Copyrights, Respect and Swiping Content

Status
Not open for further replies.
CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
8,951
8,442
113
Anaheim
www.avantegardens.com
State / Prov
CA
I'm about to pop a gasket.

While doing a search for my shop name, I came across a florist's site that has helped themselves to my original product photos, complete design descriptions, descriptions of services and on and on.

This is copyright infringement - theft - pure and simple.

I'm going to deal direct with this florist but I want to warn any shop with original content to be sure to monitor the web for thieves who help themselves to your hard work. Our site's original content has cost us thousands and thousands of dollars and countless hours to create. That other florists - real or not - feel comfortable just taking it is maddening.

Anyone taking your original photos or articles without your permission is guilty of theft of intellectual property . It can be especially damaging on the web where search engines filter out most duplicate content so if the thief has a higher page rank (credibility rank) than your own page(s), your page(s) may be deleted from important search results.

If you decide to copy and publish from another site or post, you should always request permission from the author (if reproducing an entire article [beyond a snippet] or photo) and cite the original by linking to it.

It's about respect - respect for the hard work of others - and can get the copying site banned by search engines (see DMCA) or worse.
 
I'm a little confused as to why a florist in MI would want to claim to be you.
It's not even like the shop tried to hide it - pretty stupid in general, but phenomanally stupid in this case. I sure wouldn't want to be at the other end of that phone call.
:soapbox:
good luck Cathy

tracy
 
Cathy,

That is the oddest thing I have ever seen. They even used a picture of your shop and delivery van....what the heck?! Creeps.

I never thought about digging deep into search pages to make sure that our stuff wasn't being stolen. Thanks for the heads up!!
 
In this case, I found the site by just googling our shop name.

Another way to check is to copy and paste a snippet of your original text and do a Google search.

Photos are trickier because the images can be copied and given new names and descriptions - you just sort of have to run across them. I've seen sites from even well known florists with lifted glamour shots from other flower shops. Not cool at all.

Added: My guess with the copy found today is that they are designing a new site and their webmaster foolishly published the working copy instead of leaving it off line or using a robots.txt command to prevent search engine spidering and caching. Still, they should not be using my content.
 
felicityflowers said:
Cathy,

That is the oddest thing I have ever seen. They even used a picture of your shop and delivery van....what the heck?! Creeps.

I never thought about digging deep into search pages to make sure that our stuff wasn't being stolen. Thanks for the heads up!!
Click to expand...
Ditto to all that.

Not very bright at all. My only guess as to this completely moronic idea is that they liked your site, and asked someone to copy the format, to be changed later? I just don't understand if this were the case, why it's "live" already. Stupid stupid stuff.

tracy
 
CHR said:
Added: My guess with the copy found today is that they are designing a new site and their webmaster foolishly published the working copy instead of leaving it off line or using a robots.txt command to prevent search engine spidering and caching. Still, they should not be using my content.
Click to expand...
Girl, you're quicker than me!:hug:
tracy
 
Well for Pete's sake I can't seem to find it.
 
CHR said:
Photos are trickier because the images can be copied and given new names and descriptions - you just sort of have to run across them. I've seen sites from even well known florists with lifted glamour shots from other flower shops. Not cool at all.
Click to expand...

Happily, not true! We've mentioned before a service from Digimarc (http://www.digimarc.com/comm/images.asp), which allows you to embed an invisible, secret digital watermark in your images. For a fee, you can subscribe to their spider, which crawls the 'net looking for images with their watermark.

You need Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to embed the watermarks in your photos. All you do is enter your Digimarc ID into the software, and with a couple of mouse clicks, your image is watermarked.

From the beginning, we've marked almost every image on www.bloomeryweddings.com with this service. Through the years, their pricing has changed somewhat, so review if this fits into your plans. They used to allow you to get an id from them for free, but it looks like the MyPictureMarc service is the comparable service we used.
 
Hmmmmm.... I must say.... I am confused...

Vogt's Flowers... Flint MI, owned by Kraig Kruger last I knew was www.vogtsflowers.com that I see is registered by Schakleford Marketing, the outfit that runs the MFA web site...hmmm... again... BTW, Vogt's sits on the MFA Board (one reason I did not get real far with them)

I know Kraig/Craig has done some stuff thats less than Real Florist standards, but I'm wondering why this site is registered to someone in Sturgis MI, the name is not familliar to me.
 
I would take the screen shots, tell them to stop using your content today.
Contact your lawyer and start charging them $5000.00 a day for every day the content stays up or reappears. Thats not just intellectual property theft, its identity theft, false advertisment, etc. I would have blown a gasket for sure! :fdevil:
 
CHR said:
In this case, I found the site by just googling our shop name.

Another way to check is to copy and paste a snippet of your original text and do a Google search.
Click to expand...

Cathy,

Try http://www.copyscape.com/ to find sites that have duplicated your content

.
 
Rich - Thanks for the info on Digimarc. :)

Mlou - Copyscape definitely helps. With a subscription, your entire site can be monitored. The free part allows shops to query one page at a time.

Just as a follow up - I emailed the webmaster and he responded quickly by removing all of my content. Just as suspected, the shop is building a new site and wants to use WS-free images and products.

It will probably take a while before the duplicate pages & products drop out of search completely.
 
CHR said:
... Mlou - Copyscape definitely helps. With a subscription, your entire site can be monitored. The free part allows shops to query one page at a time...
Click to expand...

Yes, for something like $5.00 per month they will monitor the web for your website content.

.
 
Cathy - have their theiving "webmaster" sign up for a Google webmaster account, and claim that domain. They can then use Google's tool to have pages removed from the index. It'll take a couple days to settle out, but is a very quick way to remove content.
 
RJD said:
Happily, not true! We've mentioned before a service from Digimarc (http://www.digimarc.com/comm/images.asp), which allows you to embed an invisible, secret digital watermark in your images. For a fee, you can subscribe to their spider, which crawls the 'net looking for images with their watermark.

You need Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to embed the watermarks in your photos. All you do is enter your Digimarc ID into the software, and with a couple of mouse clicks, your image is watermarked.

From the beginning, we've marked almost every image on www.bloomeryweddings.com with this service. Through the years, their pricing has changed somewhat, so review if this fits into your plans. They used to allow you to get an id from them for free, but it looks like the MyPictureMarc service is the comparable service we used.
Click to expand...
Great info... Digimarc appears to be a great solution. I don't have a lot of images yet but now I can continue construction of my website without ruining the images with something visible... I think I can sleep now... LOL.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back