Shooting Yourself in the Foot

[thefarang]

I'm usually pretty good about attributing the source of information or pics on my websites. I pretty much try to use Flickr's Creative Commons search for all of the images that I use in my blog posts and I properly attribute the creator of the works.

So I was sort of surprised to receive a snippy little email from a site that I often read asking me to remove some photos I had used from their website (with full attribution). It was one of those passive-aggressive sort of emails where they don't even ask you to remove the images they just send you a pissy email telling you about copyright law without ever getting to the point of what they would like you to do to remedy the situation.

So I emailed her back and said something along the lines of, "listen I gave you full credit for the photos in the post and a link back to your site (usually I say something along the lines of 'photos credits to blah blah blah' when I use outside pics in my posts). But if you would like me to remove the photos let me know."

I received another email back saying that yes she would like the photos removed and reminded me that every artist in the world retains copyright on their work blah, blah, blah.

Okay, so let's just review what happened:

She lost of a link from an authoritative PR4 site

Her site is PR0

Although the subject matter of the two sites is generally different I do tend to write about her subject matter from time to time so I do have pages that rank well for her subject matter (she has none of mine).

I also run several websites that do cover the same subject matter as her website that she has now poisoned her chances of ever receiving a mention on.

Now, I know in the strictest definition of copyright I should have asked before using the pics but when you look at the fallout of sending off pissy, passive-aggressive emails to people . . . is it really worth it? Why bother going to the trouble of getting her copyright permission (the content was not even that unique since it was of crowds of people) when I can use another source that will end up thanking me for sending them traffic?

Believe me, I've had more content stolen from me than I could ever try to document in a single forum thread. I know what it's like to see your content lifted. But I also tend to give people credit when they attempt to cite the source.

Sure, copy and pasting an entire article does exceed my limits but if someone takes images, quotes, or whatever from my sites and says "Hey, I found this on XXXXXX" then I more or less consider it fair use and thank them for the backlink. After all, isn't that sort of the point of link baiting? Aren't you trying to get people to link back to your site without having to ask them?

I've been regularly blogging since 2003 (actually, probably since 2000 but I deleted that blog long ago). I've probably received 4 "take my content down" emails in all of those years. Most of the time I get a "thank you" email when I mention or quote someone.

I'm not suggesting that people not protect their copyrighted works and I'm not suggesting it's okay to steal other people's content but I often see people give advice in this forum to go after any violator with pit bull like tactics. Sometimes the aggressive approach can come back and bite you.

[kushmoney]

If I got a backlink for a pic or a quote. I wouldn't mine at all. If someone copied the whole article that's another story.

[Matt Geer]

You can quote me anytime

In fact, I think I checked out your blog a little while ago and noticed the rush poker banner I made a month or so back - kind of neat to see my work on other people's sites.

[321]

Sometimes the aggressive approach can come back and bite you.

There isn't much point in worrying about the one in a thousand chance the owner of stolen content benefits. Webmastering is an efficiancy business. A far bigger concern is how much time you have to waste going after thieves.

[thefarang]

You can quote me anytime

In fact, I think I checked out your blog a little while ago and noticed the rush poker banner I made a month or so back - kind of neat to see my work on other people's sites.

Be proud. It's better the the stuff FTP supplies :-)

[thefarang]

There isn't much point in worrying about the one in a thousand chance the owner of stolen content benefits. Webmastering is an efficiancy business. A far bigger concern is how much time you have to waste going after thieves.

I usually don't spend much time at all unless I notice a jump in traffic because they're hotlinking to images. If there's no "Found this on . . . " I usually give request they give me credit or remove the content.

But what I meant by that is you can say "Hey, you're stealing my content and if you don't take it down I'm going to come over to your house and punch you in the face" or you can say "I'm flattered you liked my content enough to put it up on your website but I would ask that you either link back and credit me as the source or remove it from your site."

You're right, it's maybe 1 in a 1000 chance that the other site might be benefitting you but do you actually gain anything by going for the juggler in the first email?

Maybe it's just me living in Thailand. Thai people don't respond very well to aggressiveness. You get so much farther in Thailand being polite and respectful than you do demanding. It doesn't matter if you're wrong or right. You have to give others a chance to save face (avoid embarrassment).

But the second email screw 'em :-)

[thefarang]

I think the funny part is that she probably checked her stats and saw a spike coming from my site and checked it out. Then she saw her photos (3 out of about 30 or 40 she has online) and fired off her email.

She never put together that if I pull the photos I also pull the link crediting her for them and thus she ends up losing that traffic.

Traffictards.

I used to have a website where I would quote a sentence or two from interesting poker news stories, maybe write a few words about why the news story was worth reading, and then link to the story. One of the authors on a meganews poker site sent me an angry email demanding that I also credit the specific author and not just the website the article appeared on. She was quite rude and indignant in her email.

The funny part is I know her and we're friends but she didn't know that was my site. When I replied to her she apologized profusely and said what I was doing was okay.

[321]

In the rest of the world, thieves don't respond well to politeness.

Sure, sometimes people using other content will be innocent, even nice. But sadly the reality is that the vast majority of the time someone has deliberately stolen someone else's property (with profit in mind too).

I only care about the most cost effective way for me to deal with them. .1% of the time honey might be the most cost effective response, but the vast majority of the time standard email saying remove the stolen content within two business days or this and this will happen is the most cost effective action. There is no time in this business to hunt down all the content stealers out there, let alone coddle them.

[scrawnybob]

lol

professional photographers are not interested in getting credits for their picture in lieu of payment

they are also not interested in the "valuable" backlink

they cant take a picture credit down to tescos and exchange it for food

however if they get paid for their work they can take that money down to tescos and feed their family ...

that funnily enough is the standard pro photographers response to people either stealing or requesting to use their pics for free ... "can I feed my childen on a pic credit or take it down to tescos and exchange it for food?"

trust me if you had any idea just how much stress aggro and near constant stealling / freebie job / favour bullshit a decent photographer gets for every properly paid for job - you'd see that this industry is comparatively a veritable walk in the park ;-)

funnily enough the complete errosion of copyright, everyone think everytihg should be free, no-one ever paying for images they should and using whatever they like for at best a "worthless" picture credit or a not very worth much link ....

is exactly why my sucessful 18yr career as a photographer ground to a halt ... and why I'm now here

what might be "valuable" to us in this industry certainly is of next to no value to others ... I'm pretty sure no one here would give a PR6 poker link in exchange for a crap PR1 link on a ramdon site about roof insulation bolts ... its the same

photographers wont swap getting paid $200-300 cash for unlimited web used forever getting instead a credit or a link

cheers scrawnybob

ps to your credit youve been using CC licenced pics ... stick to that and just dont use pics your unsure of the copyright status of ... I didnt / dont like creative commons as a point of principle but those creators have at least decided to give their work away ... so your safe with them

[Michael Martinez]

People who are enforcing intellectual property rights are not thinking about links. While that may seem like a counter-productive point of view, it's their choice. We should all respect those choices.

I have found myself asking people to take down content AND using content from other sites (while providing links and attribution).

I understand both sides of the issue. I try to respect what the IPR owner wants and don't try to talk about search engine optimization priorities.

The Web is too big for me to want to convince everyone to share my ideas.