Ugly Content-Stealing via RSS-Feeds

Much of the “Search Engine Optimization” game is an exercise in making money off of someone else’s efforts.

You can block incoming connections from the remote site, via firewall rules or (possibly) .htaccess rules. You can ask your hosting provider for assistance. You can also send a notice to [email protected], the hosting company used by that site.

This plugin might help, or at least embarrass the thief..

Thanks skippy.

I already sent several emails out to see if I get someone to stop this.

This stealing software is very sophisticated:

Image Downloader: Sometimes a feed that displays images within an article has hotlink protection on. For this reason we have created the image downloader the image will download each existing image in an article to a local directory.

Relinker: One of the most useful features within Autoblogger Pro. The Relinking system will replace any word/phrase with a link you specify. This is useful to target certain keywords to affiliate links, product sales, other sites etc. This is all done dynamically so links can be changed any time site wide in seconds. Any number of words/phrases can be linked. It’s very possible to monetize this system. Aside from the obvious linking to affiliate programs, or sites, once traffic builds up, you could also sell words.

So I guess .htaccess won’t make much sense here – they simply get around it – especially when it is a larger network of sites or bots.

Bastards.

You could switch to sending excerpts in your feeds, and then manually craft excerpts that make it clear where the content is originating from, and who’s stealing it.

LesBessant: Thank you soooo much for that link. Sometimes I am really wondering if blogging is more like a war of technology about content creators and ‘evil’ people trying to ripp them off. Spammers, RSS stealers, SEO link farms …

Gee!

Excerpts won’t work so nicely – since I am mostly blogging images. I’ll try the plugin with the copyright first – but I wonder how fast they will simply filter out the copyright line?

Probably very quickly. You may like to check into copyscape too: https://copyscape.com.

Oh, be sure you blog VERY copiously about this theft, etc. Be sure you use the name of the site, the name of the software, etc. Look up “google bombing”….

Thanks vkaryl.

Actually copyscape doesn’t show dontclick.com as a content copier.

But I will certainly make several nice postings about my blog parasite. Let’s see if it works. ??

You should contact copyscape about the whole situation. If they don’t have the guy, they NEED to have him!

vkaryl: my mistake – didn’t see it on the first check. ??

Guess I am still very pissed off about this. ??

Can’t blame you…. best of luck to you with all this!

You could contact a IP atty and have them send a ‘cease and desist’ letter. Might cost you $50-$100, but worth it in the long run.

Word for the wise: my IP atty states the best form of protection is to take your work, print it, and have another person cross through the printed page corner to corner, sign it and date it. The only requirement is that the signer not benefit financially or otherwise from the work. This establishes a timeline for creative development, which could keep your costs under 10K for proof of authorship as opposed to 60k, the average cost of litigation.

Yes, the printed page is antiquated, but so is our legal system.

Thanks moka for the legal advice.

I am just wondering if it isn’t a bit more complicated, since I am located the the registrar of the domain is located in the UK. Let see IF the reply to my emails – and take down all entries. If not – I’ll use the next bigger gun and take legal action.

Taking legal action is a waste of time. Once anybody releases their content via RSS it is legally public domain. So the creators of AutoBloggerPro were basically exploiting a little known fact. You can whine all you want, but the only way to remove your content from someone’s autoblog is to simply ask them to, and guess what, they will for the sake of their reputation. Someone was autoblogging my posts 6 months ago, and I found that it increased my traffic and page rank, because they do provide a link to your article, Several Times, alongside relevant content. It is kind of like writing an article and submitting it to an Article Directory, webmasters use them for free but it still benefits the authors. Anyways, since that I have used autobloggerpro and once in a while a blog owner will contact me for removal and I have no problem doing so. There is some edequete involved of coarse, asking the Blog Owner before hand is polite and I practice doing that myself. Some are very opposed while others are very eager.

@greentruth: Sorry – but some of your arguments are rubbish.

RSS-Feeds are as copyrighted as any content and NOT automatically part of the public domain. RSS is just a technical mechanism – not a legal indication that you give up all your rights as a creator.

Plus when a company uses MY CONTENT to promote THEIR PRODUCT it sucks and has nothing to do with the spirit of sharing. AutoBloggerPro has many feature to override webmasters / bloggers mechanisms to protect their content, like grabbing pictures even when hotlinking and other security measures are in place. So this is a software made for stealing and to create linkfarms for SEO.

No more, no less.

So don’t try us to sell us this pirating device as a NICE TOOL to increase anyones traffic. So far I have hardly reveiced more then 5 referers visitors from the stealing website.

Plus: the blog has no contact information, no way to reach the blogmaster – and all my mails are still unanswered. This is simply not a decent way to run a blog, steal content and sell your own software with it.