Blogs Are Stupid

Doesn't anyone believe in Dear Diary anymore? What happened to the joy of putting actual pen to paper? And why does every ordinary Jane and John think they can write well enough to burden the world with their scribblings? It’s a mystery that badly needs solving. My first entry contains my thoughts about blogging and will set your expectations. The rest will probably be stream of consciousness garbage, much like you’ll find on any other blog. Perhaps we will both come away enlightened.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Thieving Bastards

Stop bitacle org



I was just reading Motherpie's Post about Bitacle; a site that scavenges material from blogs around the world, posts them on their site, and then reaps the benefits in the form of ad revenue. I was outraged. That outrage grew to near apoplectic proportions when I searched the site and discovered that my ENTIRE blog content, including images, has been stolen, reproduced without attribution (linkbacks have only recently been added to mollify irate bloggers) and used for financial gain NOT MY OWN.

They are poaching my feeds, and quite likely yours, (I checked a few feeds from my Bloglines feeds list. Kvetch, Motherhooduncensored, Mrs. Chicky and Mrs. Fortune...they gotcha. Mom101, Mothergoosemouse and Bubandpie, you're good.) a practice known as "scraping". Make no mistake. The blogs that are being represented on this site have not been submitted, though the site is cleverly constructed to make it appear as though they have.

The blogosphere, typically, is not resting on it's collective laurels. We are mobilizing, we are polarizing, we are not taking this shit lying down. Join the effort to stop plagiarism, copyright violation and theft of intellectual property by joining the movement to stop Bitacle and sites like it.

Here are several comprehensive articles about issue. Go read them. Educate yourself. and then FIGHT BACK.

HOW?

First, go to StopBitacle and get yourself a handy dandy little button like the one at the top of this post. I am including it on all my posts until my feed has been removed from their database.

Then, spread the word. The women of the blogosphere are a force to be reckoned with. We have a huge voice, and we will be heard. I have readers that you don't. You have readers that I don't. Together, we can network the entire blogosphere until everyone knows what is going on and how to protect themselves.

I know certain people thought I was being a little hyper vigilant when I removed my Funeral In A Small Town series. And truthfully, I myself thought I was maybe being a smidge paranoid. I'm a small fish in a big pond after all. But this just proves that there is no blog or blog content to small or too insignificant to plagiarize.

Protect yourself and your blog and join the fight against splogging, clogging and theft, TODAY.

UPDATE: I did a little investigating and discovered that Bitacle pretends to be a blog subscription service much like Bloglines. It's not. How do I know? Well, I created an account, and set about trying to add blogs to my folder. You know what happens when you click the little "Add to a folder" icon? Nothing. You can't actually get anything into your folder. Unless I'm just a complete retard and can't figure it out. Which is possible. But I did manage to figure out Bloglines, so...Try it yourself, see if you have better luck. Report back, please.

Anyway, it certainly appears that it is just an elaborate facsimile to lend credibility to a very shady enterprise. They don't offer any actual services at all. They are purely and simply, content thieves.

Also, it seems that my button is not showing up on their site. Has my feed been edited? Is that possible? They've published this post, so it seems unlikely. I'm really pretty clueless when it comes to stuff like this, so I'll have to consult Husband aka The Guru tomorrow.

UPDATE: Der. Husband says that a feed will not display template properties, which I should have realized. Pretty basic knowledge, since that's what a feed IS. Told you I was clueless. I will have to insert the button into each post.

20 Comments:

  • At 8:11 AM, Blogger Sandra said…

    The bastards got me too. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Will read the aritcles you suggested.

     
  • At 8:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good grief. I don't know jack about any of this, but I'm all fired up. Thanks for posting about this.

     
  • At 10:24 AM, Blogger Amber said…

    Holy Crap! I checked, and in just a few minutes I found about twenty-five times my writing has been used! A lot of my last Sunday Scribble (and a couple others), and other people from Sunday Scribble too!! I don't understand what they do with it. And many of them had my title and my post, and then said BY blah blah (not me), and then had my "origional post by" link very small on the bottom. What IS that?

    Thanks for telling us! I will get my computer nerd hubby on it this weekend.

    Grrr.

    :)

     
  • At 10:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention! I will have to read the articles you mention! I am not sure if I understand all the technology behind it, so I have some homework to do! Thanks again!

     
  • At 1:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    why not just link to your site? why do they have to copy your words and put on their site.

    I just don't understand the morality of some people.

     
  • At 1:20 PM, Blogger PetiteMommy said…

    Many people have links on their site that say "sydicate this site" from feedburner so they do. Anyway, to remove your full content from there make your feed shorter in your feedburner account if you havent already done so.

    I've seen this on other sites too. :(

     
  • At 1:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Your use of the work retard offends me.

     
  • At 2:47 PM, Blogger Chicky Chicky Baby said…

    Bastards!! I went there a while ago when I first found out about it but they hadn't gotten me yet. Sadly, and I hate to admit this, but life got in the way and I forgot about it. Now I am going to do what you're doing and add a button to each post.

    Stealing sucks!

     
  • At 5:07 PM, Blogger Jess Riley said…

    Well this is freaky. I knew nothing about this. Jerks.

     
  • At 5:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    See? People are mean and cruddy.

     
  • At 7:17 PM, Blogger crazymumma said…

    Damn...don't know if they are taking any of my stuff, but what a lousy thing to do...I hope karma spins around and bites em.

    How can you tell who they have scraped from? Do you just recognize the writing, or is it listed somehow?

     
  • At 7:36 PM, Blogger j.sterling said…

    i don't get it. i went there and searched and found my posts, but they take me to my actual blog, no?

     
  • At 7:08 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    How did I miss this post of yours? Now I have some work to do. Oh boy, I'm pissed.

     
  • At 11:47 AM, Blogger Her Bad Mother said…

    It's not just them - there are a zillion spam blogs out there that steal content. My posts have appeared on spam blogs originating in Singapore. But I didn't know that there was any mobilization against it - I'll read those articles. Thanks for staying on top of this.

     
  • At 8:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Unfortunately, Her Bad Mother is right. This is all too common. The only way to beat it back, though, is to fight it instance by instance. People who profit off of other people's content need to be flayed alive and have alcohol poured on their wounds until they get the point.

    (Angry? ME? Noooo...)

     
  • At 11:05 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I don't know how to check if I'm on there! I'm nervous now!! can you email me??

     
  • At 8:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Fucking A. I'm PISSED.

    Thanks for the reassurance - it's greatly appreciated. But yes yes yes - we need to fight back.

     
  • At 11:26 AM, Blogger Kristi said…

    Because I AM clueless, how do you find out if they copied your site?????
    I hope this finds a happy ending and they get what they deserve!

     
  • At 10:22 PM, Blogger Mad said…

    They have me too. I just posted a diatribe on what the hell all this means. It's at http://madhattermommy.blogspot.com/2006/10/bitter-cle.html

     
  • At 8:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
    Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

     

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