Content Stealers - What do you do?

Recently, some great bloggers notified me that a site was stealing my content. When I went to investigate, the site was down, so I thought the problem was gone. However, this afternoon I checked again and the site is up and running again and at least half a dozen of my recipes are on there--photo, text, the whole thing. The site is called easyfastfood dot com and I'm sure they're stealing content from other bloggers as well.

At the bottom of these pages with my entire blog post, there is a link that goes back to my blog and a link to my feed. Does this count as "attribution?" Although I certainly didn't give them permission to reprint my photo and writing, I do have a Creative Commons License that allows users to share the work if it is attributed back to me. But the way the whole post is essentially on another site with a little link at the bottom just doesn't feel right to me. Is this content stealer or does it still fall under the realm of what the CC license allows? I don't see any ads on the content stealer site so it's not a commercial site, yet...

There is also something that says "This is part of a auto search RSS feed, visit the source (feedburner page for my blog) for more great recipes. Is this preying on the fact that I have full feeds? Could I avoid this by changing my feeds to a short summary only?

When I looked for a way to contact whoever is in charge of the site, I can't seem to find any contact information. What's the best way to deal with a situation like this? I'm so confused. :(

Also as a side note, to make the situation even worse, when I thanked the bloggers to who alerted me to this problem on my blog, an anonymous person leaves a comment saying "someone wanted to steal your content? =/"
Am I taking it the wrong way because it sure pissed me off.


This Post was written by Amy from Nook & Pantry

(I hope this only posts once, having some blogger issues right now)

Gobbledegook

what is this about?
This blog repeats this post over and over again for two pages worth.
Why, and why is it mentioning me?

"1963 Retro Cruel disappointment way Marin
Posted in antigas, associated press, discomfort, floor, hillel, smoking with tags antigas, associated press, discomfort, floor, hillel, smoking on August 30, 2008 by nryandrewsantos

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© 2007 Sam Breach© 2007 Sam Pause at”Becks & Tricksy”, becksposhnosh.blogspot.com This RSS Run is as things go closet non-electrical transcription control barely. If he are not description this plenitude swank your rumor aggregator, canary at the aforementioned url, the abode inner self are looking at stamina prevail implicated in re infringing above saving clause referring to freedom."

flumoxed, I am? http://nryandrewsantos.wordpress.com/

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

WordPress Help

I know, me again. I need some r-e-a-l-l-y minor modifications done to my site that I can't figure out how to do myself. My usual designer/wp tech person is too busy - does anyone have a recommendation for someone who does WP site maintenance? For someone who knows what they're doing, probably only talking 1-3 hours, tops. Thanks in advance for any referrals.

Cate from Sweetnicks.

Favicon Help

Does anyone have experience with favicons? I figured out how to make one, but am having the darnedest time getting it to appear. My site uses WordPress, and I uploaded the .ico file to what I think is the right place in my control panel, but after putting the code in what I think is the right place on the WP template, it's still not showing up. Before I start banging my head against the wall, thought I'd see if any of you guys know how to make it work. Thanks in advance. :)

Cate from Sweetnicks.

Foodproof

Some friends of mine have launched a new food community site called Foodproof. What does that mean? This is a real social community with membership and blogs, forums, videos, recipes, cross connections and a lot more - and everyone gets access to everything in clever ways so you can make the site what you want it to be. I like the forums, the videos and just the general ambience.

Note this is a site for everyone - it is specifically NOT just for foodies - so expect that not everyone will be so sophisticated as to know how to rustle up their own buckwheat blinis with passionfruit and durian cream.

Anyway - do me and yourself a favor and go take a look.


This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla

Question on Blog Top Sites

So one day last week, my little blue button for Blog Top Sites started blinking "update html." I log in and can't find html code anywhere on their site. Send them query e-mail, still waiting for response. Log back in and poke around some more and find html code. Updated to new code. Ever since then, it doesn't register me anywhere on the list at all, and button still blinking (very bottom of my site). I went back and replaced the old code. Same thing, blinking, not registering me on list anymore.

So my questions ... 1) Anyone else having this problem? 2) Am I missing something? and 3) If I can't fix it (and they're still not responding), do you find you get any traffic from having it? I've had it for the 3-1/2 years I've had my site, but use it more for seeing where I am on the list, and don't think I've noticed any real traffic from it. Wonder if I should just nix it since it's not behaving.

Thoughts?

This post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

Pravda (Russian Newspaper Giant) Steals Food Photo

You all might want to keep an eye out for Pravda .. seems they like to steal food images with impunity.

They stole one of my images and even had the cojones to REMOVE MY COPYRIGHT NOTICE from my image.

I am deeply indebted to a kewl fellow photographer who wrote me out of the blue to let me know!

Here is my image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nika7k/70925831/

Here is the Pravda stolen one, look closely and you can see they removed my copyright symbol and other rights related text.

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/fruit-3727/9/


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Hello from a New Contributor...

Hello everybody...

Like Louisa, I'm excited to be a new addition to the forum here at Food Blog S'cool — looking very forward to reading about what you're all up to, getting more active in the community and learning more about, well, whatever you're willing to share!

Hopefully I'll have some interesting tidbits of my own, but until then...

This Post was written by Nayiri from 10thirty.

Question about Food Buzz

I am looking at the contract offered by Food Buzz for bloggers to carry their ads.  I read the earlier posts here, but I had a specific question because I have zero technical knowledge.

After I emailed Food Buzz and created a profile, they linked my last week's posts on their site.  When you click on those links (and I mean "When I click" because I'm sure no one else has found my profile there!), you see a screen with Food Buzz at the top and what looks like my blog filling the rest of the screen.  But the URL says "foodbuzz.com."  When I click on the links, I stay on "foodbuzz.com."  

Is this nefarious or normal?  I was curious about Food Buzz because I saw it on some really good blogs like Lunch in a Box and Adventures in Baltimore Restaurants.  I'd appreciate any feedback, but my first question is whether Food Buzz has just copied my blog for itself or has done something that helps both of us.  Blogging is just a hobby, but I don't want to create content for some company that just takes it.

This Post was written by HowChow from the HowChow Blog.

Replace this line of text with the main body of your post


This Post was written by MYNAME from BLOGNAME

Newbie...

Hello! I'm a brand spanking new member of your forum. So thrilled to be a part of what you're doing. I just started a new food blog in Portland, OR and I'm sure to find all sorts of valuable tips and suggestions on your site. And eventually I hope to contribute in a meaningful way too.

Yea, Louisa

http://theportlandpickle.com/

JotForm or other collect form?

Has anyone had success with using JotForm or some other data collection method for their blogs? I need a form that collects to a data source (txt, csv, xls as opposed to emailing data to me) and can be downloaded.

Thanks!

This Post was written by Jen Maiser from Life Begins @ 30 / Eat Local Challenge.

Twitter Updates

Hi All,

I thought it would be interesting to see what people are thinking about twitter these days.
If you'd like to share your twitter name that would be great.


This Post was written by sue bette - www.feelgoodeats.com

WordPress security

There's a new blog called Wordprezzie that looks like a wonderful resource for WordPress users. This post on security and hacking prevention is a great read even if you aren't using WordPress. It provides valuable tips on securing directories, using SFTP, and more.


This Post was written by Annie from Bon Appegeek

Blogger Keeps Shrinking My Photos to 400 px wide

I create my images at 500 px wide, then upload them to be 420 px on the post (because I am planning to change my column width to accommodate the 500 px wide image later), but Blogger resizes the photo to 400 when I upload. Does anyone know how I can bypass their re-sizing and keep the original image size?


This Post was written by Sarah from TheDeliciousLife

Email Privacy?

In the previous post I pointed you towards a blog post which published an email exchange that had been conducted in private. This caused me to ponder the implications of publishing a private exchange, in public, on the internet, for all the world to see. Is it ethical? Is it legal or is it not? I decided to do some research to try and find the answer. Here is some of the information I came across:


Copyright on the Internet by Franklin Pierce Law Center:
"Notice on individual email messages (if blanket notice is not provided, say, in a welcome message) may also be useful. Something as straight-forward as "Please do not forward this message without permission" should be legally adequate as well as honored by most recipients. It is hard to see much advantage to traditional notices."

5 Rules of Forwarding Emails by netm@nners.com
"keep in mind that if you are forwarding a private email that was sent to you, you must get the sender's permission to forward it on to others (or post it publicly). Emails are copyright protected by their authors. Not only that, common courtesy dictates that you should ask the author first if the email sent for your eyes only can be forwarded to strangers or others for which it was not originally intended."

Forward an email, get sued? by Overlawyered.
"The mere act of forwarding an email or posting an exchange to a website is grounds for legal action, according to University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow. In a paper to be published in the Kansas Law Review this summer, Snow contends that one of the most common acts of the digital age is a violation of privacy and warns that our courts are running headlong into this issue."

E-mail is not copyright protected once it is sent by netm@nners.com
"E-mail is a written work that once created is copyright protected by the author. This means you cannot post publicly an e-mail sent to you privately. You cannot post private e-mails to your site, to message boards or to your blog without the author’s specific permission to do so.
Just because an e-mail was sent to you as a private communication does not mean you then own it and can do with it what you like. In addition, e-mail that is posted to a group of people, on a mailing list or Newsgroup does not make the e-mail available for reposting, copying, or any other use - not without the express and written consent of the author."

A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy by Social Science Research Network
"Beginning over two-hundred-fifty years ago, courts recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold property rights in their expression. Under common-law copyright, authors held a right to control whether their correspondence was published to third parties. This common-law protection of private expression was nearly absolute, immune from any defense of “fair use.” Accordingly, the routine practice of email forwarding would violate principles of common-law copyright"

Who owns email copyright? by ask metafilter
"You own the copyright on anything you write. But it will be very hard to claim damages (that is, how much money have you lost because the email was made public).
I suspect that you are more upset about the information in the email (or the fact that you said these things) becoming public, rather than the specific wording of the email. Copyright does not protect you against this type of revelation. If you did not have a confidentiality agreement with the recipient of the e-mail, then they are free to reveal this information.
Unless the e-mail contained something you planned to publish, and now you have lost potential income, then I don't think the copyright approach will work out for you."

Fair Use by Citizen Media Law Project
"Fair use, which is now a part of the Copyright Act itself, is defined in the Act as follows:
[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. "

Clear as mud?!

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Illegal or Not?

One blogger’s account of the furor that ensued after she modified and published a Cook's Country recipe online…


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh who found it via David Lebovitz on Facebook.

Plans for a Tribute to Sher from What Did You Eat

By now many food bloggers have probably heard the devastating news that Sher from What Did You Eat died suddenly from a heart attack on Sunday, July 20. Many of her food blogging friends are planning to cook one of the recipes from her blog this week, and then post the recipe on their own blog on Sunday, July 27, as a tribute to Sher. Anyone who wishes to do so is invited to join this activity; it is also fine to simply post a tribute or memory of Sher on that day for people who don't want to make a recipe.

I've just learned that Sher's friend Glenna from A Fridge Full of Food has offered to link the tribute posts to her tribute to Sher in order that Sher's family and friends can find them. Bloggers who would like their tribute linked can send it to marie9949 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net.

I personally have been amazed and very moved by the way the idea to cook one of Sher's recipes as a tribute to her seemed to spring from so many places at once; I see this as an indication of how people in the food blogging community are so mentally and emotionally connected. I'm sure it would mean a lot to Sher to know that so many people are choosing to remember her in this way.

This post written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

Yet More Content Theft

Hello all,

This site http://www.fukien.net.cn/ has now nicked three of my posts -

http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=823
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=870
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=871

There is a note at the bottom of the site to say that a link is provided leading back to the original content - apparently you get there by clicking the 'original text' link. There is no link.

I wanted to alert everyone as they may have stolen content from your sites also. I need to look into what action to take about this - it is driving me crazy. I've tried e-mailing the author but had no response and also tried leaving a comment, to which they responded by nicking another of my posts literally minutes later. Grrrr.


This Post was written by Helen from Food Stories

helping you build better blog designs

I just stumbled upon this blog about blog design which at first glance looks like it has some very interesting tips.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh