My latest adventure in copyright protection enforcement has taken a very interesting turn. A local agent recently got caught with one of my maps on her web site. This is a local agent of a national company. The agent and her broker are presenting a new problem. While my map is no longer on their web site, Google has it indexed in "Images" with a link to the agent's web site. Google Images and images in general are a very popular search resource for consumers and every day that my map is sending visitors to a web site not my own is costing me traffic.
When alerted that one of my maps was on a web site belonging to one of his agents, his response was, "It's not my fault". Well, perhaps not, but it WAS his responsibility to monitor his agent's advertising. I was inclined to settle this one quickly because the agent and the broker put the onus on their web design company and she was quick to settle. But, since this broker wants to play hard ball and deny any "fault", the question now becomes, how do they get my map out of Google Images. My map is indexed in Google Images with a link to THEIR web site. They need to either get Google to remove my map with the link to their web site, or I want their web site DOWN. We'll see how that goes. I have settled with the web design company, but NOT with the broker who wanted to take NO responsibility.
It's a sad state of affairs that we have to spend the time and energy to protect Internet content. If content thieves who would prefer to plagiarize and steal images rather than put a few words together or hire someone do to it for them were as much of a malignancy in the hard copy publishing world as they are in cyberspace, enforcement of the laws would be much tougher because the publishers have the resources to protect their copyrights. It's very rare that we hear of plagairism or copyright violation in the hard copy publishing world, Jimmy Carter the memorable exception. His claim that "if it's on the Internet, it's O.K. to use it" is a riot.
I am convinced that if we pursue these skunks, they will begin to think twice about taking the easy road. However, in cyberspace, so many of us publish our own material and it's up to us to enforce our own copyrights and content. I pursue ALL copyright violators vigorouslyby demanding that they (1) remove my images from their web sites and (2) PAY DAMAGES. I suspect that if I decide to pursue content thieves, that would reveal some skunks in the wood pile too. This is a matter of time mangement. I have to determine the benefits of creating and publishing more content, updating web site, reading, writing and uploading to Active Rain and once in a while selling a home or making a referral to another broker/agent, OR spend valuable time chasing content thieves.
We often read about plagairizing articles on Active Rain, but no one ever publishes the articles and the original. I think we should publish them. Let everyone see the stolen content with the name of the person who published it. I have not published the names of copyright violators from my own web sites because there is usually an agreement that I don't do so in the release that I sign in exchange for THEIR MONEY. However, there is no such agreement with content thieves within Active Rain. Seems to me that exposing the content thieves would go a long way toward curing the problem. Of course, anyone caught publishing material that was earlier published by someone else should be banned from Active Rain forthwith, but prevention is easier and exposing the perps just may work. I have run into two of my maps used by Active Rain members and they were removed immediately upon notice by me. One, I wrote a blog about and the other got e-mail and my maps were removed IMMEDIATELY. However, if the usage had been on their web page on the Internet and not on an AR blog, it would have cost them money.
Kristal Kraft has a valuable blog today about tracking perps.
======= ADDED FOLLOWING MAUREEN'S COMMENT BELOW. Obviously, I need to read the Community Guidelines more often. ===========================
O.K. I understand that we are not to do any policing ourselves. So, we flag the article that is a duplicate OR a copyright violation and the AR gurus will take care of it.
The question, since it is still occurring, is - does that work??
You know, this may simply be a matter of numbers. There are 15,000 members with a lot of different folks publishing. There are bound to be folks that:
- 1. Don't know that copying and publishing stuff found on the Internet is illegal.
- 2. Don't care.
- 3. Think no one will notice.
I'm the very last person on the earth to tell someone how to do run their business. I am a member / guest on Active Rain and leave the policy and administration to the manager / owners.
I would simply ask that the membership know what is going on. As of today, I have NO KNOWLEDGE of any action taken against any member that publishes copyrighted material.
It is entirely possible that some very good contributors have been dissuaded from publishing THE GREAT AMERICAN BLOG for fear of having their content used by others in areas not to their liking.
Posted by 
Lenn wrote in part: We often read about plagairizing articles on Active Rain, but no one ever publishes the articles and the original. I think we should publish them. Let everyone see the stolen content with the name of the person who published it."
And
"Seems to me that exposing the content thieves would go a long way toward curing the problem. Of course, anyone caught publishing material that was earlier published by someone else should be banned from Active Rain forthwith, but prevention is easier and exposing the perps just may work.
In the Community Guidelines Jonathan wrote " If you find content on ActiveRain that you believe violates the intention of our Community Guidelines please flag it for our review. If the content does not have a flag feature available, please contact support with the details of the violation. Please do not attempt to correct or discipline another ActiveRain member directly! "
I know of examples on Active Rain where Blanca and Kristal had someone plagiarize their original Active Rain content on Active Rain. That was long before Jonathan came back to be the AR sheriff to deal with the desperado's here. Another Active Rainer had a blog about an Active Rain comment spammer and Jonathan asked the blog owner to take the links out of the blog because it was an "attempt to correct or discipline another ActiveRain member directly! " ... I think...that was Jonathan's reasoning.
I had provided in the comments on that blog some other links to some interesting things that these members seemed to be doing..which were contrary to the rules on AR. I asked Jonathan if I ought to delete my links and he said yes.
I know how frustrated some are by the people in their market who are plagiarizing Inman and getting points for it. I don't know that Active Rain will let us put "stocks" on the public green of the Active Rain community and put the perps in the stocks to change their evil ways.
The question about Google is very intriguing... Lots of great info here Lenn on sooooo many levels.
Edit- I finish my comment... I am on the way to flag this that it ought to be featured and there's the star. Great moderators.