So, dumb ass has gone and copied some of my content. I left a comment on his blog asking him to please link to my content and not simply copy and paste it. His response was to alter it subtly and delete my comment. Reading over the rest of his posts and doing some basic googling, I have found that the vast majority of his postings may be ‘lifted’ from other web pages.
So, what would you do?
- Name and shame? - Create a detailed list of this guys copy paste antics and publish it here to let others judge him;
- Another letter or two? - One didn’t work, did he think I would go away?;
- C & D - Doesn’t that only work for one post that I wrote and he copied, so it wouldn’t help the others;
- DMCA - I’m a Canadian, can I use that evil piece of legislation for ‘good’ even though US laws don’t apply to me;
- Combo - one or more of the above;
- Zfactor - Your input, any suggestions?
FYI: The pages this tool has copied from look to be largely, backwards, out of the way posts by authors who have long left the online world. So I expect little help from the others this guy has ripped of should I contact them. Also, the guy is using a cheap blogger account.
Any advice from someone in a similar situation would be greatly appreciated.
Update for John302 (aka the doppelblogger):
Both screenshots taken April 18th, 2006.
Now, I suppose, given an infinite number of monkeys with blogs in an infinite number of universes, that the same list could have been written twice. With all three tables in the same order. With the same capitalization. Co-ink-y-dink? I think not. Fess up plagiarst. You have already admitted to removing the images once I imposed hotlinking protection, why not admit you copied the text verbatim?
19 Apr 06
1:38 am
Before I launch into story/rant time: http://www.splogreporter.com/ is where I would start. I use their Firefox extension for marking splogs. Definitely don’t post a link, you’ll just be helping his cause. Maybe drop a line to blogger? Don’t they have some sort of anti-splog tool? Hrm. An interesting angle might be hitting him where it hurts and complaining to the advertising providers he uses… not only is he stealing your content and fraudulently posting it as his own but in terms of advertising he’s technically stealing revenue and could more which could more or less be considered leading to click fraud. I think it’s terrible that people steal content like that, but I think it’s even worse that we have an over-commercialized ad-driven business model which drives the web and promotes this type of behaviour.
Is it purely a splogger site or different? My brother gets a lot of inquiries about programming interfaces for shopping.com’s API (I’d mention his shopping site, but I hate link dropping like that without being asked… but if you want to check it out, just ask)… so this guy that recently contacted him about services seemed to have a well ranked page and then we dug a little deeper and found he had at least four different sites with no original content (of his own, and then his own personal site with an infomercial-like scam as the basis of it trying to get people to purchase some ridiculous self-help plan of his.
Anyway, back to your question, it’s not worth going after him legally unless you have the money to burn though it’d be nice to see more cases to set prescedent in such matters. There’s really not much that can be done at the moment and it’s our own fault… lack of a halfway decent implementation for “new” technologies on the net along with it being a completely advertising-driven market has made it very very simple bring in a little revenue by generating splogs. Heck, some of the completely legit blogs I’ve seen could be considered lesser splogs sometimes and most of the blogging population these days are in it for the bottom line whether they’re bringing new content or not. But I’ll stop my rant for now… it’s already on my list of things to cover in my series of posts about things Inherently Flawed with the net, hehe.
Ja
19 Apr 06
6:11 am
First of, Ja, despite being well intentioned, doesn’t quite have it right. I’m no lawyer, I don’t even have one on a full time basis (though I do consult with two for my blog) and I’ve resolved over 300 cases of plagiarism. It’s not difficult, expensive or time consuming, you just have to know what to do.
So, with that in mind, I’m going to take your questions one at a time:
Name and Shame?
I disapprove of this method wholeheartedly. It’s the most time-consuming, drama-inducing and least-likely-to-succeed method out there. You can do it if you want, but if he’s out to get traffic, you’ll just be helping him.
Send another letter?
You sent one, a second would be a waste of time.
A cease and desist letter?
You can send a cease and desist for all posts of yours he copied. You can’t help others out through this means, but there really isn’t any way you can save backtracking the entries (say through using a Google or Technorati search for a unique phrase) and informing them of the infringement.
It’s just the nature of the beast there, you cant complain that someone else’s copyright was infringed. You have to be the victim.
DMCA?
As a Canadian, you have full protection under the DMCA. Actually, as long as you’re in any country protected by he Berne convention. In fact, in some ways, it’s easier for you to use it.
It might be an evil law but (Yes, I hate it too as I talk about on my site), if you submit a copyright infringement complaint to Google without a DMCA notice, you’ll be drop-kicked out the door. I think this is your best solution. Take a look at this page: http://www.google.com/dmca.html for information on sending Google a DMCA notice.
Note: Google is the owner of blogger.
Combo?
If you go for the DMCA, don’t do anything else. Should a C&D work while you have a DMCA out it can make you look like you’re an idiot. If you send a C&D, wait three days for it to work then come back with the DMCA.
ZFactor?
Only a few. First, install the Numly Numbers extension for Wordpress (http//www.numly.com). Numly Numbers offer protection against content theft and copyright infringement by provide time and date-stamped proof of ownership.
Second, install the feed copyrighter plugin for Wordpress (http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=98) as it will put a notice at the bottom of each entry of your feed, making scraping that much harder.
Anyway, that should be about all for now. If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to write me either using my site’s contact for m or via the email I used to post this comment, I will be glad to help any way that I can.
Take care and good luck!
19 Apr 06
10:41 am
Hey guys,
I found this site through a post on digg. The website in question, which I will not name for obvious reasons (I know the owner personally), is not violating any copyrights.
The only thing copied were URLS to other sites (I fail to see how you can lawfully prevent this, as URLS can be found by any means), not exact content from maxpower.ca. The guy that owns maxpower.ca did not send a letter. He sent the guy a nasty post on his blog. If I were trying to get something removed, I would have emailed him directly (and his email address is prominently placed on the front page)
also, the guy did put a direct link back to this site and stated where he found the links. He also had some direct image links back to this site. After he got the nasty post, he removed the direct image links (and all reference to maxpower.ca), but kept the other links.
I also looked through many of the older posts on his blog. I only found 1 article that was an exact copy. It was really old and had the original author’s name plastered all over it. I don’t know if he has permission to use it, but it sure doeesn’t seem like a site that only “copies and pastes”.
good luck sending a cease and desist letter to a guy living in Sweden (do they even have the DMCA there?).
The name calling shows the posters age.
19 Apr 06
10:56 am
Hey guys, yes, Jonathan is right… I shouldn’t shoot down the legal avenue right way, I’m just quite jaded when it comes to this stuff (as well as many many other things, hehe).
One of the things I do is working IT part time at a small law firm and despite the occasional matter they don’t practice IP law. I’ve always found it interesting at a philisophical level while bothered by merely even the need for it in society. Nonetheless, I’m open minded about things, so if there is a manner in which to file a legal complaint for IP infringement that would be close to the cyber equivalent of small claims court, I’d love to hear about it. Kirk, I hope you’ll follow up with a post about the matter and what’s involved once you’ve resolved the issue.
In general I just tend to think in broader terms of what drives the actual problem than what can be done legally to address it. For instance, Johnathan has a lovely site that looks very informative, but immediately I spot the tricky little google ads at the top that say Ads by Google next to them but to most readers would appear to be normal site links rather than ads… to me, that’s fueling the machine. As long as the current advertising and affiliate program models remain dominant on the web there will continue to be large problems… at least, that’s the way I look at things. Then again, I was on the EFF list-serv in the early 90s in my early-mid teen years.
Johnathan, no offense intended as it looks like you do have a wonderful site, I was just explaining how I tend to automatically see things a certain way and your site in this case was a decent example because it is really top notch work and yet I still find the quasi-sneaky Google Ads to be contradictory because of my personal views and the automatic responses they generate within me. Either way, keep fighting the good fight!
And again, good luck Kirk…
Ja
19 Apr 06
3:55 pm
Ja,
No offense taken, the ads are an experiment at best. I was going to take them down later this week probably. I had no intentions of being sneaky, blending is a common tactic and the ads are in a common advertising space. I checked several adsense sites before taking the steps that I did. All was deemed ethical and I actually skipped on several steps that made me uneasy, such as blending the ads with my actual content.
However, the ads will probably come down by the time you read this. The experiments was a failure on multiple fronts. I’d honestly forgotten about them.
Personally though, I don’t see affiliate programs as the problem. Adsense is very responsive to copyright complaints and freezes accounts of plagiarists. I’ve advised several on how to do it.
While some plagiarists do use adsense, other programs are becoming increasingly more common, especially foreign ones with fewer regulations.
Most people that use affiliate advertising are completely legit. It’s frustrating though because I’m going to have to find anoher way to recoup the costs of the site.
I’m open to suggestions.
19 Apr 06
4:14 pm
Update:
To all that have posted comments, thankyou. I seek guidance and have provided a list of potential routes with which to take action. The extensions, links, and musings provided are very valuable. Already I have learned so much. Thankyou.
To the infringers of the world: at no time have I indicated which route I feel is best, nor which one I will take if any. Sending me threatening emails (hello libel chill!) only indicates to me that you are the one who feels threatened. May I ask why?
Since I have never, ever mentioned anyone’s name, no one should be insulted. What kind of skin do you guys have if some random guy calls you names. Yes I am mad as hell that someone has taken my work and called it their own, I may call you names, big deal. Feel free to call me anything you want, I don’t know you, your words have no meaning to me. I expect no less from everyone else on the Internet with whom I do not have a personal connection of some kind.
John302, you suggest I left a nasty message? I recall leaving no ‘nasty’ messages. I did leave a terse message. Can you be specific please? And you are right, an email does work better. I appreciate your comments and standing up for a friend — I can respect that. I cannot respect someone that condones copyright infringement. Its just lame. And your comment, “I only found 1 article that was an exact copy.” One is plenty enough, but I suggest that my google searching skills are much better than yours.
The blogger no one has referenced has, I believe, stolen a list of words and links and pasted them on their own site in the exact same order as they appear on my site. Coincidence? I think not. Reference? None. I call that copyright infringement. What would you call it?
Consider: if I take text from your website, which you have written and post it on my website, with no reference, is that copyright infringement? Lets start a dialogue.
I’d appreciate comments from anyone on this issue. Cheers.
19 Apr 06
6:41 pm
Deepthought, you keep adding things to your case, that just aren’t true.
I am not condoning copyright infringement, I just see you as being wrong in this matter. A list of words? no. A list of links? yes. If I put the following
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.google.com
http://www.mamma.com
http://www.lycos.com
Do I have the right to stop you from printing it in this exact order? No. Just like you do not have the right to stop someone else from printing a list of URLS from your website. If it was your article, then yes, you should take some sort of action.
There was a references to your site before you sent him the blog post, but it has since been removed. You are talking out of your ass once again. How’s that for dialogue.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying your google searching skills are better than mine, but who knows. There is an exact copy of an article, but the guy never claimed to write it. It has the true author’s name on it, so unless the actual author has an issue with it, it is a moot point. How do you know he doesn’t already have permission to have it on the blog?
I suggest a nasty message because he forwarded it to me before he deleted it.
19 Apr 06
11:21 pm
@Jonathan:
I know what you mean, all I really do is experiment most of the time… I loathe Digg and yet I have the little buttons on my posts to Digg them because I was tinkering with it to get the layout correct as an example of how to do it for someone that asked me… and now I’ve just been too lazy to take them down, heh.
You may actually want to stick with the adsense… I joked to my brother that his site took a hit on google because he doesn’t use their ads and a couple days later he tells me some people were blogging about just such a possible scenario since discovering that the different google-bots have been sharing info with each other (which they’re not supposed to). I could have it completely wrong, but interesting to note.
As for recouping expenses, that’s one of the things that’s hard to find an answer for in the short run. It’s right up there with, “how does my small business/shop compete unless I move it online since I can’t really afford rent now that everyone shops online?” The only advice I can currently provide is that maybe you should figure out how much it means to you and how much you can realistically afford (which may entail forgoing other things). We have to spend time/money to pursue our passions, but we have to make ends meet as well so if you get a rough estimate of the difference you need to make up, start brainstorming ideas for leveraging your traffic in other ways… it may come down to making your own ads (or offering consultation/services) and cutting the deals with people you know, people in your community, people/places you feel good about promoting while being comfortable taking a certain fee. The point is to cut out the middle-man since they end up earning more and controlling more than the real providers on both ends. Also, while in the long run I still think the completely advertising driven model has to go, but in the mean time perhaps we’ll see smaller niche advertising/affiliate networks become more stable/preferable and level the playing field a bit. There have been discussions of such along with better feasibility these days for all types of niche services. We shall see. Whatever the case may be, I’ve always believed that anything truely worth doing (from which others may benefit) will lead to good things and good opportunities.
Not much else to say on the copyright matter itself… there’s just far too much gray area in cyberspace and IP, which is an abstract concept in and of itself. One guy did an interesting proof of concept about binary data and copyright… my brain is too fried to think of exactly what it was or what it was called, but I believe the developer of the MUTE filesharing protocol wrote it if you want to go looking.
Cheers guys…
24 Apr 06
11:57 am
Update: the infringer has changed his version of my article enough that it probably isn’t copyright infringement. It was earlier, now it is not. So for that I am happy. I was fully prepared to go a number of legal routes to solve the situation, but the infringer changed the article a number of times over the weekend. Oh well.
But this isn’t the end of the story… More developments forthcoming.
26 Apr 06
1:34 pm
You can’t silence the truth forever.
26 Apr 06
4:01 pm
Dear John”I know the owner personally, he lives in Sweden“302,
You indeed cannot silence the truth. Nope you sure can’t. Please review the additions I have made to this post and weigh your reply.
26 Apr 06
4:33 pm
so what is your point? You seem to be clearly driven by emotion, which shows a lack of maturity. I thought you were around 13 or 14, but your “about’ page makes me think you are older.
your screenshot is after the part was changed where he had a large, direct link back to your site. Also, it is changed now, so there isn’t much you can do about it.
I am refering to the fact that you lied about how there was no reference. He did, but removed it. If you look at your article in whole, about 20% of it is table, the rest is text. The text was not copied. think of it like a news article putting up a summary of your article with a link to the original.
Cheers.
26 Apr 06
5:21 pm
Maybe we are talking two different conversations here? My point is that YOU STOLE something I wrote. Ergo, YOU are a plagiarst. Keep the following idea in mind as you read the chain of events that lead to this post:
According to West’s Encyclopedia of American Law(1):
“Plagiarism: The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one’s own creation.”
1. I post a list of free iconsets. For some reason, it is wildly popular. Perhaps because this list has never before existed. Perhaps its because free icons are hard to find. I’m just throwing out ideas here — it was a surprise to me. Anyway;
2. Some weeks later, you copy the sourcecode of the table out of my website and paste it into your own;
3. While reviewing my referer logs I notice a HUGE spike in hits with only a tiny amount of visits from your website. I visit your website. I see you have copied my work. I ask you to link to my content, not simply copy it. I also ask you to not hotlink as, in many respects, this constitutes theft;
4. I make this posting at maxpower.ca, asking for advice. Good advice is given;
5. You change your copy of my work by removing the column containing the ‘view’ links (it was made defunct via some simple htaccess tricks). Sometime later, you remove the table code and anchor links altogether leaving just the raw url. You also rejig the order and remove some items.
I’d like to think you changed your post because you feared I would act on the advice I was getting here. Really I don’t care why you did it — I’m happy you did it.
All this changes nothing my friend. You are a plagiarist. You stole my words and idea. After I called you out, you changed the words into your own. You have still stolen my idea. That is my point.
You claim I lied about the lack of a ‘reference.’ I’m sorry, I wasn’t crystal clear. Currently, there is no reference on your page suggesting that the content on it is not your own. This makes you a plagiarst. At one point there was a reference. But as you yourself admitted:
“…he removed the direct image links (and all reference to maxpower.ca), but kept the other links”
Any way you slice it, John”I know the owner personally, he lives in Sweden“302
you, sorry, your friend was violating my copyright and is now simply a plagiarst. BTW here is an example of how to reference someone else’s idea:1. Plagiarism. (n.d.). West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. Retrieved April 26, 2006, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism
26 Apr 06
8:38 pm
Wow, what’s this guy’s hangup with age and maturity? (the other poster John that is) It reminds me of the good ol’ days of newsgroup arguments, good stuff, lol.
Anyhow, definite cut-n-paste job on the table. I’d be not too happy if someone had my source on their site including direct links to images without even bothering to remove things like class names and script hooks from my original post (at that point it’s just plain insulting) without even asking permission.
This is even over the line of what I consider web-pollution. There’s splogs which just copy other content like press releases put them in quotes with a source and have ads plastered all over them. Then there’s the next level down which are basically linkblogs or do the same thing as sploggers but put like a one line comment after it (in just about every post). After that comes the more innocent people that propogate the web-pollution in the same way that forwards and chain letters used to plague our inboxes… they have legitimate blogs but feel the need to post links to hot blog entries or sites that they’ve likely found through others like they’re announcing it to the world as an ambassador to all that is good for their readers, many times seeming like they feel the responsibility to do so or play this role. Sometimes there’s useful commentary which makes it not unthinkable (especially if it’s something that pertains to a major thing you’re discussing or the source site itself makes it impossible to post commentary there) but sometimes it’s just a link or snippet/link with a line “check this out, it’s cool.” I’m sorry, but yes, posting in a blog a link to a hot topic source (or a link to a link to the source eventually, maybe) with nothing more than a short opinion with no useful content of your own is in essence the forwards/chain letter effect and web-pollution in my book.
In the end web-pollution makes it impossible to find stuff with all this crazy linking and content regurgitating clogging up any effort to find what you’re actually looking for not to mention that it seemingly causes multiple locations of the same goddamned stuff. This case is even worse though… even if he had attributed you and your post in the first place, it’s not like he was just putting the link in a link blog or aside or even having any comment of his own… it was in the main body completely just cut and paste and then went around elsewhere linking to his post instead of yours. Despite the fact that you are happy he changed things around a bit, removal of the attribution officially makes it plagiarism now since you have to include attributation not only on direct quotes but also to the people/works that you derived your ideas from (especially as direct as this). Changing a few things doesn’t change where he got it from originally. These days it’s even more complicated when you consider the fact that it’s not just stealing content, it’s also stealing traffic (which has unfortunately become a measure of a site’s value to many) and with that possible new contacts/connections.
The question in my mind is why? What was the motivation in the first place? Innocent ignorance? Trying to gain more traffic and possibly a larger audience to boost his own ego? Attempting desperately to escape from some sort of curse that could only be broken by posting a good list (okay, table, haha) of icons that he hadn’t put together himself? This is what intrigues me.
Jā
26 Apr 06
9:28 pm
Ja, you keep comming here and running your mouth off… What the heck are you doing? You should be typing this stuff on on your own site!
Its blogging gold. Let me be clear: I agree with every* point you have made.
Some history: about 6 months ago I decided that I was going to be the type of blogger that doesn’t post much. Instead of link blogging and just regurgitating what others write, I would try to create new content with new ideas.
You and I think along the same wavelengths. Your questions are very valid and I think I have some of the answers. I’ve been working on a new post that I hope you and others will enjoy. I think its time this post / thread died and a more intelligent discussion of this type of phenomena began.
*I think social networking sites will be the new content filters. Example, John302 posted his bastardized version of my free icons post to digg. It got him nothing. When someone types in ‘free icons’ to the digg search engine, they see where his post has been entered with a few diggs, and further down the list they see my original, with a couple thousand diggs. I think its obvious which link a user will visit.
27 Apr 06
5:21 pm
[...] Ok I lied. Nobody wins. The following quote from Disconnect the Dots author Ja (who was commenting on an earlier post here at maxpower regarding a plagiarism issue) sums up many web users frustraions: In the end web-pollution makes it impossible to find stuff with all this crazy linking and content regurgitating clogging up any effort to find what you’re actually looking for not to mention that it seemingly causes multiple locations of the same goddamned stuff. [...]
28 Apr 06
7:47 pm
[editors note: this comment was moved here from another post about blog plagiarism, see doppelbloggers]
oh did I say sweden? I meant Denmark. Do you Think I’m going to tell you where my friend is actually located? Especially after all the online stalking you have been doing for the last couple of weeks?
You have basically described 90% of blogs out there. I feel you are writing this in direct response to your “free icon” “content” being “copied”. Once again, a direct emotional response to something that should have been dealt with in a different way.
It wasn’t plagarism, no matter how many times you say it. I saw the original story as it was posted and you lied to your readers, end of story. There was first a direct link back to your site and then it was changed around and your link was taken down. What did you expect? A thank you?
I know this article is being used as bait for our friend, so I will email him tonight and let him know he has another fan.
28 Apr 06
8:26 pm
Hi Justin,
Thanks for stopping by again. I want to thankyou for reminding me about how easy it is for some random person to plagiarise others’ work on the internet. You’ve really opened my eyes. I appreciate that. As to your other matters:
You contend I am responding in an “emotional” way. Well duh? I get emotional when people steal from me, who doesn’t? Anyway, I’m cool as a cucumber. I was mad, now I’m not. You know what they say…
You contend I have been stalking you. Do you know the song, ‘every breathe you take’ by the Police? I love that song, I listen to it for 8 hours a day while I stalk you. The other 16 hours of the day I listen to one big mashup of the following songs: “One Way or Another,” by Blondie, Men at Work’s “who can it be now,” “I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick, “Stompin At The Savoy” by Benny Goodman, and “Can’t Stand Losing You” also by the Police. Its called sarcasm, look into it.
You contend I have lied to my readers. I have not. I have nothing to loose (because you have already stolen it). You have your reputation to loose which is why I think you come here and try sway people with your delusions about lying.
I like this bit: “It wasn’t plagarism, no matter how many times you say it.” Ok buddy. I have the evidence in graphical form up above and you say things like that. Sure thing. I suggest you review the definition of the word plagiarism again.
“What did you expect? A thank you?” No. I would like an apology. But I don’t expect one. You can’t seem to agree with the legal definition of plagiarism and how it applies to you and what you did (plagiarise). The best defense to your actions you provide is the “It wasn’t plagiarism…” quote above. My first piece of evidence I provided was the screenshots showing the word for word copy and paste of my work on your blog.
So I will tell you what I really expect: you will be convicted by a jury of your peers, other bloggers.
I sentence you to the following earworm: who can it be now…. who can it be now…
30 Apr 06
9:20 am
Hahaha, okay, my last post to this thread before you close it down since I missed your this comment somehow. I just find it so much easier personally to respond to others and address issues within the scope of THEIR topic, than to stay on topic with my own posts. I used to be a good writer (or so I was told), but I’m still recovering from an on again off again 13 year bout with Chronic Lyme Disease and I have some lingering neuropsychological issues that they say take around 5 years to recover from. Without going further into the details, I tend to be very verbose and have trouble determining what details are okay to leave out sometimes, heh.
I have sooo much to say but when I go to write any of it on my blog I see how it overlaps with other entries I’ve aleady started planning out, and then I think about all the other things I want to write about or work on, and I can’t decide on any of it so I tend to get frozen and write nothing.
I’m going to have to say that pertaining to this case, you’re right, but in the current state that these social tagging sites are in they’re just making it easy for the sheep to follow the leaders in tagging things and then displaying rankings without any relevance to personal taste. Really, how many places do I have to see the same hot topics listed for the day, 99% of which I’ve learned not to bother giving a shit about? It’s not solving the “longtail” problem at all, rather randomizing it a bit but overall still making it worse. BTW, “longtail” is actually a trademarked term because the asshat that wrote the article in Wired (which was in fact a craptacular read I thought) used the term in the context of the web and web content for the first time thus “coining the phrase”… so of course then he went out and personally trademarked it… like anyone’s gonna hear the term and think of that guy. He did manage to get a popular service to change their name through a cease and desist though, lol.
Okay, time to reign myself back in here, and get back to the problem. In my mind the real thing that’s lacking in these services, as I said, is the ability to provide results relavent to an individual’s tastes and interests. Sure you can go looking for stuff based on tag, keyword, category, whatever but you’ll still be flooded with a ton of things you aren’t particularly interested in or alternatively, too many to go through all of them… invariably most people click on the most popular one, then dig it themselves. So how do you track individual taste? You track what people like AND what they dislike. You find individuals with the closest likes and dislikes and cluster them so that each individual has a handful of other people with similar tastes to his/her own and then give suggestions based on average ratings from other individuals within given percentiles of statistical closeness to your own tastes, and perhaps leave room for forming weighted bonds with people you KNOW you have similar tastes to in some areas. It’s what most on the web seem to miss… adding community power to ai in most cases gives you infinitely more accurate results. Great basic examples are Audioscrobbler, Stumble Upon (to some degree), Okay Cupid (they go a slightly different way, but still very smart). With these types of things, the more you put in, the more accurate your results become. I have no idea why this hasn’t exploded on the web yet as it’s a very simple concept.
Anyway, this was going to be worked into another post I had planned for my blog already, lol. Maybe I’ll do my blogging here.
We should collaborate though if you’re up for it. I have a ton of ideas (more than I can keep track of so I have them written down all over the place). Some are small ideas, some are huge. I get these ideas constantly and then I don’t stop thinking about them until I’ve figured out in my head exactly how I’d implement each part… once I’m done figure it out the fun is over for me and I get distracted by a new one. I think some of ‘em you’d be really interested in. I’ve been mulling over the idea of attempting to get together a crack commando unit (doh, too much A-Team as a kid) a small group of somewhat likeminded folk for putting in a little time here and there working on some nifty things and toying with ideas we bounce off each other. This might be a good starting point. Plus it would give me an excuse to setup some sort of collaboration/versioning system, lol. I tried out Basecamp with local colleagues that I do freelance work with on the side occassionally and it was terrible… it was filled with ajax yet obviously missing really key features for anyone trying to manage/collaborate with even a small group of people. Anyway, drop me a line, even if you’re not interested, I still have a couple things I wanted to run by you.
Cheers,
Ja
01 May 06
2:56 pm
[...] Plagiarism and content theft have really intrigued me of late. I got to thinking and came up with an idea for a very simple digital fingerprint for online content. Since content scrapers simply scrape, paste, and profit, they (ideally) wouldn’t notice a small ‘fingerprint’ (a keyword / phrase or personal googlewhack) sandwiched in with the regular text of your content. It follows that your fingerprint is uniquely yours, only those pages and posts where you placed your fingerprint should actually contain your fingerprint. A simple search via google or other search engines could confirm this on a regular basis. If your fingerprint exists on the web it is either coincidence or plagiarism. [...]
03 May 06
10:59 am
[...] The strange part is that the two accounts are almost exactly the same… read infringing blogger and digital fingerprints. Also of note are two excellent posts over at plagairism today: Myspace: A Place for Plagiarism?, Part one, and Part Two. [...]