviously right, and I totally agree with you. I bow before your academic superiority in the face of my lame attempts at brevity.
ReplyDeletebrevity - what's that?
ReplyDelete;)
This is completely outrageous, and barefaced theft to boot. Why would anybody even comtemplate doing this, and to what purpose? The heck with prosecution, I want them caught,and I want Ragnell and Kalinara to be able to flog them until their arms get tired. Phooey.
ReplyDeleteIt's a "splog" -- somebody is scraping your RSS feed and using it to build a site. It's ususally done by a 'bot and the goal is to make money from ads on the site (what's strange in this case is I'm not seeing ads on the site). It's an unfortunately common occurrence on the web.
ReplyDeleteYour best bet is to file a takedown notice with Bravenet/Bravejournal. This site (Plagiarism Today) has loads of information on this whole topic and good advice on what to do.
Scott said it right, this is a spam blog or splog. He's also right that your best bet is to file a DMCA notice with Bravenet. It's easy enough to do and I'll be more than glad to help if I can. Feel free to shoot me any email using the form on my site and I'll walk you through it (too much to cover here).
ReplyDeleteGood luck with this!