Other websites using your content

[Cedric]

I wanted to start a discussion about the practice of other sites publishing articles that are already on our own sites. As webmasters, we spend a lot of time creating high-quality content for our audiences, and it can be frustrating when other sites republish that content without permission or credit.

So, what are your thoughts on this issue? Have you ever had an article from your site republished without your consent? How did you handle it, and what impact did it have on your site's traffic and authority?

On the other hand, some argue that republishing content can actually be beneficial for both the original site and the republisher. It can help to increase exposure for the article and drive traffic back to the original site, and it can also help to establish the original site as a thought leader in its niche.

Of course, there are also concerns about duplicate content and the potential for SEO penalties from search engines like Google. So, it's important to carefully consider the potential risks and benefits of allowing others to republish our content.

What if you came across a website using your content without permission? Would you have it taken down? As everything is copyrighted to your site.

So, where do you stand on this issue? Do you think it's a problem when other sites republish our articles without permission? Or do you see it as a potential opportunity to increase exposure and authority? Let's discuss our different perspectives and share our experiences!

 

[Arantor]

If they're using my content without permission and without adequate licence, I'm always partial to a cease & desist letter in the first instance. Then escalating to a formal DMCA-style takedown notice to the hosting company - my experience is that hosting companies tend to not want to get involved and just pull the plug.

 

[Cory]

If people were publishing my content on their boards without my permission, I would probably contact the hosting provider and file a copyright claim. It takes hard work to produce a lot of unique content for your board and when people come and take your work away to publish on their own board, it feels to me like your board wouldn't have as much purpose as it used to. "Ripping" is always the term I remember being used on Zathyus Networks when people did this. I would like for people to link to the content on my board instead of re-post it on their own board.

 

[Xilia]

Back in ye-old-days of roleplaying (I actually think this was an invisionfree site if I remember right), I had a vampire board. Really fun. However, I noticed another vampire site popped up. They carbon copy/pasted almost word for word just about everything about the site (plot, rules, species guidebook, etc.).

We politely as we could have pointed this out and they basically said something like "Yeah, we were inspired by your board, but we ended up taking more and more of it." Don't remember the end result of it but oh boy I was pissed when it happened.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I would definitely contact the owner of the site and will send them a cease and desist letter. If they still don't remove the article from their site, I'll contact their hosting. I've never had this happen to me before but it must be super frustrating having someone steal your hard work.

 

[Shortie]

Luckily I have never had this happen to me before but it has been known to happen to others in the past. If at any point it did happen to me I would contact the owner of the site and politely ask them to remove it, if they refused then I would send them a cease and desist letter which I would hope would be enough for them to remove my content from their site. Unless someone has hired me to write content for their site then I wouldn't expect to see my content anywhere else.

 

[Cory]

Luckily I have never had this happen to me before

That's the odd thing about the internet, you never know if someone is actually using your content or not due to the massive size of the web. Doubtful, but for all I know someone could have an exact replica of my message board out there somewhere.

 

[Ken]

Never happened on my end and I refuse to talk about it.

 

[Arantor]

I've had to help people that have had full-on duplicates out there, even down to trying to posts as if they were the person they were pretending to be. (Consider that: copying a roleplay site so hardcore that you're roleplaying the admin at roleplaying characters, except without any of the creativity or skill.)

I've also had my things ripped off in the past, but at some point I made peace with it by way of making things open source.

Mind you, this is *literally* how the SMF forum software came to exist... I should talk about that sometime in case anyone's interested.

 

[ladyquack]

It happens way too often with my forum. I've seen our content on tumblr, reddit, pinterest, youtube, and it's been such a hassle trying to get everything removed.

 

[Heatman]

It happens way too often with my forum. I've seen our content on tumblr, reddit, pinterest, youtube, and it's been such a hassle trying to get everything removed.

A lot of people are just too lazy to write their own contents today or even try to change somethings in what they are spinning to another forum. It's why some of them are using AI generated contents too. I can remember when something like that happened with VGR where so many of the contents in VGR was spinned to another gaming forum without any changes.

 

[Jason]

I am not into SEO, so I really don't care. However, there is the threat of people taking your content and then saying you took it from them 🤔. Otherwise, I'm not concerned about plagiarism or copyright that much.

 

[Paul]

Hmm, in a way it's flattering but in another way annoying. When some threads especially games copy what's on your forum word for word but permission wasn't given. Not sure there is much I can do as it's a public forum and no one has actually said "do not steal this game idea" or anything. Just think they should ask out of respect.

 

[Cedric]

Hmm, in a way it's flattering but in another way annoying. When some threads especially games copy what's on your forum word for word but permission wasn't given. Not sure there is much I can do as it's a public forum and no one has actually said "do not steal this game idea" or anything. Just think they should ask out of respect.

True. There is nothing wrong with having an inspiration by someone, but copying word for word is not done.

 

[veloman]

Plagiarism is never good - but I do think that it's almost impossible to prevent on the internet. Only thing you can really do (I think) is issue cease and desists to the thief's server host and try and disrupt them.

 

[ZandraJoi]

This is one of those unspoken rules most forum owners follow yet there are other owners who have no qualms taking content.
I don't care for it & have asked people not to do it. Especially if it's some I've worked on personally. I try to make my forum, HOST, unique with different topics so it irks me when I see those topics on another forum. I do the WYR (Would You Rather) & those are across many websites where people may overlap posting. I know a lot of mine I have seen on other forums as well eventually. However, I sometimes put my own spin on the question. & that is how I know somebody has copied my version. If one needs to copy, at least have the decency to ask.

 

[Nomad]

I clearly mention in the terms that the content published on my sites exclusively belongs to my site and the users are not allowed to republish elsewhere, even if they are the original writer. Duplicate content is not good for SEO. Content that has multiple copies does not rank well on search engines.

 

[Tracy]

I hate to be crude... but in the past, I had a site "stealing" images from mine to use on theirs... noticed it and due to some "back end" playing.. their site (for the short while until they caught it) were displaying some REALLY nasty "dick pics" (think STD impacted) instead of the images they thought they were displaying.
Childish? You bet your ass.. but it got the point across and that site never did it again.

 

[Cedric]

I hate to be crude... but in the past, I had a site "stealing" images from mine to use on theirs... noticed it and due to some "back end" playing.. their site (for the short while until they caught it) were displaying some REALLY nasty "dick pics" (think STD impacted) instead of the images they thought they were displaying.
Childish? You bet your ass.. but it got the point across and that site never did it again.

Sometimes that is the only way. Crazy that they were hotlinking it.

 

[Empire]

If it’s word for word or they stole your images you can file a DMCA takedown with Google, their host, etc. Past that, not much you can do. If you end up seeing the same then you can able to join and report to the staff members.. that's if they care. Honestly, I see copying as more of a beginner problem. Usually, it’s not large established sites that are copying you. And once you’re a large established site some sketchy site isn’t going to have much luck copying you and outranking you.