Seriously, Stop Plagiarizing Us

by Joshua Foust on 8/26/2007 · 7 comments

So I know we’re like the bomb or whatever, but you people need to stop filching our copyrighted material. For the record, when you copy an entire post verbatim, that is stealing copyrighted material. I usually make an exception for someone who does that and says something like “here is a link to the post, and go read the site,” because they are at least being honest about where they’re getting it from and they happen to link back here.

But when including a full link is just too goddamned hard, well that’s when I get really cranky. “Kayumars,” this is for you: PakRealEstate.com is filled with hacks and cheaters, and I really hope for their sake I never bother to find out who their ISP is so I can report them for violating their terms of service.

For the record one last time: DO NOT STEAL OUR WRITING. We will find out, and we will publicly humiliate you and begin legal proceedings if you do.

Previously:
In April, I caught the Central Asia Times stealing a post I really didn’t want stolen. They fixed it after a few days, though I cannot gain access to their site to confirm they haven’t stolen other articles of ours. In May I caught some European kid doing the same, and he was much quicker about rectifying the situation. Finally, in June an intrepid MySpacer got caught stealing and I just couldn’t care enough to follow up to make sure he had stopped. At least we got a few weeks off, I suppose.

You are on notice, PakRealEstate.com—do not copy our work, ever again, and either take down or properly reference what you have right now stolen. I am not joking about this.

{ 7 comments }

1 Kayumars Turkistani 8/26/2007 at 6:56 pm: I did a quick google search on the title of that post. This is my favorite:
http://www.an-alliance.com/?c=131&a=2707

It look like their original work. Oh, well. Afghan sites are the worst for ripping off stuff. But why aren’t they stealing my stuff written elsewhere? I’m sad. I’ll think I’m gonna have that 2nd hefe-weizen now.
2 W. Shedd 8/26/2007 at 10:17 pm: I’ve seen this pop up with some of my own articles and material as well. Generally it appears to be done through an RSS feed without any credit or linking to the materials source.
3 gabriel 8/27/2007 at 10:24 am: I find this blog most informative of life currently in former Soviet Central asia …Some of you may be interested in my blog from Ireland which contains an article linking to a lot of Soviet Music..

I would like to invite your readers in Russia and elsewhere to view my blog ‘An Unrepentant Communist

http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/

Greetings to you all from County ’ Kerry in Ireland!
4 Michael 8/27/2007 at 12:08 pm: You’ll know you’re bigtime when Xinhua and other official Chinese news agencies start copying your stuff )
5 Joshua Foust 8/27/2007 at 12:10 pm: Wait, what? When did Xinhua start copying us?
6 Michael 8/27/2007 at 1:03 pm: I was kidding, but I’m sure it will happen eventually
7 Joshua Foust 8/27/2007 at 1:06 pm: Oh, jokes. I get jokes.