I mentioned that I was having issues with content theft the other day, however I did not want to name names until I had received some form of response from the perpetrator.
After 5 days I have finally received a reply from them and I am now more than happy to name and shame.
As regular readers to this blog may know I also maintain several other blogs on specific themes.
One of them is ISquattedYour.EU, which deals primarily with domain industry related content.
I am involved with several registries (we’re an accredited registrar for several) and keep an eye on movements at ICANN, so it was only natural that the financial issues that may impact on the .travel registry would catch my eye. On that basis I wrote a short article on this on the I Squatted blog:
Tralliance in Trouble – .travel could die
Which was published on 20th May 2007.
Two days later DomainNews.com published an article entitled “Is the .travel Registry broke?” which bears more than a passing similarity to my article, as it’s basically a direct rip of mine.
I had been in contact with the editor of DomainNews.com previously and had explicitly told him that I did not grant them permission to republish my articles:
With regard to my blog posts I have no issue with you referencing me, or quoting me, however I do not grant anyone permission to republish my posts in their entirety
(email 3rd April 2007)
They replied:
I will respect your wishes not to copy entire posts from your site of course.
Yet, when I became aware of their recent infringement of my copyright it took them 5 days to reply and the reply that I got was hardly satisfactory:
Actually I did not get that article from your site… someone else must have copied it and posted it on their site where I got it from.
(email May 30th 2007)
Interesting. So basically they don’t admit to ripping the content from my site, but from someone else’s?
And where is the reference to the source in the republished article?
Could anyone be expected to believe that anyone other than DomainNews wrote the article?
Have a look at a screenshot to see what I mean (sorry if it’s a bit big):
To add insult to injury the ripped off article is now being cited as the source by several other sites that cover the domain name industry.
Of course their attitude does make you wonder how much of their content is their own and how much they have been blatantly stealing from other blogs and websites.
Their attitude to copyright is laughable:
Many sites do not put copyrights on their publications and I was unaware that this article had a copyright.
(email May 30th 2007)
So what are you meant to do?
Put a great big “hands off” on all your content?
Since when do you have to do this with original works?
I am not a lawyer and would not pretend to be one, however my understanding of copyright and fair use is quite clear on this point.
My interpretation would also seem to fit with that of professional journalists, such as the comments on my previous post on this subject by ENN‘s Ralph Averbuch and The Sunday Business Post‘s Adrian Weckler.
Copyright theft is wrong. There’s no two ways about it. And what makes it even more annoying is when you know that other people are profiting from your work (ie. selling advertising on their site based on your content!)
While this may not be as abhorrent as the recent case of a 14 year old‘s photo ending up on the cover of an adult DVD, it’s still morally indefensible.
Nice writeup – and glad a bit of naming and shaming never did a bit of harm..
I do hope that you manage to nail the feckers, in some respect. It takes a lot of time to write good content…
the upside? ego points – they liked it so much they decided to steal it 😉
Did you see who else they are ripping off?
Gavin
I haven’t had a chance to investigate it yet, but I’d presume that if they’ve done it once they’ve done it several times
Michele
You’ll be happy to see:
http://www.google.com/search?q=domainnews.com
Dave
I’d be a lot happier if they’d respected my content in the first place 🙂
Michele
That will surely give them some nice negative feedback.
Also try without .com http://www.google.com/search?q=domainnews
Another content steal: http://www.domainnews.com/registries/0420070605/domain-name-buying-selling-and-the-auda-names-policy-panel/
DomainNews has copied this content from http://www.technewsreview.com.au/article.php?article=1665
right from the title to the end and did not bother to give any credit to the source for even courtesy. They wouldn’t have got permission either to use their content. I wonder whether they are aware of the bad reputation growing against them.
“Many sites do not put copyrights on their publications and I was unaware that this article had a copyright.”
There’s a grain of truth in this. Under older law in some jurisdictions use of a copyright notice (usually the © symbol) was necessary to ensure copyright protection for works. This is generally no longer true but the public understanding of the law obviously takes longer to change.
TJ
As far as I am aware ignorance is not a valid defense.
Michele
Ignorance may go to damages. Section 128 CRRA is typical:
128.—(1) The court may, in an action for infringement of copyright award such damages as, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, it considers just.
(2) Without prejudice to any other remedy, where, in an action for infringement of the copyright in a work, it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know and had no reason to believe that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against the defendant.
(3) In exercising its powers under subsection (1) in addition to or as an alternative to compensating the plaintiff for financial loss, the court may award aggravated or exemplary damages or both aggravated and exemplary damages.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0028/sec0128.html#partii-chapix-sec128
From New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/business/31scene.html?_r=3&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
“Here’s a quiz question for authors: To copyright a written work in the United States, you must (a) register it with the Copyright Office; (b) insert a notice that says “Copyright © 2007”; (c) insert a notice that says “All rights reserved.”
Answer: none of the above. Under current law, a work is automatically copyrighted the moment it is “fixed in tangible form.” And these days, that copyright lasts virtually forever: 70 years after the death of the author, in most cases.”
TJ
That’s fair enough as long as the courts recognise that the copyright has been infringed. The amount of damages isn’t the key issue for me.
Vidya – Nice link 🙂
Michele
Next time someone copies your article, sue them and get some easy money :p
Under EU/UK Law copyright exists from the moment of creation. Under US law a notice was/is required but it is now generally assumed that the EU/UK automatic copyright applies. I understand that the US law was even changed to reflect this.
Do you have “no win no fee” solicitors because I think you have a good case for plenty of easy cash. I understand the burden of proof will require them to prove that they did _not_ steal your content.
But I am not a legal practitioner.
Guys – suing people is not my idea of fun. All I’ve ever wanted is for people to respect my rights
Glad to see they have removed the article. I’d say their Google rankings had something to do with it.
Peter
They seem to have removed a number of the articles that they had stolen from other sites, so now they’re just trying to supply their own badly worded content
Michele
“Vidya” writes Domainnews.com has copied news from technewsreview.com.au. This is not true. I have my own site – technewsreview.com.au – and post to domainnews.com. Before you complain, I use my site as a means for people to find news stories online dealing with technology, and in particular domain names. I consider myself a media monitor.
My twice weekly newsletters for subscribers are undoubtedly the most comprehensive coverage of domain name news and information anywhere. On my website I post what I consider highlights. There is some comment, but not a lot. I provide short summaries/introductions/first paragraphs to stories with links to the original website.
Regards,
David
David
You may have been submitting stories to both sites, however this does not detract from the fact that DomainNews.com has no respect for other people’s content and is only removing content after receiving legal threats.
If you value your content then I cannot understand why you would waste it on them.
Regards
Michele
As well as the copyright issues, it is common courtesy to reference other peoples work when you use it. People assumed DomainNews.com wrote their own stories as they didn’t give any credit to the original author. It is online plagiarism packed with ads for them to make money off your work.
Peter
Have you seen their rate card?
If I made that amount of money from the content they stole I’d almost give up my day job 🙂
Michele
You should be claiming commission off your articles. Send them an invoice!
I seem to remember reading a post on Digital Point forums about the same site stealing someone elses content. I hate content stealers.
~Adam
P.S. I’ve written a guide to dealing with content theft if anyone is interested: http://www.explodethenet.com/a-6-step-system-to-stop-people-from-stealing-your-website-content-10.html
Now that all of you have had a good go at us over the past month I want to respond to Michele’s post.
First of all, as the domain name states DomainNews.com is all about aggregating daily domain news in one place.
As such we rely on many different news sources since we don’t own a crystal ball that provides us with everything that happens in the world. And so do all of you… we all gather information from a lot of “copyrighted” sources.
DomainNews is a fairly new web site and we are learning as we grow here ladies and gentlemen! SO CUT US SOME SLACK will ya!
If you want to do the work we have been doing by all means feel free but don’t throw stones unless you are perfect in every respect.
As far as you are concerend Michele, I find it sad that you felt the need to blast DomainNews like you did. Maybe you need a vacation…
Domainnews:
Aggregating the post isn’t the problem! You weren’t crediting Michele as the source of the post and passing it off as your own. Get a clue please.
Niall.
Do you simply not understand fair use?
You cannot rip off whole articles and post them verbatim.. That is called copyright infringement,
“we all gather information from a lot of “copyrighted” sources.”
Then you are knowingly infringing other peoples copyright. Newsflash — it’s covered under copyright unless otherwise stated.
You really should speak to a lawyer before someone decides to sue you for it.
Guys,
It is very simple… nobody is perfect and apologies were delivered to Michele and the article was removed as soon as I became aware of the issue. We all make mistakes and we learn what can and cannot be done as we go. DomainNews is very aware of this issue now and you will not find copied material on our site anymore. So, once again CUT US SOME SLACK unless you want to do the hard work we are doing yourself.
DomainNews – you sound a bit clueless.
You are profiting from copying other peoples work and displaying it as your own. Where is the hard work?
Michele contacted you asking you to remove it. It was only once you failed to remove it that he named DomainNews as the perpetrator.
Maybe you need legal advice…
Peter, with all due respect… it was removed and she did get my apologies. What are you not getting here?
http://www.mneylon.com/images/sm_michele_bw1.jpg
What are you not getting?
DomainNews:
You claim that you “you will not find copied material on our site anymore.” I’m looking at a dot asia press release and your post here. I’m no expert in copyright law, but just crediting “press” for that post doesn’t seem to be the smartest, you could at least link back to the original post.
Niall.
I will not continue responding to future comments here but as a last word I will say that DomainNews.com is not malicious and does not try to profit from other people’s work. We put a lot of work into this ourselves and try really hard to avoid copyright infringements. We post 100’s of news articles monthly and Michele’s article was an honest mistake which was rectified and she received our apologies. Feel free to continue blasting our hard work if you want but you are not so perfect yourselves if you think about it. We all make mistakes and we all learn from them. This one was an honest mistake not a malicious attempt to defraud Michele’s work. If you go to DomainNews.com and take the time to read our posts you will see that we have a much improved set of daily news. Good luck to all of you!
Niall, press is one of our editors and not someone we are trying to credit this to. The .asia news piece does not infringe on any copyrights!
Domainnews:
I will point you to the creative commons icon on the bottom left of the dotasia press release. The icon with “by” under it means (quoting from here) that:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
If domains.asia put that there, I’m pretty sure that they wanted a link back at the least. Besides that, it would just be a common courtesy to link back.
I will repeat what I said earlier, get a clue.
Niall.
Roland (Domainnews)
I never received any form of apology from you.
It took you about 5 days to reply to my initial email and when you did reply you tried to plead ignorance of the copyright issue:
“Actually I did not get that article from your site… someone else must have
copied it and posted it on their site where I got it from. I did not go to
your site for this since I respect what you requested.” – your email from May 30th
“No harm was meant by it and like I told you, I did not know that you had
written this.
Many sites do not put copyrights on their publications and I was unaware
that this article had a copyright.
I will be more diligent in the future in researching the source of articles
I copy to make sure there is no copyright on them and if there are I always
ask permission.
I am well aware of copyright laws, trust me.”
– your followup email May 30th. I don’t see any apology in either email.
You did not update the article on your site to recognise the original source, nor did you make any attempt to correct any false citations from other sources. You may have removed it now, but that is a result of the DMCA I lodged with Google with regard to your theft of MY content.
You still have no respect for other people’s copyright and trying to play the ignorance line is no defence.
Unlike you I am perfectly capable of producing high quality original content citing any and all sources without any issue. You, on the other hand, have to resort to recycling other people’s press releases or stealing their content.
You give online journalism and the domain industry a bad name.
Regards
Michele
Unlike you I am only starting my career in journalism, so CUT ME SOME SLACK please. We can not all be as perfect as you are.
Let me get this straight… if you walked into a store and started stealing stuff and you got caught, would you ask them to “cut you some slack”?
The issue is not how long have you been a journalist, it does not take a master degree or a long career to have some ethics and respect other people´s work. There is absolutely nothing that justifies your behaviour, so stop whining and learn how to do things the right way, or quit and do something else instead.
And btw, providing right credits for your sources of information is also a way to inform your audience of the reliability of the information you publish, and in the end of your own site too.
I people need to be aware that some of the great and good of the global privacy legal scene subscribe to your blog!
I want to thank everybody for the constructive criticism and we will only improve based on your comments. All the Best to all of you!
“Unlike you I am only starting my career in journalism”
Perhaps you shouldn’t really call yourself “Chief Editor” then. Sources are important. Good ones take time to develop. What you’ve managed to do is to irritate a potentially good one. From looking at your publication, it is really just a blog that coallates press releases and titbits from other blogs. There seems to be very little original content. Good luck with the career in technology journalism.
Roland
As I keep on saying – if you had asked me for permission or credited me it wouldn’t have been such a big issue.
Other sites, such as CircleID, are more than happy to ask my permission and I am more than happy to grant it.
I still have not had any apology from you and you still don’t seem to understand why I am so annoyed about matters.
Please don’t try throwing down gauntlets in front of people like me, as I have an awful habit of rising to the challenge.
Michele