Legal Commentary

“Stealing” web content - an example

By David Canton

We all hear about web sites that simply take the content of others and post it as if it is their own - usually to try to make money off ads.   They add no original comment or commentary.  They are commonly referred to as “scraper sites“.  Sometimes they give attribution to the original site and/or author - sometimes they don’t.   Those who publish blogs and use tools like Google persistent search to see where their names show up sometimes find parts of their material in odd places.

Here’s an example.   I wrote a few days ago about a Google adwords case.  Mike Masnick of Techdirt commented on my post in one of his.

Take a look at the comments on my post.  Note that the 2nd and 3rd ones are from sites that simply lifted Mike’s post off Techdirt. 

And yes, I do note the irony that by posting this I’m actually bringing more attention to those sites.

Full post as published by eLegal Canton on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).