Scrapers: A lesson learned

Vent:

I do so love spending 2 hours on a Saturday chasing round to report a scraper site that is so obviously a waste of time but the ISP and Google have never yet found it.

Worse, it had to be an article from a previous place of writing for which I had mislaid all links, so it's going to be very, very difficult to take down the content.

I don't mind people quoting my work, even in entirety, if it's going to be useful. I had one used as a Yahoo Answer, where an article I wrote on ages of restriction for the sale of alcohol in various countries in the world was copy-pasted complete into the Yahoo Answer site. Guess I did my research right on that one then, not to mention keywords!

Shan't bother rewriting that one, nor the one about mobile phones from 2010 which was spun and plastered all over the place. The incidents which niggle me are those which scrape articles I wrote from personal experiences (travel, usually) which are stuck on websites with no discernible purpose than to irritate people by scraping their copyrighted content.

At least if it's a useful site copying my content I can hop on and leave a sarky comment, as happened with a guy who thought I'd stolen a photograph of his that was all rights reserved and without giving him credit. I was able to prove that I had used my photo, not his, and point out the differences to him.

Next stop when I finish this is to update all the links to all my articles on here so that I have a note of them and can refer to them if needed. Don't really want anyone knobbling my freshly minted content! Don't forget to keep good records too, so that you can challenge scraper sites as needed. Already had some success with Google taking that kind of scraping down, hoping to continue.

To me, plagiarism is as much a theft as a physical removal of items. It's intellectual theft, which is just as hurtful. And when a simple bit of coding would enable a right click ban and produce an error message saying 'Plagiarism is theft and stealing is a sin', that would be so much better.

What's your view?

/end vent.

I agree with you and would love to see the auto pop up regarding theft... Sorry to here about your stolen work, it happens and it stinks...ARGH!

Google are questioning my copyright to this article as I had no immediate link to send them to say 'look here, this thief nicked my article, Google Guv!' 

Fortunately Yahoo's cache turned up an October 2012 link to my profile over at the other place which listed the article there as being mine, and also demonstrated that other links to the former location were now showing invalid (404 or not authorized to view this link). I'm still hoping that they'll take the kill switch to the plagiarizing site as, to me, the whole thing smells so strongly of a scraper bod, possibly hiding malware, that I really do not want to even go there unless I'm shouting to Google about them. Trouble is, the site which shows in Copyscape is this scraper site, they've had 100% of my content and my name, without my consent.

The ISP is presently untraceable as well, the host has nothing to do with the ISP and can't help.

Another two hours down the drain.

Chef, I presume you'll be wanting to know if I find anything that's already on here being scraped someplace else?

I've had a really stellar two days. I don't need this. i just need the Google Gods to be sensible and use their human employees' eyes to see that the site in question is a mass of mess and has to be instantly deranked and closed down... *please do mess with the thermonuclear missile...* to misquote John Travolta (Broken Arrow).

You talkin' to me?     

Chef, you're a hoot. I believe you have made me smile through my tears.

Thank you. *Offers a rather damp hug.*

I am so going to resolve this ratty scraping issue, just so you can have the article. It is winding me up in a way which poxy scrapers don't usually manage.

Even

If

I

Do

Have

To

Rewrite

The

Whole

Darn

Thing

you will end up with it here just to prove a point. It fits in with two of my main themes for my work here. The third theme hasn't even been started yet.

*Sends more flames in the direction of the scrapers.*

I so admire your determination, Paula.   

Take THAT, scrapers!