Will They Steal Your Content? Of Course. That's What Thieves Do.

[Patrick Pretty]

Originally Posted by Daniel Brock

It really does suck.

But you would be surprised at how many WSOs endorse such behavior.

I have recently seen a popular software that basically scrapes EzineArticles, translates the articles to spanish and back to English and then call it a legitimate article without absolutely no credit given to the original writer.

It's a pretty sad world, but content theft is pretty much unavoidable these days.

It almost makes you wonder why you spend so much time creating unique content...

Hello Daniel,

I've seen such WSOs, including ones by authors who have no practical experience in the writing trade and simply pass along repackaged GIGO.

It leads to big, big problems. Take the Associated Press, for instance. It basically gets robbed blind, thus affecting its bottom line and the bottom lines of its subscribers. The music industry has responded to theft/piracy with "John Doe" lawsuits, which are designed to have a chilling effect.

But it's a crazy world. Some people literally have started their own countries on paper to provide a legal shield for piracy and to do things such as sell unregistered securities.

There is an old, World War II sea hulk off the coast of England. The hulk's owner declared it a sovereign nation.

It's called the Principality of Sealand, and, at least for a while, provided a "data haven" service:

HavenCo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You've probably heard about the autosurfing "industry" and the HYIP "industry." I've written a number of stories about people/companies that declared themselves "sovereign" nations. Their theory is that, by doing so, they can pick and choose the laws they want to follow.

The SEC filed a lawsuit against one of the companies in May 2008. The company's defense was that it was a "sovereign" nation, even though it was operating an HYIP from Las Vegas.

These approaches provide cover for various forms of theft -- the theft of intellectual property, the theft of money, the theft of investment capital.

Regards,

Patrick