Busted!
Mark Ijlal of the Michigan Foreclosure Blog caught a Realtor kiting his feed — and the plagiarist auto-implicates herself!
There is so much casual plagiarism among weblogs, I’m delighted to see someone get nabbed so so dramatically…
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate
Jackie says:
I can definitely relate to the story about Copyright Crooks! I am a site designer in Bay Area just last week I had to deal with my own crook. A client of mine let me know that one of her clients happened upon another Realtor’s site – in the same city no less – who had basically copied EVERYTHING – design/layout, style, coding/stylesheet, colors, …everything. When we contacted the “designer”, the Realtor’s husband, he basically said, “you can’t copyright HTML”, and shrugged me off. I was shocked! Did they have no work ethic? In case anyone else runs into this problem I write about the steps we took at http://www.markedspot.com/news. The good news, the good guys won. The site is no longer up.
September 8, 2006 — 9:49 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
Greg,
Mark has an RSS Feed on his site, which allows other to post that content on thier own sites. I’m not sure why he would provide the feed if he didn’t want his content syndicated to other sites. Each article on the page contained a hyperlink back to Marks site, giving his decent exposure. In addition, hhe has ever opportunity to customize the title to his feed to credit himself. In any event, all links to this page from our site had been removed months ago, as their proved to be no readership from my statisitics. Further more, Kim Kurdys – I dont know who Kim Kurdy is – has nothing whatever to do with the design of the site, so Marks slander of her is entirely uncalled for. Please direct any comments to me, Dave Halliwill. dave@peoplequiz.com
You can see our complete response to Marks slanderous statements by revisiting the page in question.
Dave Halliwilll
P.S. Is your snapshot of our page above an infringement on our content since you took it from our site without an rss syndication? fuel for thought.
September 9, 2006 — 12:43 pm
Douglas says:
Greg,
That’s certainly poetic justice and it looks as if the author is going to pursue ADDITIONAL justice as well. 🙂
This raises a question for those who aren’t Copyright Crooks. What is the correct protocol….ask for permission?….quote and give credit?
Thanks!
September 9, 2006 — 12:44 pm
Greg Swann says:
This is how the feed is marked at Michigan Foreclosure Blog:
Every decent weblog has an RSS feed — and none of them say, “Steal This Feed” — and you know that.
> Is your snapshot of our page above an infringement on our content since you took it from our site without an rss syndication? fuel for thought.
Of stolen content? That’s chutzpah! It’s an illustration, completely fair use.
September 9, 2006 — 12:57 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
Normally RSS feeds are considered mututually benificial. Content from one site is displayed on another. In return, the site displaying the content provides links back to the site containing the original content, providing valuable inbound links. There are two sides to every coin. Sites that don’t want thier content displayed on other sites typically do not prrovide rss feeds, only to call it plagersim when the content is displayed elsewhere.
September 9, 2006 — 12:59 pm
Greg Swann says:
> This raises a question for those who aren’t Copyright Crooks. What is the correct protocol….ask for permission?….quote and give credit?
Fair use requires no advance permission, but fair use implies that you are not usurping the value but drawing attention to it. Credit of course. I think it’s plagiarism if you even imply that someone else’s work is your own. In the blog world, it’s polite to link back, as well.
The stuff I see all the time is whole newspaper articles chopped and dropped in as weblog posts. Even with credit and a link back, that’s theft. You might shrug, but there have been copyright lawsuits over that kind of thing.
September 9, 2006 — 1:03 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
To the point Greg, tell me what I needed to do differently. Please educate me.
September 9, 2006 — 1:06 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Normally RSS feeds are considered mututually benificial. Content from one site is displayed on another. In return, the site displaying the content provides links back to the site containing the original content, providing valuable inbound links. There are two sides to every coin. Sites that don’t want thier content displayed on other sites typically do not provide rss feeds, only to call it plagersim when the content is displayed elsewhere.
With a few changes, you would have a novel legal defense for rape! You syndicated content without permission. That’s theft. Q.E.D.
September 9, 2006 — 1:07 pm
Greg Swann says:
> To the point Greg, tell me what I needed to do differently. Please educate me.
Do not syndicate anyone else’s content without their permission. That was easy. If you’re stealing from other sites, you should stop at once. Ignorance of the law is not a defense, but it can be an argument in mitigation if you correct the defect before you are challenged.
September 9, 2006 — 1:09 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
What about crediting them better as opposed to contacting them all? That could mean an awfull lot of phone calls and emails. Most of my feeds credit themselves in the title anyway via their own content, which is why I didn’t, except in the page that linked to each feed page.
Marks own comment in his feedburner feed says “This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.”
September 9, 2006 — 1:43 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Marks own comment in his feedburner feed says “This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.”
An RSS feed is offered for subscription to individuals, to be used at their discretion instead of going to the main web site. It is not a free license to take that content for syndication or republication without permission or compensation. If you are sydicating other feeds, you need to stop first, then apologize, then ask if the owners want their content syndicated. Most will not, but if you do it this way they may let the past infringement slide.
This us important Dave: Even people who are very relaxed about copyrights expect to be asked. If you are syndicating RSS feeds without permission, you are engaged in the theft of the intellectual property rights of the creators of those feeds, and they have the right to pursue you to the full extent of the law.
September 9, 2006 — 1:58 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
Thanks for all the Information. I’ll have to get this straightened out.
Funny that no one has ever called me to ask about posting my feeds. And I have a particularly bad problem with what
http://www.successinproperty.com/real-estate-news.php?file=http://www.remericasomersetrealty.com is doing with Remerica Somerset Realtys content. Any idea what I should do about them?
September 9, 2006 — 2:36 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Thanks for all the Information. I’ll have to get this straightened out.
Good on ya’!
My take is, if someone is pirating content, try to settle it amicably first. “Please stop. Thank you so much.”
For reference, CopyScape is very worth having. You’ll catch things as soon as they happen.
September 9, 2006 — 2:48 pm
Dave Halliwill says:
Greg,
Thought I’d just drop you a note and let you know about one other site that appears to be “kiting” Mark Ijlals feed. They don’t print his rss feed title, clearly have his articles on the page, with no reference to Mark, and clearly have a copyright mark of thier own on the page.
I would have written Mark personally to let him know, but he appears to have no email address on his blog site, so I thought possibly you could let him know.
http://www.blawgrepublic.com/cat/real-estate-law/1/
September 11, 2006 — 5:12 am
tao says:
I would like to post a comment here about Dave. I know him personally and his intent was not to steal. In fact, in his mind he was driving traffic to another persons site. This is upsetting to him not only because of the potential legal ramifications, but he now realizes that he has crossed an ethical barrier. I completely understand Mark’s anger at this, but reacting the way he did, the conflict has intensified more than it should have. Now, the business owners, dave and kim(who has absolutely nothing to do with this) are all required to fight back to save their reputations. I would not call any of this positive PR for Mark especially in light of his treatment of kim. A simple phone call – it could have even been scathing – would have solved this problem. Can that happen anymore or has it gone beyond that?
September 15, 2006 — 7:06 am
Greg Swann says:
I’m sorry the conflict is at such a pitch. I think most people seek healing and balancing, as opposed to retribution, so I hope they find a way to work things out.
September 15, 2006 — 7:16 pm