01 February 2012

Hey, Those Are My Posts and My Photographs!!

I had a serious problem with someone taking my posts from Texas RV Travel blog and copying them to their blog, word-for-word, including the title and photographs. At the end of the post there would be a small link back to Texas RV Travel blog.

This webmaster did not contact me and ask permission and s/he even hot-linked the photographs, using my bandwidth, not to mention violating copyright. There was NO contact information on the blog. When I did a WHOIS, I was given servers by proxy, which is just a way to hide who owns the site.

Luckily, I happened to send an email to GoDaddy copyright infringement department and my questions were answered by a helpful man named Brian.

He explained:

Although a domain name is registered through a specific company, the website (which is separate from the domain name registration) may be hosted elsewhere.

To determine who the web hosting provider is, you can use a publicly-available tool like http://www.selfseo.com/find ip_address_of_a_website.php. This tool will give you the resolving IP address and tell you where the website is based.

Then you may compare this information on ARIN.net. ARIN handles the IP allocation database. This may give you the relevant information for the true hosting provider.

With this information, I was able to contact the hosting provider. Good email addresses to use are abuse@hosting company.com, copyright infringement@hosting company.com, support@hosting company.com.

Normally, I would start by trying to contact the website owner. However, there was NO contact information and no history on this blog To leave a comment you had to register for this blog. This blog was locked up tight.

All Voices.com

Once I studied the blog, I realized this person had been stealing my posts since early last year. The name of this blog is similar to an environmental blog about Texas. When I saw the name under uncommon uses of my blog feed, I just thought that my friend was linking back or tracking back and I just forgot it.

Well, I wanted to share with you how I was able to find out who actually hosts a blog. Through a hosting provider, you usually get immediate response as to who is the owner of the blog or website.

I have asked for the posts, all of them, to be deleted and an apology posted on the blog and a link to my blog. If the owner of the blog takes no action, I have asked the hosting company to take the blog down. The offending blog has been taken down, so I guess the problem is solved--for now.

What I Learned

Look carefully at your Feedburner or other RSS stats.
Check all uncommon uses of your feed.
Post copyright statement on your blog
Make image that will inform and not humiliate
Check out all trackbacks.

Still to Do

Learn how to add unobtrusive watermark to all pictures.
Discover how to change permission on photograph folder.
Disable right-click and view source on my blog.
Am I forgetting anything?

This is upsetting to me. I am a blogger, not an investigator or a policeman. Whenever someone asks, I almost always allow excerpts from my articles to be posted.

During my treatment, I let things go. I am paying for it now. Learn from my mistake and protect your website. If you have had a similar experience, please share.

17 January 2012

SSOR - Stop Stealing Our Rights!

If tyranny and oppression come to this land,

it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

James Madison

Losing the Freedom of the Internet

The Congress and the House of Representatives have come up two separate bills to further curtail our freedoms. I guess it is just too hard for the poor peeps to tackle something important, like sending jobs overseas, corruption on capitol hill, the environmental dangers posed by fracking and the XL pipeline, climate change, the disappearing middle class, etc.

Oh, but they have time to write the bills that will take away the few pleasures left to the public that is struggling to work, live and pay taxes.

Congress is about to pass Internet censorship, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed to it. We need to kill the bills - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.

S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011

PIPA - Establishes process by which a website is taken down because the Justice Department (DoJ) says the site is conducting infringing activities. The DoJ or the copyright owner would begin legal action and the DoJ could demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site.This could all be done without anyone being heard by a judge.

Stop Protect IP Adresses (PIPA) - Read the bill here.

H.R.3261 - Stop Online Piracy Act

SOPA - Basically the same as PIPA, with some additions: . . . against any site they deem to have "only limited purpose or use other than infringement," . . . It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison. This bill combines two separate Senate bills -- S.968 and S.978.

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) - Read the bill here.

People are saying these bills will break the Internet. In protest many of the large websites, like Wikipedia are "blacking out" their websites tomorrow 1/18. I have decided I will add this post to all my blogs as a public service announcement,

Click the infographic below to take action.

Do it today.

15 January 2012

MLK: We are Approaching Social Doom

Over 40 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and this nation lost one of the greatest leaders for peace and non-violence since Gandhi. We do not celebrate his death today, but rather his life.

Reverend King's words still resonate with reason decades later; they still inspire new generations of folks to action.

~~~~~~~~~~ Words to Live By ~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The time is always right to do what is right."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood c an never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God bless you, Reverend King. I am glad you lived, even for such a short time during my lifetime. I wish your journey could have lasted much longer. I wish you were alive today to guide our nation and our people. We need you and your wisdom, especially your thoughts on war.

06 January 2012

Most Useful Posts of 2011

Who's Blogging What has put together a list of posts from 2011 that their readers found to be the most useful. There are posts for Social Media, Search Marketing, User Experience, Email Marketing and Web Analytics.

Here are a few random choices of mine, sort of a preview of the posts on the Social Media tab.

To see the complete lists of posts and bookmark the page for future reference, click this link: The most useful posts of 2011 (Who's Blogging What).

02 January 2012

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