Stealing content

Quote by RejectReality
You can get into a never ending battle of frustration when you start fighting these fly-by-night bulk copying operations. Most of the time the person running the site is unresponsive, because they know damn good and well they're stealing the content. The people hosting the place are typically unresponsive because they're usually in a country where nothing much can be done to them, and they're getting paid. The registrars don't care because they're only responsible for the domain name.

Even if you do get them taken down, they'll probably be back tomorrow at a different URL run by the same jackass.

You have to learn to accept that once you post something for free on the internet, you've more or less given away your right to control it. There's little to nothing you can do to stop people from copying it and putting it wherever they please.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be pissed off, or that the catharsis of trying to whack a mole or two and having some success isn't worth it, but keep the reality in the back of your mind so it doesn't become an obsession.

Quote by nicola
As has been explained on countless occasions, if YOU can read a web page, it can be scraped programmatically.

Gav could write a program to extract the HTML of any website in 5 minutes, no matter what measures have been put in place.

Even if we made lush a pay site, someone could join up for a month, and use that login for their program to gain entry.

Name me ONE web site where you can't view their HTML, please, humour me.

Quote by VanGogh


On a side note: The only poaching I enjoy is with eggs on an english muffin with some shaved ham or maybe a few shrimp, hollandaise sauce .... enjoyed with either some good strong coffee or a killer Caesar.

Cheers

Quote by MasterJonathan


I am with clum on this one. I am sorry for all of you who have had stories stolen and I understand your frustration - you have every right in the world to be pissed. However I have learned (the hard way) to pick my battles and this is just not one of them.
First off, I am not in the habit of getting into fights I can't possibly win. Even if we bombard these sites and get them closed down, another will pop up like tissues in a Kleenex box as soon as we do. This is like our troublemakers on Lush - they disappear in one place only to pop up somewhere else under a new name. In addition, since some of these sites are in foreign countries, there isn't a whole lot that can be done to pressure them into compliance anyway.
Next, I have not been shy in telling you all that I write my stories for me first of all. My writing is therapeutic for me - it helps me express the dreams, fantasies and feelings that otherwise would drive me out of my flipping mind. So writing, whether accepted or not, whether stolen or not, helps me. The fact that others like my stories is icing on the cake. And the fact that someone would go to the trouble of stealing my story is in a twisted way a compliment!
Is it right - no. Should these people be punished for their crime - sure. But if everyone was called on every thing they did wrong in this world, the Internet would be a far different and far lonelier place!

Quote by Mazza
I was having a PM conversation with a friend about this and I thought I would share my feelings on the subject...

The way I see it, when I write a story and publish it in the public domain, then it's no longer mine - it becomes public property in some way - people will read it and do what they do. If there's an audio version, they can save that to listen to over and over.

I find writing cathartic, for me, it's more about getting the stuff out - once I've done that, it's served its useful purpose, it's easy to forget about it and while I like the feedback and so forth that I get here on Lush, in the grand scheme of things, if other people pinch it and read it elsewhere what does it matter? Okay, I may not get the personal credit I deserve, but at least they read what I wrote and hopefully enjoyed it?

The other thing is that, in the past, I would follow up on these websites, ask them to remove my work and sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't but no matter how often I would do this, more sites would pop up and do the same - it was like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, kind of pointless and the results aren't really worthwhile enough to merit either my time or my emotional investment...

I guess this must be how musicians and bands feel when people download their music without paying? Or when people share stuff on FB without crediting the original poster or person who made/wrote it...

As for stopping writing and contributing? Well, I don't get paid for it, it's not like they're stealing from my purse. I just do it because I want to, it's a hobby. I'll keep writing here because it does me good and also because people seem to enjoy what I post - if they enjoy it somewhere else without my say so, well, that does suck a bit, but at least they're still reading it... The only person I'd be punishing by not writing would be myself.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.