Posts Tagged ‘content theft’

I don’t know how many readers are familiar with the notion of content aggregator based websites? Put simply these are sites that pull content from others.

Some are useful sites, say, drawing news content on a particular subject, and others are sites which abuse the hard work of others. One such site is one that has appeared in the last couple of days is “all-things-lanzarote.com” (no link for obvious reasons)… I should point out this imposter is nothing at all to do with the established site allthingslanzarote.com.

This site has been aggregating content from our Lanzarote Relocation site, and have also got the backs up of at least two other well known sites on the the island, one of which it would appear the domain name is emulating. I’ve not mentioned the other sites as I haven’t asked them for permission at this stage to include their names. However, they will be made aware of this post and a more than welcome to comment here with anything they wish to say on this matter.

It is possible to leave a comment on the site that has copied our content, but I’m guessing the comment I made will not last very long … Here it is…

Paul – put very simply. Your lifting of our content breaches all of the unambiguous copyright notices at the bottom of all of our sites, and those of our clients. I ask, very simply, and very clearly, that you remove ALL duplicate content and ensure ours and our clients sites are not ‘farmed’ in future. Is this clear enough?

I reiterate Paul (if that is your real name of course). All of our own – and our clients sites, carry clear and unambiguous copyright notices. You have not been granted any permission to reproduce our content in any way shape or form.

Your activities, now I and the other involved have brought our disapproval to your notice, are, on this basis illegal under the terms of the Berne Convention.

I would normally have mailed the site owner. But as might be expected by someone who is unscrupulous enough to steal the hard work of others. The site owner has not included an email address, and has chosen to hide his true identity behind the privacy options on the who is information.

Domain Name: all-things-lanzarote.com

Registrar: WILD WEST DOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.wildwestdomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.wildwestdomains.com
Status: clientDeleteProhibited, clientRenewProhibited, clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited

Expiration Date: 2011-01-28
Creation Date: 2010-01-28
Last Update Date: 2010-01-28 Read the rest of this entry »