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Mar
13
I’m not a writer. I just pretend to be one on this blog.
Literature was my favorite class in high school and I dreamed of writing my own novel but I had read enough novels to know I don’t quite have what it takes to be a good writer. I’m a grammar rebel and not very good at being descriptive.
I don’t write this blog to entertain. This blog is my therapy. I’m a very emotional and analytical person and have always kept journals of my thoughts and feelings. Opening myself up in this very public format has connected me with so many people who “get” me and the connections that I’ve made are cathartic. I’m also an open book and often indulge more than I should. I’m also like this in person. I seem to have a malfunctioning TMI switch. Despite being so open I am careful about where I list my blog and what audience I want to target.
So what’s my point of sharing this?
It recently has come to my attention that there is a website that is publishing my entire blog without my consent. I’m not sharing my Google juice with this site so you will have to here to find out who is scraping my stuff.
Why does this piss me off? Let me count the ways:
- Like I explained above, I write about very personal and sensitive issues. I often write about my estranged relationship with my parents. I’m also a control freak. I am very careful about where I share my blog feed and I certainly don’t want to make it easy for my parents to find my blog. This site that has stolen my content including publishing my photos. Is it no longer rude to hotlink? That’s right people, photos of my dog, my kids, and myself are published on this site on a page for my city. Uh, hello, I might as well put an ad in the paper with my photo, blog url and hope my parents don’t happen upon it. Check it out, my peeps. Not only will you find me listed in the sidebar but you can read my entire blog. Originally clicking on my post title would take you to another page within their site but once this brouhaha began the owner, Dave Mastio fixed it so now the title will bring you back to my blog.
- I have asked three times to be removed from the site. I finally received a reply yesterday from Dave Mastio that my blog would be removed but 24 hours later my blog is still listed. If Dave wants to make friends in the blogging community then he needs to play nice. I asked to be removed and that should be honored. I don’t care about his fair use excuse. Clipgator was aggregating my blog last year without my permission and within hours of asking to be removed I was removed. It didn’t get nasty. This is getting nasty. It is MY words, MY photos, and MY stories and any respectable site would not use them without my consent.
- Dave Mastio is making money off my content. The site seems to serve no other purpose than publishing blogger’s feeds to support advertising and not only do I not receive any revenue from the ads but I have no say in what ads show up along with my blog. Many of the ads are flashy and in poor taste. Don’t even get me started on how much I hate pop unders.
- I am a control freak as I have established above. I want to control where my feed is aggregated. I’ve given Maya’s Mom permission to aggregate my feed because it’s tasteful, does not publish my photos, is a community of moms and with a click of the mouse I can remove my blog. It is after all, my blog.
- Dave Mastio did not say pretty please. Seriously, I was not given a choice to opt in or out and I am at the mercy of Dave Mastio to remove me.
I actually thought I had added some copyright protection by using the wordpress copyright plugin which adds this to the bottom of all my posts:
Copyright © 2008 slacker-moms-r-us.com. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@slacker-moms-r-us.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Dave Mastio does not publish my full post so my copyright does not even show on his site. A lot of good that did me.
Bottom line is what I post here is mine and if someone is scraping my blog for no other purpose than their personal gain without my permission then my request to be removed should be respected. C’mon Dave, didn’t your mama teach you any manners?
Here are more posts on this topic:
Mamalogues
WOBL in Training
Super Fun Patrol
News-Bitch
Little Bald Doctors
STL Probloggers
State of Discontent
Prologos
The Broad Brush
A Bun’s Life
*Updated*
Wow! Within a half an hour of posting this my blog was removed from BNN. What a shame that it took a post rather than a simple email to remove my site.
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26 Responses to “Aggregation aggravation”
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I heard Dave Mastio was Spitzer’s call girl.
MammaLoves’s last blog post..Dammit Eliot!
This is totally not in keeping with “Fair Use,” which is intended to allow people to quote content that they’re writing ABOUT, not steal content verbatim without permission. (that argument makes me so very ANGRY!)
There’s a great artile here: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/ about what to do in this situation.
I recommend NOT going easy on him.
Absolutely Bananas’s last blog post..There’s a sound for that
See, and what was pissing me off most about this issue originally was the ad revenue not being shared with the bloggers. But now, you’ve proven that there’s more at stake here than just money. You have EVERY RIGHT to control where your content goes and Dave’s actions are very much like a kid standing up in a crowded cafeteria in high school, pointing to her best friend and shouting, “For a couple bucks I’ll show everyone her underwear!” It’s taking something important to us and using it for his own gains, and that threatens to cheapen the importance, for me at least.
Andrea’s last blog post..A Scraping Worse than An OBGYN?S Visit
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I am still in shock that such an arrogant attitude is being taken with the blog owners… I question if this guy is serious, stupid or a deadly combination of the two.
Melody’s last blog post..Tony Bennett Thursdays : Running Aggregated
For those interested, here is the most recent federal court case about text and fair use — it says the copying of entire works in the google cache is fair use.
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/google_cache.pdf
Actual analysis by actual lawyer here:
http://www.benedict.com/Digital/Internet/Field/Field.aspx
I suggest everyone read the section of the court decision on fair use.
I can only imagine that someone out there is having their way with my words…gah.
moosh in indy.’s last blog post..When 34D shot 40D.
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First off, you’ve been blogged, and as of this comment, Stubmled. I also bummed my idea for my blog post from yours. Love the design of your blog!! Great post.
Todd
Todd Jordan’s last blog post..Aggregation? Aggravation!
The ironic part of this–and quite funny, actually, is that Dave is doing this to bloggers…bloggers who are quite a close-knit group, and whose readership can be huge. So in ticking off one–or in his case, many–bloggers, he ticks off hundreds or thousands of people…definitely not good for his “business model” and awfully short-term.
Scott, hubby of JoAnn’s last blog post..Funky Iguana
So, I don’t really understand what all that means, but I can’t believe that is legal for someone to take your blog, post it on their own and make money off of it. How does that work? What an a**hole! I’m glad your blog was removed!
kuwaitia2’s last blog post..What’s in a name?
i second andrea— your position and your post really help explain just how much is at stake here for many bloggers.
Rebecca’s last blog post..Friday Fun
I am glad your request to be remove has been acted upon and things are settled.
I have had a very different experience with BlogNetNews (BNN) in New Orleans. They contacted me FIRST asking permission to add me to their NOLA page. In my experience, BNN has increased my blog traffic and has led me to other quality NOLA bloggers–both being very good things. To my knowledge, Dave Mastio is not involved with the BNN in NOLA (but I could be wrong). Re: ads, I suppose they make money but I have never clicked one of their ads. Plus, they don’t present the blogrolls as if the blogs were their content–it’s clear whose blog you are seeing the blurb of. To my way of seeing it, it’s an RSS feed site that accumulates a city’s bloggers in one location. I, personally, use BNN to read the blurbs of all the NOLA bloggers then click on the ones that catch my eye–some that I would not have blogrolled on my own but occassionally find a post that strikes me (others are on my blogroll and I don’t need BNN for them). I even have the link to the BNN New Orleans in my blogroll so that others can find other NOLA bloggers with ease.
I guess what I am saying is that what I have experienced is a quid pro quo relationship–they list blurbs of my blog along with all the other NOLA bloggers to the benefit of us bloggers (increased traffic to our separate blogs) and they run ads to make it worth their while. Do I lose ad dollars at my site because you can skim the blurb on BNN? I doubt it. Do I gain by being listed on a concentrated site of NOLA bloggers? Personally, I can say that I have–aside from traffic, it exposed me to other NOLA bloggers I hadn’t known existed.
But I end where I started: I was FIRST asked to be included on BNN New Orleans, and I can pull my blog off of it at any time. I understand your concern for control and am glad things are resolved for you.
This really made me think about the issue, and I am still not sure I am not missing something.
Just more food for thought.
Nola’s last blog post..An Unbooked Day Tells a Story
Nola, I appreciate your comment but I think you are missing the point of my post. BNN used my content WITHOUT my permission and then it took 2 emails and a post about it to get myself removed. That’s just not good netiquette and certainly does not deserve to make ad revenue off my content. It’s great that you got traffic from BNN. I personally got nothing but a headache from BNN.
SM, I understood your frustration completely and totally agree that BNN’s behaviour was, at best, unprofessional. Like I stressed, BNN contacted me FIRST and that makes all the difference.
You may want to consider disabling the RSS feed to your blog to give you better control over your blog content. Check it out here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/57252
Nola’s last blog post..An Unbooked Day Tells a Story
One final comment–the BNN New Orleans has a local editor. She is the contact to get added or deleted, and she has always been on top of things and very professional. It truly is an opt in/out system with the NOLA page. I notice that BNN in many cities does not have a local editor, and that might be a big part of the problem. Very sorry to hear BNN is NOT as friendly in other cities, and glad to hear of those being treated unfairly fighting back!
Nola’s last blog post..An Unbooked Day Tells a Story
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Dave’s loving this attention, I’m sure.
Good for you for sticking to your guns…you certainly aren’t slacking on this issue:)
erin’s last blog post..Ghetto Shoes & Pimped Out Crocs
I’m hearing this more and more. I can’t believe people are so brazenly stealing blog content.
Assholes!
Worker Mommy’s last blog post..WWYDW - Installment 2
ABSOLUTE bullsh*t. Are you kidding me?! Did I see a post from the actual guy Dave whatever saying something in regards to what is “legal”? How about what is “right”??!! Have some integrity man - seriously.
This is something I am sooo scared of as I have done art for my whole life and have felt completely violated at times my ideas were pulled out from underneath me and stolen.
That’s awesome you got your blog taken off. Good work.
Restless Housewife’s last blog post..My 1st T-Shirt Design for Restless Ink
It’s a violation, pure and simple.
Good for you for fighting back!
Ruth Dynamite’s last blog post..Dancing with the Solid Gold Stars
Um… I could almost understand Dave Mastio dropping in here and posting the link to that PDF re: copyright law and Google… if, you know, he was a representative of Google. Last I checked, Blognetnews is not Google. But whatevs, the guy’s a complete asshole and I’m glad you confronted him. Go, you!
Victoria Marinelli’s last blog post..Dave Mastio (of “Blognetnews” infamy) can suck it.
Hey lady where are you? I missing my dose of slacker mommy!!!! Hope all is well at your house.
Hey lady.
You did a great job on this post. Oh and wanted to comment on your most recent one but my computer isn’t showing the part where one can click and post a comment. Have someone else’s computer so I don’t know if that’s on my end or what.
motherofbun’s last blog post..No self-esteem problems here!