Let me start this off by saying, if you are not viewing this on http://pwnedvideo.com , you are reading this on an unauthorized site. Some blogging genius has taken my feed and put it on their site. They started it yesterday and I noticed that in my feedburner stats that there was a lot of “Uncommon Uses” . I saw the URL of the “blog”. I clicked on it and what I saw was a total SHAM!
This yahoo has my feed on their site. It is the only information on the site. There is no contact information. They changed my post URLs to their sites URL. The only thing they can not change is that below my feed post there is a list of social media buttons. If you click on one of those buttons, it still gives credit to Pwned Video. That site has 2 days worth of my posts on the site.
When I saw this, I was furious. I have been posting multiple times a day and putting a good bit of work into the site, and this “making money online expert” has just stole my property. It is my property because of many Copy Right Laws, and the fact that I had a “Creative Commons” button on my feed. That is all you need, and that is all I did.
So, what did I do to combat this atrocious behavior?
- I talked about it to everyone that would listen, which is no one. My son is 2 and my wife could care less about blogs.
- I decided that I would do something about it. I changed my feed to summary only. That was very smart. Now this “person” has to work a little harder to steel my posts.
- If this continues, I will start to put a warning before every post, ” You are reading this on the site PWNED Video, or a thief’s website.
- I also beefed up my Creative Commons to ” No Commercial Use” and ” No Modifications ” . That stamps out both things they did here.
- Then I got smart. I got real smart!
I did a “Whois” domain registration search, and guess what. They did not pay Godaddy the extra few dollars to keep their info private. I have it all saved on a word document. I know their name. I know their Email. I know their phone number. I know their address. I know their I.P. - I am sending them an email 1 minute after I post this, with a link to this page. I already tried to call them and I got their voice mail. I did not leave a message. I think this will be more fun.
In the next day or so I will explain what went down. By the way, I did not mention the website because I do not want to hurt them, and I do not want to give them any pub. I am not going to hunt them down or anything. I will however talk to Godaddy about this. I will get this straightened out very simply if they do not cease and desist posting my work.
“Edit – Here is the follow up post “
November 8th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Sorry to hear about your recent problems. Your a good guy and put a lot of work into your blogs, you don’t deserve that. Its good your handling it with grace however, not that I wouldn’t mind knowing the site. lol
Brett
November 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Thanks a ton Hillbert. I think this will get resolved tomorrow, when they open their email, or when they see that their “Blog” is not just excerpts of my blog posts. Thanks again bud!
I might tell everyone the name of the site if this continues. I am trying my best to handle this correctly in my own eyes.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:43 am
That is so annoying. There are also these guys who run blogs that just summarize your post and spam you with their trackbacks. If they want to make money from blogging the formula is as simple as abc, they should just do some work, ok not as simple as that but you get my drift.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:59 am
dam man, gluck with this. that is such bs. maintaining our sites is hard enough, but then you have to deal with this stuff too? gluck buddy and let me know if there is anything i can do to help.
November 9th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Sadly, this sometimes happens to us, too. What we do is track down the hosting company and send them a DMCA complaint. Most web hosts are pretty good about this, though at the moment we are still waiting for two posts to get removed off others’ blogs.
One tip I saw on Digg was to include a small 1×1 image (with an absolute HTTP link) in your original post. If this thief takes that as well, what you can later do is delete it off your post, then replace the 1×1 image with a huge one saying, ‘I stole this from pwnedvideo.com’. Anyone who surfs to the other site sees your post and also a big ad saying that it’s run by a bunch of crooks. Result: pwned!
November 9th, 2008 at 6:37 am
This is one of the saving graces of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this doesn’t change, send a DMCA notice to his host. If they don’t handle it then, they can face some pretty serious civil liability under the DMCA.
November 9th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Thanks a ton for the comments I will read up on the DMCA complaint ASAP.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I’d definitely follow the above instructions Ethan…I’ve had entire posts stolen from me and usually a single threatening email solves the problem
But a whole site….wow
November 9th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yikes. I have a buddy that this happened too. It took her a long time to correct it too. I’m not sure what she did exactly, but I know it was awful for her. If there is one thing I can’t stand it’s a thief. Have a great day and keep us posted.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
“By the way, I did not mention the website because I do not want to hurt them”
You’re crazy. I’d want to hurt them :