Bitacle is Heisting My Content

Bitacle is a blog that on first glance, must really like me. It has copied all my recent posts, word-for-word, as I wrote them.  It has all the links that I used. In fact, there is only one way the content is different than the content here at Naked Conversations.

They are putting their ads in front of their visitors. They are using my content, without my permission to try to get some revenue, that I'm sure they do not intend to share with me.

Since I do not protect this site with a Creative Commons mark, I imagine that what they are doing is legal. But it is not nice and I do not like it.

It's amazing how many smarmi ways there are to game the blogging system.  I do not think this one will do very well, simply because it is all copy.  The best scammers are actually a lot more creative.

Comments

[Conor O'Neill]

I've been seeing more and more of this recently.

I can understand them nicking your content because of the traffic that might get sent their way but why any scammers would want to copy mine I'll never know.

See you in Cork.

[Amy Gahran]

Hi, Shel

What Bitacle is doing is not legal. It violates US and international copyright law.

Under US law, any content you create is automatically considered copyrighted the moment it's transferred to a "fixed, tangible medium" And yes, publishing online counts. This is true even if you dont' register your copyright with the US copyright office, and even if you don't display a copyright notice with your content.

Of course, not registering or marking your copyright makes it difficult to take legal action against thieves.

But you can out them for what they're doing. I do that routinely.

The thing is, online content theft/plagiarism is usually (but not always) perpetrated by spammers or clueless people who have virtually no audience. They think stealing content from established authors will help their search rankings -- which it does.

UNTIL the annoyed original author publicly outs the thief on his or her high-profile site, that is. Then, what often happens is that any search for the thief's name or domain first turns up news of their theft.

Like you just did to Bitacle. Keep it up. It's fun.

- Amy Gahran

[Bertil]

Look at the main page (http://en.bitacle.org/): doesn't it look a lot like NetVibes?

[Pat Phelan]

Give Jesus Angelo Glez a call in Spain Shel
He is the guying stealing your voice.
Just called the number and it rings
Here is his number +34628644317

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Did you see this post I just did this morning?

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2006/09/21/im-being-cloned/

[n.l. belardes]

I'm glad I didn't put any quotes in my review, "In the blog sack with Naked Conversations".

You guys would have hounded me...!

Sorry about the current formatting technical difficulties on my site... will be fixed soon... stay tuned to the comments... should get 30-50 I'm guessing...

[n.l. belardes]

And as for info-stealing spammers... be flattered that morons think your words are worth stealing or go after them... I say go after them to at least take the content down...

[Richard Brandt]

On the surface, it's simple plagiarism, a cheap attempt to make a buck.

However, let me play devil's advocate. There is a grey area here. The site doesn't seem to be cliaming someone there wrote the stuff. It's your content, and they link back to Naked Conversations at the top of the article. It would be more honest to clarify that it's your content, and to just publish excerpts. But conceivably, that could give you more publicity and drive more traffic to your site.

How much difference is there between this and the Belgian government ruling against Google for publishing excerpts of local articles on Google News? Yes, it is sleazier, but how much use is "fair use"? (The courts would be in your favor, though.)

Still, does it steal traffic from your site? Are you any worse off? Should they be required to share ad revenues with you (and should google News share ad revenues with all the pubs it links to?)

It's a new world out there.

[Jim Minatel]

Shel: I'd encourage you to post a copyright notice in whatever form (creative commons, more standard copyright, etc) you are most comfortable with on your pages. Even though the earlier posters are correct that you don't need this for it to be technicially copyrighted, this might give the casual IP thief reason to pause. And it makes sense to publicly state how you own the material you create and how you want to allow it to be shared.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Shel

Amy Gahran has found some interesting information, see here:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2006/09/21/im-being-cloned/

[alan herrell - the head lemur]

been there done that
Here is how you stop it.
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_2.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_3.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_4.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_5.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_6.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_7.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_8.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_9.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/08/splogger_john_b_10.html
http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2006/09/splogger_john_b.html

[Niti Bhan]

Well in that case one should allow Bitacle his trackbacks, I deleted mine before thinking the whole thing through. At least the trackback proves that the guy knows what he's doing - perpetuating content, and giving you credit the best he knows how. I guess it is a new world out there. How can you syndicate like cartoonists do if everyone who grabs your feed is an amateur?

[shel israel]

This is interesting to watch. Pat Phelan found the guy, in Spain. I think you should all call him up and ask him his intentions. I welcome his joining this conversation as well. Jesus, now that you have been identified, why don't you step out of the shadows and tell us what you are up to?

[hollyster]

Hi Shel!

Val did a great post on what you can do to stop these folks. One of her subscribers, Owen, wrote a funny script for Bitacle. I hope he releases it soon =).

Amusing thing is they seem to be a rip right off of Netvibes. It will be nice to hear from the Bitacle guys..

[Amy Gahran]

Doesn't look like Pat's blogged it yet at http://blog.roam4free.ie -- is he planning to?

As jeremiah noted earlier, the bitacle guy's alleged info is in his whois record for that domain. If it's accurate info -- and who knows about that.

- Amy Gahran

[Janet]

A few people lift all of my content along with content from other bloggers. I bless them for it. Gets me more recognition. If they threw up some ads that is fine with me.

However, splogging is different. It's a copy of only MY blog that is monetized (and/or worse as Val's post demonstrated, they added links, take his flickr space, etc). That would be no compliment, it's stealing. Most of the time they copy blogs that are written about subjects with high paying keywords.

There is a great article about splogging in Wired Magazine. I know the splogger. The author told me the reason he wrote the article is because he was splogged by him. There are some good ideas for stopping it.

Like the article points out though, the transparency and ease of 2.0 lets in the bad along with the good...

Best
Janet

[C.C. Chapman]

I've seen them popping up and doing the same thing to me. More and more of this happening on the web lately!

[Allan Jenkins]

Shel, I posted on this today, not realizing you were a day ahead of me.

What Bitacle is doing is shady. You have no Creative Commons deed on your site, which means you grant NO rights to anyone else to use or republish your material (other than "fair use" -- the short quote or excerpt).

Bitacle is being shady with those of us who have CC deeds, too. My deed, for example, says you can use my stuff IF you give me credit and IF it's not for commercial use. Bitacle spits on both terms.

I am happy to see you and Amy are in the fray... the more high-profile bloggers who object to what I can only call content theft, the better.

[doug]

I don't think that Bitacle is a splogger.

They seem to be a project based in Spain that aggregates blog feeds and provides search/view functions on those feeds. I've been reading the actual Bitacle site now (homepage is an AJAX aggregator/home page, ala Netvibes) and exploring their blog in Spanish (I happen to be fluent). It does not look like a splog operation at all. I think a lot of us in the English speaking blogosphere jumped the gun on this one.

In fact, I think the language barrier is a big problem here. A blogger from Cordoba, Argentina recently posted (in Spanish) something about how all the English language blogs are hyper-critical, while Spanish blogs generally praise the service.

I'm not trying to defend everything Bitacle is doing, I'm certainly no fan of the blatent Adsense placements, which in some cases appear to violate CC licenses. And the folks running the project are certainly shooting themselves for not offering at least some English documentation of what the site is about (their English blog is empty). But it seems that the service is basically a blog search engine/personalized home page that then lets you browse feeds.

In summary, I don't think Bitacle is without its (serious?) problems, but it's definitely not a fly-by-night hit-n-run splog operation. And those are the folks who deserve the 8th circle. :)

(I'm posting this comment on a couple other blogs as well, to try to help the conversation a bit.)

[shel israel]

Doug,
Thanks for the enlightenment. But when all is said and done, they are taking my content, putting it on their site, decorating it with ads for revenue they do not share with me. They have used a listed phone that no one answers and by now they are aware of the conversation going on here, on Allan Jenkins' blog and elsewhere. It is really hard for me to write that off as a cultural misunderstanding. It seems more to me to be an ethical mismatch.

[doug]

Shel,

Agreed.

I'm not a big fan of what they're doing vis-a-vis feed display.

I just don't think it fits into the splog label that we apply to shady web pages that don't offer any value-added service. When you look at the Bitacle home page or visit their blog, its obvious they are not some scummy spam operation. That was all I was trying to convey.

In any case, thanks for the reply.

Best of luck resolving this,

Doug

[shel israel]

Seriously, Doug: How do you suggest I resolve this?

[mariano]

Doug, im from Buenos Aires :P

But... anyway, its impossible not to ban Bitacle from "repurposing" your contents and denounce them to adsense .

You see, there is a big diference between being a "search engine" as they say of themselves or a feed reader or a start page as they are trying to be seen.

They are the worst case (at least in spanish language) of splogs i´ve seen... and on my post i was trying to be clear with the fact that no one in the "spanish speaking blogosphere" have the guts to critizise them because if you do something like that you are marked as a snitch.

[Billy The Blogging Poet]

I first addressed the Bitacle issue in November 2005 and again yesterday. Where were all the rest of you? Asleep at the wheel, that's where. Now wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that you are in-part responsible for what is going on. Bitacle sends me trackbacks that look like this (no copyright infringement here) and I get 20 to 30 referrals daily from Biticale-- not much for me but a lot of those complaining would love to get 20-30 referrals a day.

[doug]

Mariano,

Doh!

I'm not sure why I assumed you were Cordobes. Sorry about that.

Seriously, Doug: How do you suggest I resolve this?

Shel,

Clearly I should have closed my comment with something besides "Best of luck resolving this."

As to your question, I have no idea how you can "resolve" it. I just blog for fun. Aren't you an author and consultant who advises people on how to communicate effectively and run a blog? ;)

Look, it wasn't my intention to get you or Allan even more riled up over this. I was just suggesting that maybe Bitacle wasn't a splog, at least in the sense that we generally think of them as scummy spam sites.

In any case, I really respect Mariano's opinion (having read his blog for the past couple years). If he says it's splog, it's tough for me to disagree.

All the best,

Doug