Intellectual Property Theft? You Decide!

There is a website that has lately taken a liking to my travel-related posts.  So much so that they’ve been using an automated skimmer and reposting them, taking credit for the post, and not linking back to my blog.  If not for the copyright notice on my photos you would think I was working for these people under the name “R. Doug” — no last name given, no website indicated, no working link back to my website.  Nothing.   What you do see, as an example from their reposting of my Waimea Canyon blog, is this:

Posted on 2015/02/11 | By destinary | Leave a response

Kind of implies that they authored the post, doesn’t it?  Certainly doesn’t say anything about R. Doug Wicker or RDougWicker.com.  Go to the actual repost and that attributes the material thusly, “By RDoug,” in which the highlighted “RDoug” appears to be a link but in fact takes you to a blank screen.  And, again, you’ll notice that my last name was omitted.

Then you go to their “Copyrights” page and you’ll see this bit of convoluted absurdity:

Inevitably there are those who are concerned with copyright issues. The Destinary simply promotes what the blogger reports to WordPress as being “Publicly Available ” content. When a blogger is concerned with copyright issues, it is NOT this auto-blog’s responsibility to protect a blogger’s content from public exposure. it is the blogger’s responsibility to ensure that the blogger does not expose the blogger’s own content to the public domain where it can be “picked-up” by search engines, and aggregation, curation and other services, such as – the Destinary.

Things bloggers can do to prevent having their posts promoted by WordPress:

1. Do not use the tags tracked by this service to specifically avoid having the posts promoted at this and similar sites.
2. When writing the post, mark the post as “password protected” or “private” in the right sidebar if a blogger does not want a specific post promoted. A blogger can display a copy of the password on the blogger’s site for password protected posts; and, the blogger can personally distribute links of private posts to the blog’s subscribers.
3. Click the Writing subtab of the Settings tab, scroll to the bottom of the page and remove the auto-promotion services that are listed under the Update Services section if the blogger does not want WordPress to distribute the blogger’s content.
4. Click the Reading subtab of the Settings tab, change the blog’s syndication feed to Zero (0) if the blogger does not want any post promoted by WordPress.
5. Click the Reading subtab of the Settings tab, change the blog’s syndication feed to show a Summary instead of the Full Text, if the blogger does want the blog promoted but does not want the full text publicized.
6. Create a “subscription-only pay wall ” around the content. There is a financial reason WordPress.com provides a “free” blogging option; WordPress.com must be making money from the blogger’s content somehow in order to maintain the service. If a blogger wants more personal control over the blog’s content, the blogger can buy a premium plan from WordPress, then wrap the blog within a subscription pay-wall.

Please Note:

• As long as the blogger maintains the symbiotic connection between the Destinary and blogger’s post, this site will ping the blogger’s site to record a “Read ” for the post whenever someone clicks on the article at the Destinary.

• The Destinary does not retain published content. All posts are unpublished after seven (7) days and purged (deleted) from our system within one (1) week of being unpublished. Beyond the initial boost that the Destinary may give the blogger’s post with the search engines, any long-term interest in the blogger’s content will be directed to the blogger’s site by search engines.

• Keep things in perspective: The fully automated Destinary does not know who you are (nor does it care). The fully automated Destinary does not know the name of your Blog (nor does it care). It is the blogger’s personal responsibility to maintain the blogger’s content in a manner suitable to the blogger. But, after the blogger relinquishes that control of the content to the public domain, the blogger cannot be dismayed when the content appears in unexpected places.

So, now it’s my fault that I make it easy to reuse my material by making it readily available to my viewers for their convenience, and because I tag my posts appropriately to assist people in finding them.  Okay.  I can play that game.  First of all, I’ve added the tags “travel, photography, travel photography,  and Waimea Canyon” to this post to see if I can trigger a Destinary reposting of this post.  Wouldn’t that be delicious?

Secondly, you’ll now see the following appended to all future travel-related posts here:

By the way, if you’re reading this and other material authored by me on The Destinary website, this post was not “Posted on (fill in the date) | By destinary” as they’ve been erroneously claiming; this material was in fact reposted.  The Destinary have also been claiming the right to do so, without links back to the original and without full attribution (“by R. Doug” and a nonworking link is not proper attribution) with a rather bizarre interpretation of U.S. copyright law in which they claim I’m responsible for changing my RSS feed settings so that they cannot skim my material for commercial purposes.  That would make reading my blog less convenient for you, which I’m not willing to do.  As such, I’ll be running this little diatribe on all travel related posts until they cease and desist, along with this:

© 2015 R. Doug Wicker (RDougWicker.com)
All right reserved — that includes you Destinary

Final note:  Considering this is a site run by a travel agency, you may want to rethink doing business with them.

And finally, let’s make these people really famous.  The Destinary website is registered to:

Domain Name: DESTINARY.COM
Registrant Name: Sonia Platt
Registrant Organization: Indianapolis Tour & Travel

So, is this theft of intellectual property?  I’ll let you decide.  If you believe it isn’t, then by all means continue doing business with them.  But if you believe it is . . . .

© 2015 R. Doug Wicker (RDougWicker.com)
All right reserved — that includes you Destinary