You may have read this notice and a few others on my posts over the last few weeks…
Remember: If you are reading post anywhere in its entirety, other than on cameragocamera, then it might have been scraped. Please go to cameragocamera.com and read it there.
Well, that referred to another site publishing my posts in full on their site and pretty much passing it off as their own work. Not only my posts, but quite a number of other photography blogs were victims too.
I don’t mind people quoting my posts, referring back to them or reblogging them, as credit is always given. I do object to copying in full without proper credit, as most people would. I did write and ask them to refrain or give better credit, but I received not reply.
I realised the posts were appearing less than ten minutes after I published them, so I decided to have some fun. I wrote nonsense posts or posts that directly said “This site is stealing content”. Once they appeared on that site, I deleted them from my own. Sorry if you received emails about those posts. Eventually, their home page was full of thief images and strange titles. Childish, but it amused me.
Anyway, it did not work as the site was automated, clearly there was nobody actually reading what was being published. So in the end, I wrote to the hosting company and claimed copyright infrigment. Some of the other victims did the same thing and the hosting company eventually removed the site from the web. Success.
In some ways, it was a compliment and a suprise that my blog was a victim of this. I still see my website as a diary, so it felt like my diary had been stolen and published. Also, I have only just started using advertising on this site and it doesn’t make much money. It makes just enough to cover the increased running costs. If people read the posts in full on another site, it would affect that revenue and I would have to think about alternative sources of funds.
Anyway, all is good in the world so I will remove that notice from future posts…like the one shortly to follow this one.
Thank you for your patience.
Was there any info ever found out as to who and where they were? I suppose the automated nature of the Internet, what with anonymous hopping from server-to-server-to-host & etc., renders that impossible. Good Lord, it’s like trying to get black fungus out of a damp garage …
I used an online hosting checker and that gave me the information I needed. The site was hosted by an american company, but I felt it wasn’t based there. I am sure it will happen again, that is the nature of the internet. I refrained from naming the site or the host as I didn’t want to drive traffic there.
Glad this has been adressed by the hosting company. It wont stop the scalpers going elsewhere to host their thievery, but now we know how to stop them.
No and they did link back which is how I found out. They just didn’t do it effectively. I am sure there might be sites not linking back at all.