Others using your blog content for their blog-help!!
I'm hoping I can get a good sense of how to handle this situation. I recently covered the openening of a cupcake store opening in my area. I interviewed the owners, took photos and bought a few cupcakes (fabulous!).
I then posted about it on my blog.
Shortly after, someone who runs a cupcake blog contacted me via email and asked if she could use a photo. I said yes, and she properly attributed the photo and other blog content to me with the permalink.
Today, I see another cupcake blogger in my area has used every single one of the photos from my post, reading that the photos are from The Houndstooth Gourmet, and the content of my post is used for her post (embelished with some other commentary) with no credit to me as the source of her facts, and no link.
I would like to know how other bloggers deal with this situation. I would like to be professional and act as a colleague, but clearly draw the line about using the content of another's blog without credit or permission.
Does anyone have a common commons license?
Disclaimers?
Thanks so much!!
My blog post in question:
http://houndstoothgourmet.com/lavender-moon-cupcakery-116-south-royal-street-in-old-town-alexandria/
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5 Comments:
I highly recommend checking out the Food Blog S'Cool, where this subject has come up many times. The top post is currently about content stealing- there's many great minds and suggestions over there for dealing with the scrapers and skimmers. http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/
ErikaWaz at 11:44AM on 09/04/08
Thanks Erika!
Houndstooth Gourmet at 12:02PM on 09/04/08
As one of the editors of Cupcakes Take the Cake, I try very hard to attribute everything we publish, largely from our Flickr pool or Creative Commons photos on Flickr, and ask when I'm not sure.
I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. It doesn't make sense to me because it's easy to find out that someone's content is repurposed, so why do it?
rachelkramerbussel at 1:49PM on 09/04/08
Hi Rachel...your post was great and I'm happy to share my photos with your terrific blog. I just couldn't believe that someone else used every one of my photos on my post on hers (in addition to word content).
I hope to get more informed as I go along. It's nice to have a community like this to turn to!
Houndstooth Gourmet at 2:44PM on 09/04/08
I'm sorry you have to deal with this. This happens to me way too often. I just joined Flickr for groups that I'm associated with, but it was against my better judgement. It doesn't seem to matter though, as I've had photos lifted right off my blog, as I'm assuming you did.
In this day and age when the web is exploding with food porn, recipes, info, etc, it's bound to happen. That doesn't make it right. Because of this, new, and I'm ashamed to say seasoned bloggers, think that everything is free for the taking.This just isn't so. Not only are photographs copyrighted, but certain recipes are too. Even though a recipe's ingredient list can't be copyrighted per se, (there are exceptions to this rule) the rest of the copy can. Big cookbook celebrities have copyright notices in the front of their books, but that doesn't seem to stop some thieves from typing out a recipe word-for-word, with little to no thought to read the fine print.
I write for an e-zine magazine that owns the copyrights on all material for the first year. I've had many bloggers think that because it is JUST a recipe they can cut & paste it onto their own site and make it theirs. There's a copyright notice at the bottom of every one of my articles/recipes stating this, but they've had the nerve to copy everything BUT the notice! Some will credit me, some leave a link, others do nothing. The company has a cease & desist letter that we send out demanding it be taken off-line. Some have argued with us, most back off.
It's very frustrating to deal with. I feel for you. It's a violation, but try proving it. It wastes precious time and effort to fight for what's rightfully ours, and it ultimately reduces our trust in our fellow men/bloggers.
Anyway...my rant is over. I hope you get to the bottom of this. Nice blog BTW. I can see why...oh, never mind!
cruisingkitty at 4:48PM on 09/04/08