Copyright

Copyright? To copy a person's work isn't always or necessarily "right" ... so shouldn't this be Copywrong? So, why a page on Copyright? That's easy to answer because I am frequently finding my copyrighted written content and plethora of my copyrighted images being used on a variety of websites without my permission. Many people are not doing their due diligence when sourcing content to use. I would make an educated guess that the majority of such sourced or scraped content was taken to use without the author's or creator's express permission.

For over a year, I filed hundreds of copyright infringement complaints on Amazon, through their various country website locations. Probably hundreds of different sellers were using my images stolen from my various Zazzle stores. They were selling inferior products at cheap prices to unsuspecting customers who didn't know they weren't buying the originals, but unauthorized duplicates.

Content and copyright thievery isn't new! It's been going on for years and years. Think about that Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, or Coach handbag you might have bought in NYC from a sidewalk seller with a large pillowcase of merchandise. You might have actually visited a small warehouse or store off some alley and up a flight or two of steps. Consider yourself lucky you came away unharmed.

Pinsdaddy Search of JaguarJulie Stolen Copyrighted Images

Recently, I have been dealing with two types of content thieves. First, Pinsdaddy.com who has stolen hundreds of my copyrighted images to use on their website. Filing DMCA Take Down Notices on them has been time-consuming. Pinsdaddy is offering my copyrighted images as creative commons, free to use and download images. This is wrong ... CopyWRONG! Many of my stolen, unauthorized images contain my copyright imprint! Seems that means nothing to these content thieves.

Blogarama Page of Jaguar Julie Stolen Blog Posts

The second type of content thief is a website claiming to be a blog directory; i.e., Blogarama and BlogCatalog. These websites try to give the impression that I am an author there or that I might have decided to feature my work there. They show a composite page with the various stolen blog posts and copyrighted images ... which, when you click on the links to read more, you are directed to another of their website pages with the entire blog post with all the copyrighted images that were lifted without permission. Hence, you have duplicate content stolen from my various Google blogs! Unbelievable.

BlogCatalog Page of Jaguar Julie Stolen Blog Posts

As I would publish new blog posts, Blogarama was grabbing them almost immediately, in their entirety, to use without my permission on their website. Content scrapers seem to not be abiding by any type of legal guidelines for sourcing content.

Checking out the Wikipedia page on Copyright, there is a lot of legal-type language. It's interesting to read the information about the duration of a copyright. "Typically, the duration of a copyright spans the author's life plus 50 to 100 years (that is, copyright typically expires 50 to 100 years after the author dies, depending on the jurisdiction)." So, I think I have maybe 15 years left in me ... which means that my copyright might expire as soon as 2082 or maybe 2132!

Be the best that YOU can be! Julie Ann Brady aka JaguarJulie Cat Lady

Summing up this page on Copyright ... It is not OK to steal my blog posts for use on your website. It is definitely NOT OK to steal my copyrighted images for use on your website.