Reporting Content Theft

So, if anyone is stealing your content...here is what Blogger says to do...sorry if this has been covered before!

Watch out Collection of Cooking Recipes, here I come!

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Hello,

It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply
with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found
at the U.S. Copyright Office website: http://lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/ )
and other applicable intellectual property laws, which may include
removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of
infringing activity.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written
communication (by fax or regular mail, not by email) that sets forth the
items specified below. Please note that pursuant to that Act, you may be
liable to the alleged infringer for damages (including costs and
attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that you own an item when
you in fact do not. Indeed, in a recent case (please see
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more
information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking
removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine
was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to
pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material
available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first
contact an attorney.

To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following
format (including section numbers):

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has
been infringed upon. This must include identification of specific posts,
as opposed to entire sites. Posts must be referenced by either the dates
in which they appear or the permalink of the post. For example,
http://example.blogspot.com/archives/2003_01_21_example_archive.html#2104575.

2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing upon the copyrighted
work listed in item #1 above.

YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH POST BY PERMALINK OR DATE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS
INFRINGING MATERIAL. The permalink for a post is usually found by clicking
on the timestamp of the post.

3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Blogger to contact
you (email address is preferred).

4. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use
of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing
web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the
law."

5. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury,
that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the
copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an
exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

6. Sign the paper.

7. Send the written communication to the following address:

Google, Inc.
Attn: Blogger Legal Support, DMCA complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043

OR Fax to:

(650) 618-2680, Attn: Blogger Legal Support, DMCA complaints

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

How to Fight Against Content Scrapers

Here is a great post from ProBlogger about How to Fight Content Scrapers. Much of this information has previously appeared on Food Blog S'Cool, but this post gathers it together into one place. Hope it is useful.

This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Local Copyright Issues

Hey everyone,

Hoping you could help me decide the best way to deal with a copyright issue that popped up recently with a local restaurant. The restaurant used a photo from my Flickr account in an emailed newsletter. The photo is copyright protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License. I really don't know if this falls under commercial use or not since they don't charge for their newsletter, but they were using it to promote the restaurant. In either case, it was certainly lacking attribution.

How do I bring this up with the restaurant without seeming like a jerk?


This Post was written by Derek from Gastronomic Fight Club

Recipe Use

Frankly, I'm not sure whether to be happy or annoyed, but I'm kind of both. I received a cryptic comment from one of my readers today congratulating me for having a recipe in her local newspaper. It was the first I'd heard of it, so I did a Google search on the recipe and found that it was not only in that newspaper but also in my local newspaper and several others around the country. A writer for the Gannett News Service used it in an article and considerately gave the blog's address. It's flattering, and I'm glad she gave the URL, if not my name, but I wish I had known in advance. I missed seeing it in my local paper by a week.

Now doing further research, I find that the AP also picked up the column in at least one newspaper, but completely cut the part about it being from my blog.

My question: Is using one recipe, without the surrounding chit-chat about it, considered fair use? I'm not really considering complaining; the original, uncut article was very flattering. But I'm just wondering if this is really ethical or not.

By the way, here's a link to the article as it appeared in my local paper.

This post was written by SusanV from FatFree Vegan Kitchen

[copyright issues, photos] asking, after the fact

I spent a good chunk of my weekend filing AdWords complaints against splogs and sending certified letters to the hosts of a number of photo-pirates, and I realize that I am so angry that I am not thinking straight. I would love some objective advice.

Someone who hijacked one of my more-popular images -- which I have since removed from our site, to counteract the thousands of views a day this image was getting -- has written to me and asked me if he can continue to use the photo if he links to our site. I get the feeling he's not a true splogger, but he does have a TON of AdWords placements on his site, and I am annoyed that he is profiting from my work. (He's at supersizedmeals-dot-com, and he does seem to have taken down my photo, which is nice to see.)

The irony is that if he'd asked first, I might have said yes. But in my anger, I don't feel like an apology and a link are sufficient. Thoughts?

(And yes, I'm already including copyright info in both my image titles and ALT tags, and I am going to start watermarking as soon as I get my hands on a copy of Photoshop.)

This post was written by Anita from Married...with Dinner

[splog] Recipe Reports "borrowing" your content?

This morning I noticed inbound traffic on my WordPress dashboard coming from RecipeReports-dot-com (I'm intentionally not linking to them here to avoid raising their GoogleRank). Turns out, it's a massive splog.

In a post I put up just last night, I also see plenty of "borrowed" content from other food blogs, including Simply Recipes and Serious Eats. You may want to head over there and see if any of it is yours.

This Post was written by Anita from Married ...with Dinner

[Photography] How can I ID my photos?

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I am wondering if someone can explain (in really basic language) how I can put a watermark or other identifier on the pictures I post on my site. (Like Mae does. Or Sam. Both of whom seem to be really photo-savvy.)

Since my pictures show up on other sites with some frequency, I'd like to have them identified as mine.

I am NOT tech savvy, and don't have Photoshop. Is there any other really basic (PC) method I could use to do this? I edit my pictures with Picasa.

Thanks in advance...(and sorry if this was discussed before...I did a search, but for some reason with new blogger, the "search" function doesn't work for me anymore.)

This Post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach

Why a correctly phrased copyright notice is important

Copyright issues crop up here periodically...here's an item in the news about why the proper copyright notice for your blog content is pretty important -

Why's my free ebook for sale on Amazon?

(unless of course you are okay with someone else packaging your content and re-selling it for profit, as long as they say where it's from, as Seth Godin seems to be. I'm not as generous myself...)

This post was written by maki from Just Hungry.

Yahoo Stealing Food Blog Content

Indira, at the extremely resourceful Indian cooking blog Mahanandi, has been bringing to light the abuses Yahoo has been dishing out on Indian food bloggers.

In particular, Yahoo has recently launched an Indian portal that has lifted recipes, word-for-word with no credit and no links to the food blog they came from.

Surya Gayathri has outlined the instances of Yahoo being caught red-handed via screen shots on her blog, kariveppila.

Yahoo's "apology" this week points the finger at a content provider middleman Webdunia. Indira points out that Yahoo has yet to apologize to Ms. Gayathri and more unreported instances of stealing are still coming to light from more bloggers.

I urge us to not dismiss this as an issue only of Indian food bloggers. These are instances of Yahoo stealing content from foodbloggers- something that we are all concerned with.

Please voice your concern to Yahoo*.

By mail:
Copyright Agent
c/o Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

By phone:
(408) 349-5080

By fax:
(408) 349-7821

By email:
copyright@yahoo-inc.com

*provided contact points are for Yahoo's Media Relations Dept.

Blog Posts:
Dining Hall: Is It a Joke
Mahanandi: Yahoo ~ Fight Is Not Yet Over
Mahanandi: Indian Newspapers, Yahoo India - Stop Stealing from Food Bloggers


This Post was written by McAuliflower at Brownie Points Blog

Check for your content...

Hi All,

I recently found unauthorized use of my blog content with no credit given and no contact info on the site. After a bit of annoyance, I managed to get Google to remove ads from the site. Since this point, the site owner has removed my content (Yay!), but there is still a lot of other stuff up on the site that may not be authorized. Google is going to re-enable ads on the site unless I bring a restraining order... and since my content isn't being stolen anymore, I'm backing off.

However, I do recommend folks checking it out. The site (I won't link to it) is at www.articlelads.com/baking101/

This Post was written by L from Cook & Eat