Comments on: Scummy scrapers

By: Doug Winship

Doug Winship — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:26:57 +0000

Adam says that they scrape the comments too, Michael? I have bad news, the scraper site that I was referring to is NOT scraping the comments. That means that there are at least TWO sites scraping your content.

Isn’t it nice to be loved?

By: Adam L.

Adam L. — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:20:59 +0000

Wow – they scrape the comments too and make it appear the people are commenting on their page, not yours.

Sorry man… total suckage.

btw, submitted at 11:20 EDT – wonder what time this shows up over there.

By: Michael Dietsch

Michael Dietsch — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:54:19 +0000

Google wants me to file a formal DMCA complaint, which isn’t surprising. Luckily, my wife works for IP lawyers….

By: Doug Winship

Doug Winship — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:43:55 +0000

Wow!

It took me about three minutes to find the site you were talking about. (Sorry, I had to give them one hit!)

This entire blog really is an example of taking a basic, positive blog concept (Posting teaser excerpts from other blogs or articles to spread a discussion and drive traffic back to the original writer) and turning it into outright hackery and theft.

They structure it to appear as if has some editorial framing (a necessity for Fair Use), but it is clear the whole thing is run by a Bot now. They scrape your very post about them, which pretty much ought to show the blog is on computer pilot. But you can also see that they’ve even given up on the template. Every post on the front page omits the blog name!

Overall, it is really sad. Some of the best blogs out there are almost entirely links to other writers (e.g. Instapundit), and cocktail blogging could probably use someone like that. But this “attempt” just throws mud on the concept.

By: Michael Dietsch

Michael Dietsch — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:37:02 +0000

Ironically, though not surprisingly, this very post, “fuck off and die” and all, has also been scraped and republished. Classy.

By: Darcy O'Neil

Darcy O'Neil — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:00:17 +0000

They are a pain. I tried to be nice to start, then I sent warnings and then I became stern. But they only budged when I threatened all out war on them. Be persistent and Google usually does a good job of cutting off their revenue stream.