Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Remember a few months ago when someone posted here about a decline in earnings then getting serious about fighting thieves who were using her content with AdSense and her efforts resulted in AdSense earnings north of $4K per month?
Have you ever considered what the impact on our earnings might be if the AdSense accounts of everyone using stolen content were disabled tomorrow? There is no magic bullet to make that happen, but we all can still make an impact.
I've suggested previously that every publisher take a little time to find just one content thief per week and then submit the DMCA information to AdSense as they suggest.
If just the publishers who post here on WW would do that (minus any thieves lurking around here), it could have an impact. Statistically speaking, from time to time some of us are going to find one of those publishers with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pages of content. And if that AdSense account is disabled, the ads disappear from all the pages in that account, the pages with the stolen content as well as the legit content.
I'm not claiming this will solve all of anyone's earnings problems, but it's something we all could easily do that would benefit us individually and as a group.
And if for no other reason, it's informative and somewhat entertaining to find the places where your content shows up.
FarmBoy
Even some so called gurus are encouraging to use content like this...
Those would not be called gurus, those would be called morally defective.
I could easily see someone creating a site to start and organize some kind of movement like this.
Every time I hunt for content thieves it depresses me. I'd rather pay a small regular fee and have someone else do it on my behalf, sort of like a webmaster's union with legal representatives. There has to be a more scalable approach than relying on every content producer to look out for themselves. Outsourcing this work to experts in finding and pursuing infringers would be a step in that direction.
Time I spend learning about DMCA and other stuff is time I don't spend improving my websites, but nor do I want to let people get away with ripping me off. So I'm torn. I'm sure a lot of people do nothing because it just doesn't seem worth it, and that's why this goes on.
If all the honest webmasters here report splogs, even one per week, we may see significant reduction in bad content on the web (assuming Google acts on the report and disables their AdSense account).
I agree and I'll add one more component. If you get a site with stolen content's AdSense account taken down, make it known.
In reading this board over time, you can see there are people who are concerned about getting banned from AdSense for click fraud, arbitrage, MFA, etc. They are concerned because they have read about it happening to other people. The word spreads. Make it known. If someone is a content thief, make it where every morning he wakes up, he has to fear if there is a "closed account" email from AdSense in his inbox
FarmBoy
Even some so called gurus are encouraging to use content like this..
A lot of gurus of the time said the Titanic was unsinkable.
With a very large site, how would I even begin to try to protect myself from thieves/scrapers?
incredibill offered some suggestions, but trying to protect your content is a different angle than what I'm trying to get across in this thread.
Let me try an analogy: Suppose a town is suffering from a rash of burglaries. The police are frustrated because they can't be everywhere and they only seem to be showing up after the crime and writing a report. The residents are frustrated because they are afraid to leave home long enough to watch a movie for fear they will return home and find their belongings gone.
The police could put on a workshop instructing people to install better door locks, to leave lights on, to record serial numbers of electronics, etc. All that helps somewhat, but it still leaves people frustrated sometimes. That's similar to taking steps to prevent theft of your content.
But let's say the police learn the items are being stolen to a used merchandise store in a different city. They work with the police in that city to get the store shut down and the owner put in jail.
Now the thieves have little incentive to burglarize homes since their primary source of income from those efforts has been shut down. That's the point I'm trying to make. Get the AdSense accounts shut down and suddenly the incentive to steal is greatly diminished.
You may find someone with your content who has only one 10-page site. Or you may find someone who has been doing it for years and has hundreds of sites, hundreds of thousands of pages, millions of impressions and who knows how many clicks. Get that AdSense account shut down and those impressions and clicks are suddenly available to the rest of us.
If each of us would DMCA one thief with an AdSense account every week, or maybe just one per month, collectivity we would shut down the AdSense accounts of a number of small players and from time to time, some very big players. If we let it be known what we have accomplished, over time word will spread and it will begin to have an impact.
There's no need to become overwhelmed with the process. Just make a feasible goal and do it regularly, knowing others here are doing the same thing. Then spend the bulk of your time working on your site and doing the things you enjoy.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some "New Users" come here and complain about having their accounts banned. :)
FarmBoy
Time I spend learning about DMCA and other stuff is time I don't spend improving my websites...
An AdSense publisher is in business. Every successful business owner has to do things that take time away from the core business - purchasing business insurance, washing the windows, etc.
Once you file your first DMCA submission, each one after takes a lot less time and effort than doing things a lot of brick & mortar business owners have to do on a daily basis.
FarmBoy
An AdSense publisher is in business. Every successful business owner has to do things that take time away from the core business - purchasing business insurance, washing the windows, etc.
I certainly don't disagree with the need to do something about content infringement. Don't get me wrong. I just think there may be a gap in the market for an organisation to offer some sort of outsourced service for dealing with it all.
There are attorneys who deal in intellectual property law and earn a living by obtaining settlements and damages on behalf of their clients. There may be some who actively seek out copyright violations on behalf of their clients.
But whether or not that service exists is a side issue when it comes to getting the AdSense accounts of thieves shut down. You can get the AdSense account shut down and still go on to pursue settlements / statutory damages if you wish.
My focus in this thread is on getting the AdSense accounts shut down as a means of increasing the income of legit publishers, not in some broad effort to stop copyright infringement. That's a goal, but it's not the purpose or the point I'm trying to get across.
FarmBoy
Also there is in Google Webmaster Tools [I think] a facility to seek pages with similar content. I haven't used it for awhile though.
Just found it! Search Google using this link:
related:www.example.com/
Handy at times to locate content theft.
Some of my more popular articles have many, many copies out there on the net, they will be time consuming to track down and go after, but hopefully worth it in the end :-)
One thing I say in my e-mail is that they can feel free to put a link back to the original article but they need to remove the copyrighted text. They usually choose to just delete the forum thread. I don't really get the links back (I wish!). Oh well, in the grand scheme of things I hope it helps.
...and sent off a few firm e-mails to site owners today.
That's good that you're doing something.
But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, if the thief has taken your content and placed it on pages with AdSense, sending emails to the site owner is overall very ineffective in my opinion.
If someone has learned he can just steal content and earn money from it via AdSense, he might take down your content, but will likely just go take more from one of your fellow AdSense publishers - or maybe from another site of yours.
The way to handle this is not to contact the thief but rather to go through the DMCA process and to notify AdSense as they instruct. Let AdSense see the ads beside the stolen content - don't give the thief time to cover his tracks.
That is effective and is something the thief can't just shrug off. Anything else is like ignoring the burglar breaking into your neighbor's house because he isn't breaking into your house.
FarmBoy
I understand your point. But it doesn't hurt to also go after the forum scenarios where members re-post your content, but that more applies to the topic of duplicate content...
I found one site that basically scraped an entire section of my site but they don't display AdSense ads. It's still worth it to get the content taken down, perhaps in that case I should file a Google DMCA...?
sending emails to the site owner is overall very ineffective in my opinion.
Quite effective in my experience. ;) 100% success rate.
