Blogger Thieves...

[khall64au]

Many writers these days suffer a problem of theft - intellectual property rights! We sell our work to a publisher, with (additional) online rights - and, next thing you know our work is stolen: plastered all over the web in blogs, etc. that attract online advertising revenue for the thief.

How does one combat the stealth wealth thieves who lurk about waiting to sneak our hard-earned articles onto their sites, paying us writers sweet FA?

THEY ARE THIEVES!!! Is there a way to protect my work?

[britmaveric]

Unfortunately no - apart from suing them and informing the host site that user is posting copyrighted material.

[khall64au]

Upon discussion of this subject - with (a British) friend, I was asked "Is this PROPER work you're doing?"

Each intensive feature article takes me at least a week of research and a further week of writing - usually more- and always many more hours of revision.

Any less, well... don't always believe what you read!

[britmaveric]

I know Khall - very annoying, but not lot you can do it about it. Prob its a full time job tracking down these bast*rds!!!

[JimsKnight]

Theres a few token measures that can protect your website content, on my website I have some protection by using java script to disable the right mouse click button, but theres ways round it if you've got your mind set on caning somebodies content.

However for your pictures you can protect them if you are a whiz on the graphics editors by embedding a watermark. Any gimps get ideas about caning your pictures will have to live with your websites logo / url all over it

Now to add watermarks professionally will cost you money, but you can make them yourself no probs if you learn photoshop and it costs you nowt.

If you need any further pointers give me a buzz on the PM and we can crack some ideas open.

[ZZZ]

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. If you have sold your work and the online rights to someone, it's not yours anymore If someone should be complaining it should be the one who bought your work.

Your only "protection" is that you make sure you get paid on the initial sale. Sounds just like you are getting annoyed that someone else is ALSO making money of your work.

The thing is that many people make money on what they find on the web, and other media. Could be like in your case or could be a chef using a recipe he found on the web, could be another writer doing research on the web using information gathered there to write a story.

I know about copyright law, but what good is a law that can not be enforced or where there is no way of protection? Like I said; make sure you get your monies worth when you sell your work, what happens after publishing is unfortunately out of your control.

[ZZZ]

Theres a few token measures that can protect your website content, on my website I have some protection by using java script to disable the right mouse click button, but theres ways round it if you've got your mind set on caning somebodies content.

However for your pictures you can protect them if you are a whiz on the graphics editors by embedding a watermark. Any gimps get ideas about caning your pictures will have to live with your websites logo / url all over it

Now to add watermarks professionally will cost you money, but you can make them yourself no probs if you learn photoshop and it costs you nowt.

If you need any further pointers give me a buzz on the PM and we can crack some ideas open.

"costs you nowt" Are you suggesting using pirated software for your copy protection

[monty]

Watermarking pictures is very easy and completely free!

Use at32resizer, which can batch resize a whole folder of pictures and include any watermark!

Download here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?au...mp;showfile=134

[Gumballl]

Blogs... what an utter waste of time! I can see it now... some poor bloke saying "I do not have a life; therefore I am going to live out my existence reading about someone else's experiences." Yeah, what a joy that must be.

OP... get a life. And also please share with TV why your personal problem is Thai related. Are some Thai school children plagiarizing your work? If I were in your position, I would be happy that someone paid me for my work and that others find it worthy enough to use.

[A_Traveller]

Many writers these days suffer a problem of theft - intellectual property rights! We sell our work to a publisher, with (additional) online rights - and, next thing you know our work is stolen: plastered all over the web in blogs, etc. that attract online advertising revenue for the thief.

How does one combat the stealth wealth thieves who lurk about waiting to sneak our hard-earned articles onto their sites, paying us writers sweet FA?

THEY ARE THIEVES!!! Is there a way to protect my work?

If you sell your work the it is not your problem per se, is it? Perhaps you should suggest to the purchaser that they invest in a web copyright protection scheme. You could go to the offending blogs and post a message there re-directing users to the original source I guess, but 'fair use' etc.. might get in your way.

Regards

[Chang_paarp]

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. If you have sold your work and the online rights to someone, it's not yours anymore If someone should be complaining it should be the one who bought your work.

Your only "protection" is that you make sure you get paid on the initial sale. Sounds just like you are getting annoyed that someone else is ALSO making money of your work.

The thing is that many people make money on what they find on the web, and other media. Could be like in your case or could be a chef using a recipe he found on the web, could be another writer doing research on the web using information gathered there to write a story.

I know about copyright law, but what good is a law that can not be enforced or where there is no way of protection? Like I said; make sure you get your monies worth when you sell your work, what happens after publishing is unfortunately out of your control.

Unfortunately your attitude and the ignorance of many to the copyright laws is what causes this problem. The bloggers feel they are using the "fair usage" part of these laws. It only allows quoting of 10% for review or citing purposes. The publication has rights that they have negotiated, and the publication they create is covered by copyright, but the content is cover by a variety agreements with they authors. They may pursue the infringer as a breach of their rights, this is a civil action to protect their rights.

As the author of a work, khall is automatically the copyright owner. As part of her professional life she sells the rights to her work to various publications. They have right right to publish the work in compliance with the agreement that is stuck during negotiations. Some publications insist they get all rights including copyright, most ethical publications will ask for the rights in certain markets, ie country of publication with web rights as an extra. This is often time limited as well, allowing the author to resell the article at a later date if the opportunity arises.

Unfortunately in Khall's case the only way to persue this is to invoice the unauthorised user with a penalty rate for not getting permission in the first case. The hard part of this is you need to know the legal entity (physical person or cororate entity) to address the invoice to. Then there is the challenge of collecting the value of the invoice. As an alternative she can point the breach out to the publication that has paid for the rights and have their legal department persue the offender for the breach of their purchased rights, Khall may not get anything but satisfaction for this.

If the blogger or the the hosting is in the USA, the chances of getting some satisfaction is better than if they are in some other countries as the publishing, software, motion picture and recording industries are very successfull lobbies. They have ensured copyright protection is taken seriously.

[Norrad]

My site allows people to post articles on their experiences in Thailand and along with their articles, they can specify their Adsense ID and earn advertising revenue on whatever they post.

I've only implimented this system recently and a few articles have been posted. I did recieve a complaint that 1 of the posted articles were copied from another site, so I promtly removed it and warned the poster.

If you notice your work has been copied, notify the site concerned and 9 times out of 10, they will be more than happy to remove the offending content.

[OxfordWill]

I have not read the replies to this but I searched the page for "DMCA" and didnt find it, so in case nobody told you yet - your best course of action is to google "DMCA" and then send a DMCA request to the web host of the website which is publishing your work illegally. The web host, 9 times out of ten, will comply and take the website offline so long as your DMCA provides evidence that the work is yours. You may need to send the DMCA more than once. We get about 5 a month and always comply (for good business reasons), as do most of the web hosts I know.

[Oleg_Rus]

You cannot do nothing. Period.

Well. saying that - you still can write them a letter, send mail to web hosting company ( they probably will give you auto response message back), or order some nasty attack on their server. It's all very time consuming and will cost ya.

[Old Croc]

OP... get a life. And also please share with TV why your personal problem is Thai related.

I would think the OP has a better life than some bitter clone who, judging by the choice of avatar, exists in an office cubicle in dreary Seattle.

As this forum is about expats jobs, business and banking in Thailand, I would also think it is a very relevent post .

[A_Traveller]

I think we have ended up confusing two separate issues here. If a writer sells their work then their individual rights are by definition curtailed. In the case being discussed here, though with little response from the OP it seems reasonable to assume that the originating site has paid for the right to place the work on the net. In my view it would be better initially to explore if the site could not use a service, such as CopyScape to reduce the plagiarism.

If the copies are placed on servers in the US then a request which is formalised can be made to the hosts to remove the copies. In most cases hosts do so if they believe the request is warranted.

It's up to the originator to be proactive here.

Regards

[MarkBKK]

... though with little response from the OP ...

I think the OP may have realised the absurdity of complaining on TV about copyright infringement while being a TV mod ... (Whoops! Bye-bye?)

[solo siam]

websites that copy text are generally penalised by the search engines.

If they link to the original article I myself don't see the problem - If you want to keep your writing a secret don't sell it to anyone to use on the internet.

[khall64au]

... though with little response from the OP ...

I think the OP may have realised the absurdity of complaining on TV about copyright infringement while being a TV mod ... (Whoops! Bye-bye?)

I think the OP has been busy writing and making a living and not checking back into her own posts every day.

What has being a TV mod got to do with copyright infringement?

[khall64au]

websites that copy text are generally penalised by the search engines.

If they link to the original article I myself don't see the problem - If you want to keep your writing a secret don't sell it to anyone to use on the internet.

Most of the stolen articles are now being blocked by blog hosts due to rights infringements of the original published sites.

Most do not link to the original article and there lies the problem, a little courtesy would not go astray when it comes down to online theft!

[polecat]

... though with little response from the OP ...

I think the OP may have realised the absurdity of complaining on TV about copyright infringement while being a TV mod ... (Whoops! Bye-bye?)

I think the OP has been busy writing and making a living and not checking back into her own posts every day.

What has being a TV mod got to do with copyright infringement?

I know, ridiculous, isn't it? It's not as if you find whole stories copied and pasted out of newspapers on this site, is it?

Eh?

Oh.

[khall64au]

... though with little response from the OP ...

I think the OP may have realised the absurdity of complaining on TV about copyright infringement while being a TV mod ... (Whoops! Bye-bye?)

I think the OP has been busy writing and making a living and not checking back into her own posts every day.

What has being a TV mod got to do with copyright infringement?

I know, ridiculous, isn't it? It's not as if you find whole stories copied and pasted out of newspapers on this site, is it?

Eh?

Oh.

Newspapers employ staff writers (on full benefits) to produce material for public consumption. Excerpts of articles on this site are credited to the publisher.