Where was the blog? Not specifically, of course; I mean, was it on an independent site, or on a service like Blogger?
If the latter, you should be able to report them to their blog service and get the blog shut down.
If the former, you might need to get a lawyer involved. The DMCA has a takedown notice provision that should do nicely, although even that might not work unless you really want to sue them.
I've said for a while now that, much as I hate the world of class action lawsuits that end up benefitting the attorneys more than any of the plaintiffs, I would gladly make an exception if someone could find grounds for a good class action suit against spammers and their ilk. Sometimes you gotta hire a demon to slay demons. (Hey, it's almost Halloween, so the imagery struck me.)
A class action copyright infringement suit sounds ike just the ticket. Since many of the guilty parties are either broke losers, in foreign jurisdictions, or both, you would want to find a way to rope in ISPs and carriers as defendants as well. Normally, I'm against holding them responsible for what happens on their services; but from what I'm reading, it sounds like they could do more to stop the spam if they could get past intramural political squabbles and just settle on some solutions. Maybe a threat like this would make them work faster.
I know, it's all wishful thinking, and horribly unrealistic. But I can dream, can't I?
I read something days ago about a bizillionaire earlystage webguy who also happened to be the owner of url www.sex.com that got hijacked by a porn mogul/ex-con who went offshore and stomped all over his intellectual property. There was over a decade of litigation. Mr. Bazillion kicked the con dude's ass. The awards were significant. And uncollectable. Until a few days ago. If I remember correctly, the ex-con was just deported by Mexican authorities into US custody. Mr. Bazillion may have a greater ethical interest in this type of problem. His lawyers would be a repository of expertise. Such litigation strikes me as the clang bird from hell, but these cats may have the actionability simplified and easy to execute. In the interest of stewardship, they might be willing to converse and advise.
Sympathy, but I expect that you will not have much more luck than major music labels.
Shout from a soap box, and it hard to complain when someone repeats your words. Try to embed "Dean's World" as deeply as possible into the content. Keep your content fresh; keep them copying.
Otherwise you are welcome to start with the obnoxious lawsuits to protect your right to "What I said!".
The record labels have all kinds of success against those who sell their wares and don't share. Free distributors they have a harder time with, and for good reason.
These people are making a buck off the content here, of which one hell of a lot of work is put in by me and others. I've never restricted anyone who wants to reprint or redistribute or quote for free, but if someone's going to copy it, make a buck off it, and not even credit me? Excuse me, but THAT'S obnoxious.
www.dodgeblogium.com is a porn site and has been for quite a while. Yeah a class action would be fun however I far more annoyed at the arsehat who keeps spamming my site with gambling and porn sites.
Well you could start writing pieces about how porn is immoral, will cause increased reception to mind control waves in the weak-minded, and is generally a sign of those who can't get a date.
They might just delete those pieces. Or you could autospam yourself. Arrange some sort of function to occasionally insert a paragraph in the middle of whatever else you are saying so that its difficult for them to edit you.
Signable petitions to join anti-copier class action lawsuits would be fun too.
I was shocked to find the entire front page of blog all quoted verbatim at one of these disgusting parasitic sites. Based on past experience that complaining to the spam IPs only increased spam, I'm at a loss to know what to do. I don't want to make it worse.
The Media Bloggers Association has a Legal Defense Initiative.
Maybe this is something that the MBA could research. I tend to view this kind of thing as "needle in a haystack" stuff but perhaps we could come up with a process to quickly do whatever can be done legally. Even if it does not get an immediate result, getting claims on the record might be useful in future litigation.
If the latter, you should be able to report them to their blog service and get the blog shut down.
If the former, you might need to get a lawyer involved. The DMCA has a takedown notice provision that should do nicely, although even that might not work unless you really want to sue them.
I've said for a while now that, much as I hate the world of class action lawsuits that end up benefitting the attorneys more than any of the plaintiffs, I would gladly make an exception if someone could find grounds for a good class action suit against spammers and their ilk. Sometimes you gotta hire a demon to slay demons. (Hey, it's almost Halloween, so the imagery struck me.)
A class action copyright infringement suit sounds ike just the ticket. Since many of the guilty parties are either broke losers, in foreign jurisdictions, or both, you would want to find a way to rope in ISPs and carriers as defendants as well. Normally, I'm against holding them responsible for what happens on their services; but from what I'm reading, it sounds like they could do more to stop the spam if they could get past intramural political squabbles and just settle on some solutions. Maybe a threat like this would make them work faster.
I know, it's all wishful thinking, and horribly unrealistic. But I can dream, can't I?
Shout from a soap box, and it hard to complain when someone repeats your words. Try to embed "Dean's World" as deeply as possible into the content. Keep your content fresh; keep them copying.
Otherwise you are welcome to start with the obnoxious lawsuits to protect your right to "What I said!".
These people are making a buck off the content here, of which one hell of a lot of work is put in by me and others. I've never restricted anyone who wants to reprint or redistribute or quote for free, but if someone's going to copy it, make a buck off it, and not even credit me? Excuse me, but THAT'S obnoxious.
They might just delete those pieces. Or you could autospam yourself. Arrange some sort of function to occasionally insert a paragraph in the middle of whatever else you are saying so that its difficult for them to edit you.
Signable petitions to join anti-copier class action lawsuits would be fun too.
The Media Bloggers Association has a Legal Defense Initiative.
Maybe this is something that the MBA could research. I tend to view this kind of thing as "needle in a haystack" stuff but perhaps we could come up with a process to quickly do whatever can be done legally. Even if it does not get an immediate result, getting claims on the record might be useful in future litigation.
Bob Cox
President
Media Bloggers Association