SecurityRatty Is A Slimy, Content-Stealing Thief
Like most other security blogs in the world, my content is regularly abused by a particular site that just shovels out my posts as if it was theirs. This is an experiment to see if they bother reading what they steal.
Mike Rothman Jul 2
You can ask them to remove your feed. Go to their site (I won’t grace them with a link from a high profile site like Securosis) and use the Contact Us link to send them a note.
I did the same thing and they were pretty responsive. Also did the same for securitynewsportal. If these guys sell ads around our content, they are as you describe them.
Mike.
http://www.pragmaticcso.com
http://blog.securityincite.com
Marcin Jul 2
Shit. Sorry Mogull I forgot to do this as well. I’m going to scrape your post word for word and post on mine. :)
Wesley McGrew Jul 2
Hah, it sure did get posted! Took a screenshot for posterity.
Stiennon Jul 2
Hey, they link back to your site. What’s the problem with that? There are lots of sites that re-post my blogs without linking back. *They* are scum.
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Mike Rothman Jul 2
@Stiennon: They sell advertising on their site. So they are monetizing our content. You probably don’t care because it’s just stealing page views from NWW (and previously ZDNet), but your benefactors should.
rmogull Jul 2
As Mike said- they just aggregate a bunch of everyone’s content, don’t contribute anything or comment, and sell advertising around it. I don’t mind people who comment on or build on the content, but refeeding and selling advertising?
*I* don’t sell advertising, I don’t see why anyone else should profit off my content like that. Besides, it’s a violations of my Creative Commons license.
When people take snippets (or even entire posts) and use them to blog and as a basis to contribute/create their own content, that’s totally different. Refeeding is slimey, reference or not.
Glenn Fleishman Jul 2
I have meant to track down the IP address for such thieves and feed them “WE ARE GIANT M_F_ING C_SUCKERS” text and graphics. But what if I get the IP address wrong?
rmogull Jul 2
I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to do that myself; would be nice since a new one started today.
wishi Jul 2
Well… sometimes I grap cites - post them around own thoughts. Why is there any need copying? I don’t see any reason to copy a text to have it twice in the web. Money aspect… I’m personally sure that everybody who can will sell his knowledge. That’s a pity, but that’s capitalism. Stuff, that’s worth having this kind of discussions doesn’t get shared via RSS. :)
As we say here: “just hot air”
Calm down…
Daniel Philpott Jul 2
Did Securosis.com post this first or did ts/sci security? I saw it on their RSS feed first and found this via a Google search.
I’m unsure of the logic for calling an aggregator a thief. To be consistent both Technorati and Google would have to be included in the class of thief. They both use your content to drive their advertising revenue.
And I’m curious about why, if they do provide a link to you, it is a bad thing. I had not heard of securosis until this imbroglio popped up. So in this bit of anecdotal evidence they have provided a service (if a dubious one) by exposing you to me.
I think I could have put that exposing line another way, but where’s the fun in that?
Glenn Fleishman Jul 2
Daniel: Unless we disclaim the rights to our words, we own them, according to the international copyright convention. Some folks choose to use the Creative Commons set of rights agreements, picking one that allows aggregation with attribution, non-commercial use, etc. Rich did not. I do not on my sites, either.
Thus use of complete postings without permission and license is theft. This is true in nearly all countries across borders. Enforcement is a separate matter. (I recently sent a nice note to a Polish ISP about one of their customers that was reproducing 100 percent of my content without links. They very nicely stopped.)
Technorati, Google, and other sites do not aggregate full content. They typically use a small extract and link back to the original.
If the full text is reproduced, and it’s unclear that the site on which the link is shown is not the author of the content, there is still no motivation for a reader to follow that link, besides the issues of permission and legality.
rmogull Jul 2
Glenn nailed it- Ratty re-uses content in its entirety, doesn’t do anything other than refeed other’s content, and sells ads around it. Even if it snagged snippets and titles, then linked back to the main content, I wouldn’t have a problem.
I’ll go put up another post to clarify why I consider this theft, vs. the usual blogosphere connectivity.
CG Jul 2
While I agree with your point (the site is obviously trying to profit off other people’s work), anyone (aka bloggers) who puts information/thoughts/comments on the net then complains about someone else using it or inappropriately using it is wasting their time…its out on the net and you put it there! All security professionals should know that the net is for obtaining (stealing) information, warez and pr0n and not for making sure that people’s rights and IP are protected.