Copyright: Are you worried about content theft?

[Carter-Ann]

I've never actually had any of my content stole (as far as I know...), but it does happen alot and I've come across tons of bloggers who have had to deal with having their work stolen.

Alot of the blogosphere has been built around somewhat ethical treatment of content. Copyrighting blogs, even small, personal blogs is now almost compulsory in order to protect yourself.

Does content theft worry you? Do you have a copyright info on your blog? Have you had any of your work stolen, and if so, what have you done about it?

[alex miller]

Well, I'm not really worried about people steeling my content and no, I don't have a copyright statement on my blog. I am more concerned about identity. The online identity I create and spaces I modify to look consistent and look like I inhabit them is what matters to me.

See this discussion about this very topic on my blog.

This is a very interesting topic. thank you.

Alex

[Laura Whitehead]

Hi Alex, agree with this part too. Although I noticed some of my articles and parts of them being used on others sites people weren't mentioning me as the source when they'd taken the whole article, or part of and put them on their sites, so have put a creative commons in place now. Think it's partly to do with the lack of understanding in my sector I work in over here, being relatively behind. It's nice to attribute and say thank you. I think some people haven't understood the power of that yet and the good it brings!!!

[Sue Waters]

Yes Alex I can understand how you would have felt. However after having large sections of content misused I can tell you that is not about content theft but about identity theft. When a person copies and pastes your words and images onto their sites - that includes I tested and I recommended - they are also stealing your identity.

As a person who has had this happen to several times it really is an issue that we all should be concerned about - and as usual is on my to-do-list to fix. While I have no yet made it obvious enough on my sites that this is not appropriate I do use stats counters to monitor who is using my material and if they are using it inappropriately I will step in to address the issue.

[alex miller]

Hi Sue,

Good points!

You may have noticed that I am running a little blog challenge for my team up here at North Coast Institute, consisting of five small tasks. Although they wont be exactly the same as your five, I have used your ideas initially (and pointed to your site). I hope you don't mind. I thought I'd take this opportunity to say thanks! You're a gem. I love your work.

Alex

[Sue Waters]

Hi Alex

Yes I have noticed that you are running a blog challenge - been so flat out with these conferences - that I have not been able to keep up with blog reading and too tired to write appropriate comments in response. Absolutely no issue with your posts - think they are excellent - there is a major difference between using an idea and content theft (which is straight copy and paste).

Glad as always that my work helps others

Sue

[viovio]

Hi, Sue!
Well I have to admit that I "inspired" my introduction to Ning communities (in Spanish) in yours posted on the "tools and tips" community. I found it so concise that I decided to translate it into Spanish and take similar screenshots as yours. I trackback to yours either. But it looks like an identity theft. :O
Had you seen it? (I am embarrassed!)
Well, the truth is that it was more like an experiment or sandbox to learn how to work with these tools. I mean I wanted to be able to create a similar tutorial and now that I know how, I can start developing my own things.
Regards

[Sue Waters]

Hi Viovio

I don't have any if you use the ideas from etools to set up your ning - I used how Michele set up Better Blog to set up etools and then built on the concept. There are only so many ways you can take screen shots. So don't be embarrassed.

When I am talking content theft I am talking about individuals that have copied and pasted almost my entire wiki and put it on their site and passed it off as their own work - that is different or people who have copied an entire blog post. Has happened to me several times - very different from what you are talking about.

Sue