Several trackbacks along the lines of “Click for the original post” recently arrived in the comment queue; I have moderation turned on for well and good reason. Their common URL resolved to a blog containing half a dozen posts ripped in their entirety from here.
Huh. How about that…
The IP address resolved to [mumble].com, a dedicated server provider, and the blog actually had a contact page with what looked like a non-bogus email address. Here’s the exchange, with me doggedly CC-ing abuse@[mumble].com:
Me
Much of the content at [scraper URL].info has been ripped directly from my blog at softsolder.com, in direct violation of the Creative Commons copyright given in the About page.
Remove all of the content taken from my blog and notify me when you have done so.
You may post links to my blog, but you may not re-use the text or pictures without following the applicable Creative Commons copyright rules.
Thank you.
Scraper
Thanks for your email. This was generated by a sofware program and has been removed as requested. Regards, David
Me
OK, I’m puzzled: you imply that your site uses content that a program automatically rips from other blogs.
What’s the point of that?
Scraper
FYI there are alot of different software programs out there that create autoblogs in much the same manner. These are being actively promoted to internet marketers. All that is required is subscribing to your rss feed and the software does the rest. It populates the blog, and publishes the content. I’m sure that you will run into this some more as these type programs become used by more and more marketers. David
Me
Ah, now it makes sense: the lure of money for nothin’!
I suppose I should be flattered that you considered my blog worth stealing.
Frankly, I doubt you’ll get very far with second-hand content, at least based on the readership I’ve built up over the past two years by creating an original post every single day.
I’ve always wondered at the financial reward from a scraper blog. Let me know how that business model works out for you in, say, late January of next year.
OK?
Thanks…
Something tells me I’m not going to get a reply.
There are many “bloggers” like David who think there’s money to be made by pretending they’re competent. Many of the comments you never see lead to spam and malware blogs that link back here, evidently to boost their clickiness.
My RSS post feed has teaser excerpts, not the entire blog post, which seems to discourage scrapers: copy-and-pasting a URL Is so much more difficult than just clicking an RSS button. I suppose that makes David one of the more enterprising “internet marketers” in his field of non-expertise…
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
6 responses to “Conversation With a Scraper”
Do like I do and have a blog that nobody reads.
If you read between the lines of your post you might have just said “Hey David. Scrape this!” *makes a motion that would get a PG-13 rating*
:-D
have a blog that nobody reads
Well, you folks are among a rather select group…
I’d actually thought of letting it slide until that post appeared: I did not expect to exchange a few volleys!
I hear people whine about “your comment is awaiting moderation” sometimes, with the implied “doesn’t he trust me?” refrain. No, you and I trust people, but we don’t trust the internet. And, as you point out, for well and good reason!
I just turned on the “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” option, which means making one good comment opens Pandora’s Jar. I suppose I can simply rewrite history if / when somebody figures out how to take advantage of that.
(But, ahem, you must still make useful comments… “Testing comment” is just so not going to work, OK?)
I do not, however, understand how that option interacts with the neighboring “An administrator must always approve the comment” option: make a few comments and we’ll all find out.
[Update: Huh. It interacts by being ignored. I just turned off the “… must always approve …” option. If that unleashes a torrent of spam, you’ll smell smoke coming from the Delete button over here.]
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