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Content theft

Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress has written quite a few posts on splogs and other blog content thievery.

Sites such as Bitacle parse through RSS feeds from various blogs and steal their content. You don’t have to be an ‘A list’ blogger for this to happen to you – everyone is vulnerable. The splogs do not link back or trackback to the original site. They do not attribute the work, they just take the content. They then market the content as their own, coupling it with related advertising —“ thus making money for themselves – off your work.

This type of stealing, sometimes called scraping, is becoming more and more common.

Lorelle has various articles on this phenomenon as well as information on WordPress plugins and tools that help in identifying and stopping theft. Check out the following:

While we faith bloggers don’t mind getting the word out, we should be careful as to how our content is used, what ads the content is paired up with, and what comments are made on our posts (yes, sploggers allow people to comment on stolen content). A word of warning is spoken.

3 thoughts on “Content theft

  1. Thanks for spreading the word to help people understand that they own their content, whether in print or online, and it’s their responsibility to protect it. It’s a tough fight because you are battling the mythology that you can’t win. But you can and it’s not difficult. Thanks!

  2. Thank you for the comment.

    For many faith bloggers this issue should resonate with Thou shalt not steal. We’re supposed to take that seriously and not just stand by watching as it is done.

    Thank you for being an advocate and community cheerleader on this (and other important) issues.

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