HughMungus - 2:08 am on Mar 30, 2005 (gmt 0)

"Devalue" means to diminish the perceived worth. If a visitor arrives at a website directly or via a "trustworthy" source, the perception of the worth of the copyrighted original content is DIFFERENT than the perception of the worth of that content when coming from a scraper site. Are you saying this just is not true? That the behavior of people who come from a scraper site is exactly the same as from a Google or an Overture or an ESpotting? That there is no discernable distinction between their reactions to the junk they find after click on an algorithm result and landing on a scraper site and the original content they find on a "real" site? Are you honestly arguing that there is NO difference?

To most surfers who have no idea what a scraper site is, no, there is no difference. And, again, I'm talking about when just parts of the site are lifted, not when the whole website is copied (which I can see would devalue the original website's perceived value).